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| The Hungarian Parliament, Budapest (Sárkányapu) | The Parliament from another angle (Sárkányapu) |
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| Heroes square, Budapest (Könyvtároslány / Haynau) | "Truncated" church, Debrecen (Yooha) |
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| The Great Church, Debrecen (Yooha) | The University of Debrecen (Yooha) |
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| The Dome of Eger (Yooha) | The Dome in microscale (Yooha) |
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| A kilenclyukú híd, Hortobágy (Mnarko) | The puszta (Mnarko) |
Monday, February 13, 2012
Buildings and scenes from Hungary
It is well known that I like LEGO Architecture sets. Not so long ago I posted a review of the 21011 Brandenburg Gate on kockagyar.blog.hu (in Hungarian) that triggered some of the fans to build several famous buildings and scenes from around the country. Many of them sent me the model they created so that I can render them in nice quality. Let me show you the result, click on the images to see them in large:
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Super Car history from Eric Albrecht
We have covered the history of Technic cars a long time ago (see part I, part II and part III).
Now Eric Albrecht (also known as Blakbird, author of Technicopedia) did the same on the in the guest post of the official LEGO Technic blog:
The history of LEGO "Super Cars" is even longer than the Technic line itself, beginning in 1977 and running right up to the present day. There is no official definition of Super Car and therefore different fans might include different models on their own list. Most fans consider a Super Car to be one of the large scale automotive models which attempt to maximize realistic function as much as possible. Over the years, the models got more and more functionally realistic, and the complexity peaked in about 1994. Since then, subsequent supercars have become more realistically styled without adding a lot of complexity.
Read more...
Now Eric Albrecht (also known as Blakbird, author of Technicopedia) did the same on the in the guest post of the official LEGO Technic blog:
The history of LEGO "Super Cars" is even longer than the Technic line itself, beginning in 1977 and running right up to the present day. There is no official definition of Super Car and therefore different fans might include different models on their own list. Most fans consider a Super Car to be one of the large scale automotive models which attempt to maximize realistic function as much as possible. Over the years, the models got more and more functionally realistic, and the complexity peaked in about 1994. Since then, subsequent supercars have become more realistically styled without adding a lot of complexity.
Read more...
Sunday, February 5, 2012
LDD Pov-Ray Rendering tutorial
Several people asked me to provide more details on rendering LEGO models like the Trabi or the MiG-15. Until the surprise is built, let me entertain you with a tutorial on how to render LEGO models.
Before we start, let me underline that this is by no means a straightforward process. You should start only if you are ready to edit programming-language-like text files and download, unzip and manually organize files. It needs several hours, some debugging and tweaking, and possibly more hours to compute the final image.
Ok, if you have read so far, then you are at least curious to know what it takes. What follows is based on Koyan's excellent tutorial with some tweaks. Let's see how a typical render is made!
Step 1: I install LDraw. LDraw is an community-maintained database of LEGO bricks that will be needed for our photorealistic renders. As you can guess, this is needed once only. I download and unzip several files:
Before we start, let me underline that this is by no means a straightforward process. You should start only if you are ready to edit programming-language-like text files and download, unzip and manually organize files. It needs several hours, some debugging and tweaking, and possibly more hours to compute the final image.
Ok, if you have read so far, then you are at least curious to know what it takes. What follows is based on Koyan's excellent tutorial with some tweaks. Let's see how a typical render is made!
Step 1: I install LDraw. LDraw is an community-maintained database of LEGO bricks that will be needed for our photorealistic renders. As you can guess, this is needed once only. I download and unzip several files:
- LDraw official parts (Core Files and Libraries / LDraw Parts Library, zip format). I unzip them in a directory on my computer. This is my LDraw directory.
- Many bricks are not in the official release. I download the LDraw unofficial parts as well. Unzip those files as well and move them in the LDraw directory too. Some files will already exist, I don't overwrite them.
- LGEO is another parts library that is made especially for POV-Ray renders. It contains fewer parts but those are nicely modeled. I download and unzip it into a separate directory.
| The original dome in Lego Digital Designer |
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
21011 Brandenburg Gate
I have built my Brandenburg Gate. I have always liked the Architecture theme and this is the first set that I have bought. It is clearly for adults. Compared to Creator sets is a bit on the expensive side, but the result is very nice and I like it very much.
Many photos about the building process in the album.
Many photos about the building process in the album.
Monday, January 2, 2012
bltools
New year it is, so let's start with something new.
New software for hardcore Lego builders: bltools.
http://code.google.com/p/bltools
With bltools you can process a Lego Digital Designer file and convert it into BrickLink orders. It may be especially useful since Lego will stop DesignByMe (the service to order bricks from within LDD) as of January 16.
bltools fetches the list of shops from Bricklink, optimizes the orders and exports them in BrickLink wanted list XML format.
Some remarks:
New software for hardcore Lego builders: bltools.
http://code.google.com/p/bltools
With bltools you can process a Lego Digital Designer file and convert it into BrickLink orders. It may be especially useful since Lego will stop DesignByMe (the service to order bricks from within LDD) as of January 16.
bltools fetches the list of shops from Bricklink, optimizes the orders and exports them in BrickLink wanted list XML format.
Some remarks:
- It needs Python, GLPK and knowing the command line
- Since it is in Python, it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and probably everything else
- It may run for a long time and not necessarily produce the best possible result
But I have used it and it worked.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
2012
There is nothing to be proud of: 2011 was not particularly fruitful in the life of the blog. Yes, we have new design and I have also fixed the old links and even more, we got a new MiG-15. But I did not provide a lot of new content.
It is not because I don't have anything to write about. I don't promise daily updates in 2012 either, but I will go after some of the hotness.
Some hints of what will follow:
It is not because I don't have anything to write about. I don't promise daily updates in 2012 either, but I will go after some of the hotness.
Some hints of what will follow:
- It's not a secret that I am a big fan of cars from Mad Physicist. The Lead Sled replica is on my shelf for a long time, but now it sits next to a Ferrari Testarossa. More details will follow soon.
- The last piece from the big Technic cars, the 8860 is also on my shelf for some time now. It's time to share more details about it.
- I got several new Lego sets. For example a 5867 Creator car. I am very excited about this because Nathanael Kuipers built about 15 more variations, so now I can build those as well.
Gran Turismo from Nathaniel Kuipers-től. Now I have all bricks to build it :)
- I also got a 21011 Brandenburg Gate. I have always liked the Architecture series, I am happy that I own the only European building so far. It is so nice that I started thinking about other buildings I could build in a similar style. Born in Hungary, I have started building the Parliament of Hungary. We will see soon how far I get.
- I have found a serious problem with my Trabant. On its own it looks quite alright, but next to its friends it is obvious that it is not tall enough. It is just taller than the Ferrari Testarossa which does not look good. I hope to find somt time to fix that. It may need a substantial redesign though. At the moment I don't even dare to think about more cars.
I wish everyone a Happy New Year Rich in Lego!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Notes from the machine room
I have realized that many links on the blog were broken. I hope I have managed to fix all of them now.
Monday, September 12, 2011
MiG-15 details
There is a new rendering in the MiG-15 album that shows how the wing is attached to the body:
This render shows the internals of the body, with the outer shell removed. The bricks that are not normally visible are in blue.
The real MiG-15 has a sweep angle of 35 degrees. I approximated that with the typical LEGO Pythagoras layout at 3-4-5 stud offsets. This gives an angle of atan(3/4) = 36.8 degrees.
You can see the triangle at the wing root (large yellow). The studs marked with yellow circles are attached to the body, from the bottom and from the top as well. Even so the structure is far from rigid.
The wing-fences are attached similarly, but the triangle is half the size, at 1.5, 2 and 2.5 stud offsets.
The real MiG-15 has a sweep angle of 35 degrees. I approximated that with the typical LEGO Pythagoras layout at 3-4-5 stud offsets. This gives an angle of atan(3/4) = 36.8 degrees.
You can see the triangle at the wing root (large yellow). The studs marked with yellow circles are attached to the body, from the bottom and from the top as well. Even so the structure is far from rigid.
The wing-fences are attached similarly, but the triangle is half the size, at 1.5, 2 and 2.5 stud offsets.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Silver MiG
I have two piece of news.
First of all, we have the results of the LegoMilitary Build Competition. And I got second prize in the "Warsaw Pact Aircraft" category! I am very happy, I never managed to achieve anything like that in a competition. Mad Physicist was the judge and it was quite competitive... The other finalists are quite impressive too. The An-225 is quite a beast even at 1:100 scale. The Su-9 from John Lamarck is also very nice, for example it has a retractable landing gear. I am proud to be a member of the club.
The second thing is, that of course I was quite curious whether the bricks I have put together on the screen can be actually built together in real life. Executive summary: they can.
In fact the wing was the only place that needed some redesign because the original was incredibly weak. The contour is the same but now it is a little bit stronger. It is not quite like a rock yet, but I am not afraid to hold it in my hands any more. The body is actually quite rigid, it is easy to hold there.
The plane itself is surprisingly heavy. The body consists of many small plates and its interior is quite packed too so that it holds the airplane together. The landing gear is very weak, it can hardly support the vast weight. This can be seen on the photos too. I am still thinking of another design but so far I did not find anything satisfactory.
Also, the rear is quite heavy so I had to put in some extra weight to keep the balance at the front. Inside the plane there are two metal screws that prevent it from "sitting down".
One more thing, the aft of the cabin roof. This is made of a transparent 2x3 slope brick. The last time such a brick was manufactured was in the seventies. I managed to get one, but it is a bit yellowish.
I am happy to have the real plane after all. I have uploaded many photos to the album and of course to Flickr too. One more extra: for hardcore readers I have uploaded the LXF file to this page so that you can try it on Lego Digital Designer.
First of all, we have the results of the LegoMilitary Build Competition. And I got second prize in the "Warsaw Pact Aircraft" category! I am very happy, I never managed to achieve anything like that in a competition. Mad Physicist was the judge and it was quite competitive... The other finalists are quite impressive too. The An-225 is quite a beast even at 1:100 scale. The Su-9 from John Lamarck is also very nice, for example it has a retractable landing gear. I am proud to be a member of the club.
The second thing is, that of course I was quite curious whether the bricks I have put together on the screen can be actually built together in real life. Executive summary: they can.
In fact the wing was the only place that needed some redesign because the original was incredibly weak. The contour is the same but now it is a little bit stronger. It is not quite like a rock yet, but I am not afraid to hold it in my hands any more. The body is actually quite rigid, it is easy to hold there.
The plane itself is surprisingly heavy. The body consists of many small plates and its interior is quite packed too so that it holds the airplane together. The landing gear is very weak, it can hardly support the vast weight. This can be seen on the photos too. I am still thinking of another design but so far I did not find anything satisfactory.
Also, the rear is quite heavy so I had to put in some extra weight to keep the balance at the front. Inside the plane there are two metal screws that prevent it from "sitting down".
One more thing, the aft of the cabin roof. This is made of a transparent 2x3 slope brick. The last time such a brick was manufactured was in the seventies. I managed to get one, but it is a bit yellowish.
I am happy to have the real plane after all. I have uploaded many photos to the album and of course to Flickr too. One more extra: for hardcore readers I have uploaded the LXF file to this page so that you can try it on Lego Digital Designer.
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