My 3D Lego Renders Thread

[dlefik2014]

Hi everyone. I just wanted to have myself a thread to show my journey into the 3D lego world and maybe get some honest feedback to maybe help myself improve over time.

So I'll give a bit of background on me real quick. Basically i've been into doing 3D work for about 3 or so years now, all self taught, so I will admit I have a lot of bad habits that I've developed over the years I'm sure lol. I did a couple lego renders a few years back with some pieces I modeled up in 3D Studio Max. They weren't really anything fancy to be honest as my modeling skills were pretty limited at the time, so they ended up being simple primitive pieces. I'll show those here too. I basically stumbled into the LDD software a few weeks ago when my kids were looking for something to toy around with lego stuff and things kind of went crazy from there. I decided to jump into LDraw after finding myself getting a little obsessed on the digital lego stuff.

So right now, I've only been dabbling in MLCad for about 2 weeks on and off, so I got a ton yet to learn I'm sure. Since I'm a 3D Max user though, I wanted to learn anything I could about getting LDraw parts into 3D Max for rendering. I started out trying to hand model a lot of parts but as the days went by, it was becoming quite complex and nerve racking especially when it came to more complex parts. I can model a lot of the basic bricks, plates, studs, and some other basic pieces, but I found I was spending more time doing modeling than actually having fun building stuff. Well, I learned through many hours of play that LeoCad and LDView don't export very nice 3DS or OBJ geometry, so I finally found a workflow that works nicely for me.

Well, I'll show my first actual project done, then give some info on the workflow.

I randomly picked the Lego City 4436 Police car as my first test and have to say it worked out rather nice in the end. I know it's really flawed in a lot of places but remember this project was more of a test bed to get a good solid workflow that works for me. So some pieces got mucked up in scale along the way and I had to eyeball them back to size. I was also a little bummed with some of the pieces not being more high resolution which is really obvious in places like the tire rims where it looks like they don't have enough sides causing a less than smooth cylinder shape. Now that I got a better handle on things, I plan on trying to go back and rework some of the geometry to be more high res, or just try and remodel a lot of it, if my time and patience permits.

and quick and dirty wire edge render to show details.

So the workflow is basically look up the parts in MLCad then drop it into a scene and save that individual piece. I then imported the piece into Blender using the ldraw script. From there, I exported the piece out to Google Sketchup in collada, which I know sounds weird, but sketchup is phenomenal for quick geometry fixing as long as it's not to messy and collada gave me the best results. Once I was satisfied with the geometry, I then exported out to .3DS, imported into 3D Studio Max, scaled down to proper scale, added edge chamfers, "Lego" text on studs and set materials.

I will admit though, I know the materials aren't perfect, which lego materials aren't my strong area, but I'm really working on it over time. The legos are all essentially textured using a subsurface scattering shader, and the clear pieces are just basic vray materials with tweaked refraction.

Then, the render is done in Vray with some minor post work in Photoshop for sharpening and levels.

Sorry if this was all kind of general, but I didn't want to bore anyone right off the bat with long winded details. Any questions though, I'll try my best to answer, but remember I'm still pretty new to the whole LDraw thing myself. I'm still plugging away over time so I plan on adding more renders into the thread once I feel satisfied enough to show them.

Oh, and before I forget, a few more older renders. About 2012 is when I did these, and as you can, the pieces are rather simple in design as my modeling abilities were rather limited, and i didn't even know about LDraw at the time.

Edited November 7, 2014 by dlefik2014

[jamesster]

Looks quite nice! I use SketchUp a lot for 3D LEGO stuff too, it works really well for it. Looking forward to whatever else you post.

[Superkalle]

Hi dlefik2014

What you've done looks absolutely stunning. Great job.

...and welcome to the forum

[Calabar]

Good work, these are nice renders!

About this one (click) the metallic grilles used for the radiator seems to be too flat. Maybe some problem with the shadows?

[dlefik2014]

Looks quite nice! I use SketchUp a lot for 3D LEGO stuff too, it works really well for it. Looking forward to whatever else you post.

Thank you so much jamesster. I really have to admit, that even though sketchup may be simple in nature, it can be incredibly handy for fixing geometry on a lot of the stuff coming from LDraw. Good to see someone else using sketchup here though. :)

Hi dlefik2014

What you've done looks absolutely stunning. Great job.

...and welcome to the forum

Thanks so much for the nice welcome and glad you like the work so far. I know it's not the most stunning thing as far as lego work goes, but I suppose now that I've established a good workflow with this particular model, I can possibly get more focused on better lego models.

Good work, these are nice renders!

About this one (click) the metallic grilles used for the radiator seems to be too flat. Maybe some problem with the shadows?

Thanks Calabar. Yeah, that one was back in my earlier days of 3D work, and I'm actually surprised I still kept that render around after these years, but I do believe I've bettered myself since then, but I'm still prone to bad mistakes even now lol. That truck was actually not even based off anything, and just some random made up design. I think during that project, I wanted to see what chrome type of pieces would look like on legos, but making a convincing chrome in 3D can be tricky at times. I actually thought it would be as simple as a straight reflective surface, but chrome can be a little more complex that just a mirror look depending on the look you're going for.

[dlefik2014]

Hey everyone. I decided to take this 4436 project a little further, making some modifications, changing brick colors, tweaking the materials a little bit. I'm really struggling with getting a proper refraction on the windows, but I decided to try and tint them up a bit, add some chrome material to some of the parts. I also spent a lot of time today modeling and shading a new tire for the car since the one from LDraw was really bothering me. I made it more high res, added a wider gap down the middle which I seen actual lego tires have, and made some text to try and simulate the LEGO Group. I know the materials not perfect yet, but trying to achieve a perfect rubber material is a little hard for me right now.

I just put one new tire on for a test, and laid one down to give a top view of them. My next goal is to model some new high res rims and keep working the chrome material to them. The LDraw rims drive me nuts lol. I'm also thinking trying some decals at a later time, but I want to get the parts and materials right first. Anyhow, hope you guys like the mods so far.

[DrJB]

In this one (click), what are the two cylindrical chrome parts on each side of the radiator, looks like a 2/3 high round brick but I do not recognize the part ... is it custom?

[dlefik2014]

@DrJB - Honestly, it's been so long since I modeled that particular truck, but I think the part was based off an actual piece, and I applied some chrome type material to it. The design was pretty well made up just looking at lego trucks one night for reference though.

Just another little progress shot on the modified car. Got the new rims modeled up. Just need to add the Lego text to it, but I think it sits so much better now with more resolution to it.

Hope no one minds all the renders. I think I'm just obsessing a bit much right now lol.

[dlefik2014]

Took another swing at this project, adding in more subtle details for a more realistic look. Sure would be nice if I could actually have this model just like this though in real life with the chrome pieces and all.

EDIT:

I promise, one last one, but I wanted to light it up for fun.

Edited November 10, 2014 by dlefik2014

[papacharly]

Hi,

don’t stop, go on!

I follow your thread and your improvements with highest interest. I have a passion for virtual Lego and renders, but I prefer to use Povray as this is free of charge. More or less I am satisfied with the results I get in Povray. More or less means: If I would life on an lonely island I would be highly satisfied with the results. But since Virtual Republic entered this forum and posted his magic renders, my life has changed and now I am deeply frustrated.

From my point of view the most amazing feature of Virtual Republics MODO renders (compared with povray renders) is that he is able to add a perfect imperfectness to his renders. In other words: He is able to get arbitrary surface or subsurface structures. If you have a close-up view rendered by Povray you see that the surface structure is very smooth and uniform. This looks not very natural. On the other hand, if you zoom out the visual impact of MODO and Povray is not that much different. I did several tries to get close to this extraordinary level of reality in povray, but I failed. So I am quite a bit jealous on Virtual Republic.

So fingers crossed for your project. Hopefully you will also achieve this extraordinary or even a higher level of reality.

Could you additionally please deeplink some high res images of your renders? This would be fine. Thanks.

Looking forward for your new renders.

papacharly

[dlefik2014]

^ - Wow, thanks so much papacharly for your deep interest in my renders. Honestly, after I started showing more renders, I was starting to think that maybe this render thread idea was a bad one since really this forum is for discussing LDD and other tools, and I kind of stated making it more of a gallery than actually discussing the tools.

I really appreciate your kind words. I do agree with you about virtual republics awesome renders, and will admit, his threads are what got me kind of excited about showing work here and maybe even discussing with other people how I do the things I do. I'm definitely not done doing more 3D work. Right now I'm slowing down a bit trying to go back and work on building a material library for myself, constantly tweaking the materials to get closer to legos, and even experimenting with adding in imperfections as you mentioned. I'm finding that modeling lego stuff and building in 3D is just as addicting as actually building with physical bricks, even though, really, nothing can replace the actual brick novelty.

These renders I have done are the actual sizes of the originals, but from now on I will be sure to go for more high res and deep link them as you requested.

Thanks again so much for the reply.

[Palathadric]

Your renders are amazing. Now I'm starting to get bored of POV-Ray before I've begun to use it as well as I could/should be.