MOC: Fiat Panda

[Ralph_S]

A few months ago some of us had a fairly heated discussion about the benefits of using digital building (LDD specifically) as a design tool. I didn't really see the point of using it as a design tool. I normally go from pictures, a model in my mind and a perhaps a picture to building my models in real bricks and to me using CAD seemed like massive overkill and even cumbersome/clunky for most of the things I do. I'm not afraid to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, so I decided to have a crack at it. (Actually, I live a few hundred km away from my LEGO collection for much of the week, so if I want to build anything I really have no other choice than to build digitally.) I thought I'd share my recent experience and tell you whether I've changed my mind.

It's not my intention to start an LDD vs ML-CAD discussion (they are fruitless), but I will give the reasons why I chose to use ML-CAD and LDraw rather than LDD. I've recently used ML-CAD fairly extensively (to make printed instructions for MOCs, something at which LDD sucks), so I already know it reasonably well. This made it the obvious choice now as well. I also tend to use parts that aren't available in LDD -old style hinges in particular. It's not a matter of using LDD in Universe mode or not; the parts are simply not there because they are too old.

So, now that this is out of the way, let's get to the MOC in question. AS with many of my recent MOCs it's a car. I chose to go for a fairly straightforward model: a Fiat Panda. For those of you from outside Europe, it's a small city car built in Poland. It's a best-seller for Fiat, with more than 1.5 million having been produced since 2003. Since it's a model of a real car, the shape is pretty much determined at the start. I did make a little drawing to work out the dimensions and then went to work with ML-CAD.

Fiat Panda work in progress by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I always build my car models from the outside in. The outside needs to look like the real car. The inside is primarily there to hold the outside together, although I do like to have a proper interior (with seats and a steering wheel, for instance) and some other details such as something that looks like an engine. I had LDView make a render when it first started to look somewhat like a Panda. There still were some exterior parts missing at this point, obviously. The front, the bonnet (hood) and part of the rear hatch and bumper (which you can't really see in this image). I did have some ideas on how to make the front, but I simply hadn't implemented them yet. The model had no interior whatsoever.

Fiat Panda design by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I was quite happy with the progress and continued with the model for a while, adding the front and rear and the bonnet, pretty much completing the outside. The model didn't yet include a number of connections, for the SNOT work around the front wheels and the headlights, for instance, but I did have an idea in mind on how to do them. I did consider also making an inside, but I soon realised that this was getting exceedingly complicated. Yes, I could move things out of the way to have some of view of the inside, but working out whether all the parts and things I wanted gave me a headache. Obviously I can rotate the model, but in my opinion this is where CAD falls very much short of building with real bricks. More experience may make this easier, but this sort of thing is a thousand times easier to do with a real model in front of you. You could argue that I should change the way I design my models, by starting with the inside and working out, but I have some doubts I'd end up with an outside that looks like the real car much unless I'd be willing to keep making changes to the inside as I kept adding bits to the outside.

Figuring I'd work out the interior when I did have a physical model, I took a print-out of the model home in a weekend and got out the bricks. This is where the design process using CAD shines. If you don't have the bricks in your collection, you know exactly what to buy. In my case, I have a fairly good idea how many of particular parts I have (or at least, I know I have plenty of them even if I don't know the actual number) and kept that in mind during the design. When I started, I built this thing in less than an hour, without having to think much, since most of the thinking required to get to this point after all had already been done.

Fiat Panda (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Fiat Panda (5) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Once the outside was pretty much all there, fixing the interior and building the structure didn't take much time either, perhaps two more hours. Then I ground to a halt. Even though I was quite happy looking at screenshots/ renders of the digital model, when I had the brick-built model sitting in front of me I didn't like it much. It had some things I was happy about, but it didn't really look like a Fiat Panda to me. Being able to take a proper look at it in 3D made me realise I needed to make changes. So, more fiddling ensued. It might not look very different and some of the changes are subtle, but they were quite a bit of work and overall do make the model look a lot more like the real car.

The real Panda has a distinctive curve in the top of the side windows. Even though my CAD model was more-or-less the proper height, it didn't look right. I increased the height of the roof on the brick-built model to emphasise the curve. One thing I got wrong on the original design was the shape of the front fender panels. They have a decided inward step that lies in line with the car's belt-line. I recreated it using half-stud offsets.

Fiat Panda (4) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I used a standard windscreen for the rear hatch in the original design, but when looking at the LEGO version I soon realised that this was not quite steep enough. I came up with the design you see here instead, which uses no fewer than four transparent headlight bricks and 1x2 transparent tiles (still rare parts).

All in all I'm happy with the resulting car, but I have decidedly mixed feelings about whether or not CAD made this process easier. Obviously, I if you don't have bricks available it is a useful tool and I quite enjoyed using it -more than I imagined I would. However, going from something that, looking at it now, really wasn't quite there yet to a LEGO car that I am happy about was something I was only able to do by fiddling with real bricks and by being able to look at the shape properly in three dimensions.

It may take a while yet before I am permanently reunited with my LEGO collection, so I will probably dabble with CAD a bit more. As I gain more experience I may yet change my mind. However, when I do have real bricks available, I don't think I would take the step to use CAD in the design process.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited October 28, 2010 by Ralph_S

[Praiter Yed]

All in all I'm happy with the resulting car, but I have decidedly mixed feelings about whether or not CAD made this process easier. Obviously, I if you don't have bricks available it is a useful tool and I quite enjoyed using it -more than I imagined I would. However, going from something that, looking at it now, really wasn't quite there yet to a LEGO car that I am happy about was something I was only able to do by fiddling with real bricks and by being able to look at the shape properly in three dimensions.

It may take a while yet before I am permanently reunited with my LEGO collection, so I will probably dabble with CAD a bit more. As I gain more experience I may yet change my mind. However, when I do have real bricks available, I don't think I would take the step to use CAD in the design process.

I was involved in the 'heated discussion', nice to see you having-a-go at building digitally. I think what you're saying here may mirror my feelings. Although I can't comment on ML-CAD, what I like about LDD is that it still poses the same design challenges of building with real bricks ie trying to build the best model you possibly can using an imperfect medium. I mentioned previously that you (obviously) don't get the tactile pleasure of the bricks BUT I think you're still faced with the same mental challenges as building with Lego - so at least half the fun .

I couldn't be wholly satisfied having just a digital model, so I always buy the bricks to build my designs, therefore, I also get the tactile pleasure - 100% fun !

I'm sure almost all LDD users find, as you have, that once the MOC is built it's generally necessary to make a few 'real-life' tweaks - even more fun .

My Lego collection is growing nicely, probably to the point where I could skip LDD and build wrongly coloured test models prior to ordering the parts. But, LDD has now become part of my design process so I doubt I will give it up (I'll be downloading LDD4 tonight!).

Nice Fiat Panda BTW - seems an unusual choice for an MOC - was it your first car?

[Superkalle]

Interesting Praiter Yed - your view is exactly like mine - I couln't have written it better myself

@Ralph - As usual, awesome work

Thanks for posting!

[Ralph_S]

I was involved in the 'heated discussion', nice to see you having-a-go at building digitally. I think what you're saying here may mirror my feelings. Although I can't comment on ML-CAD, what I like about LDD is that it still poses the same design challenges of building with real bricks ie trying to build the best model you possibly can using an imperfect medium. I mentioned previously that you (obviously) don't get the tactile pleasure of the bricks BUT I think you're still faced with the same mental challenges as building with Lego - so at least half the fun .

I couldn't be wholly satisfied having just a digital model, so I always buy the bricks to build my designs, therefore, I also get the tactile pleasure - 100% fun !

I'm sure almost all LDD users find, as you have, that once the MOC is built it's generally necessary to make a few 'real-life' tweaks - even more fun .

My Lego collection is growing nicely, probably to the point where I could skip LDD and build wrongly coloured test models prior to ordering the parts. But, LDD has now become part of my design process so I doubt I will give it up (I'll be downloading LDD4 tonight!).

Nice Fiat Panda BTW - seems an unusual choice for an MOC - was it your first car?

Thanks. Indeed, whether you use CAD or real bricks doesn't make much of a difference in how much fun it is to figure out how to build a particular shape. The process is similar. I suppose for me that is the most positive thing to come out of this. I enjoyed using CAD to build, despite the drawbacks I mentioned. I also don't think it makes much of a difference whether you use LDD or ML-CAD. I did have LDD 3 on my computer for a bit to see what that's like, in particular to see whether I could use it to make printed instructions. I don't think it is very suitable for that, but that's besides the point. The building experience looks similar to me with the exception of course that it actually models how the bricks go together, which probably makes some things a bit easier. ML-CAD can be a bit fiddly.

I've never owned a Fiat Panda, but I have been building several normal cars lately, as opposed to classic cars or sports cars. The reason for this is twofold. Building a recognisable version of a car that in real life is not particularly distinctive in many ways is a lot harder than building a vehicle that is already very recognisable, like a Hummer for instance. So, it poses an extra challenge. The second reason is that I am thinking of combining several of my vehicles in a diorama -most likely of a motorway service station or part of a city centre- and since those normally aren't filled with classic cars I need some normal vehicles for that.

Interesting Praiter Yed - your view is exactly like mine - I couln't have written it better myself

@Ralph - As usual, awesome work

Thanks for posting!

You're welcome. I'm glad you like it.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Big Cam]

Thts very cool. Something I always ask people who post models in LDD is, are you going to make it.

It's nice to see someone follow through. Although we don't see many Fiat's in the states, I know what they are, and this is a pretty good representation of one. Nice job.

[XimenaPaulina]

It's really nice to see you Ralph_S trying your hand at digital designing. I had the same experience recently when I used LDD for the first time to make a 'rough sketch/design' for my latest MOC (photos below). Though the LDD design is not completely the final design that I intended it to be, but LDD somehow helped in giving an 'overview' on the the size and dimensions of what I wanted to build. I may still prefer designing with real bricks or conceptualizing with my mind, but LDD proved that it could provide needed assistance particularly when the right parts are unavailable.

LDD 'Rough Design'

Final Build