Scrubs

I almost have a version ready for testing (I still need to work on the open/save functions). So if some of you guys are interested to test that, let me know. In the same time here is a video showing how to build and rotate a group of parts attached with ball joint bricks.

Here is another video showing a little bit more about groups and how they work. You can also quickly see how the snap function has been implemented. My to do list is getting smaller and I start to see the end of it :-)

Real part snapping is not so easy to implement plus it is kinda hard to get it right. I don't think that LDD is 100% successful either. You can also play with the grid size (small, medium or large) which will constrain the transformation (local or world) while pulling the translation or rotation arrows. Most of the time I use the medium grid - 1/2 a stud on x and z axis and 1/3 of brick height on y axis (= plate height). Besides, I wouldn't recommend watching at the "Stand" on youtube anymore as it is obsolete. It was made with the very first version. It just put online another video with a quick presentation of the progress made on the development of the next version. I'm in a hurry to finish it and use it as it looks so much better to me than the current one ;-) I'll probably make you guys try in a few weeks to see what you are thinking about it.

Hello, There is actually no real snap function as such in mecabricks. The easiest way to align the parts is to grab and pull the arrows of the x, y or z axis with the mouse. Base plates are a bit annoying currently -i located the origin on the wrong side... and they have to be manually put down 3.5 unit on the y axis. The new version i m working on shall simplify most of those issues as rotations/translations are independent from the part origin. However it might not be online before at least a month. If you wish you can check this tutorial i made a while ago Hope it helps

A quick overview of my work for the new revision of the workshop. Here is my work in progress for the template: workshop rev3 by mecabricks, on Flickr

I'm looking forward to reading your tutorial.

I've been working for the past week on the new upcoming version of the workshop for mecabricks. I have a lot of ideas to try and code. After a couple of years, my experience and the feedback of users, I start to know what works and what doesn't. So with that in mind I started fresh with a brand new optimised code. Here is a quick video showing how the part/group snap function might work:

Hello, I've been away from the forum for a little while - even if I've been reading some topics - but here I am :-) I started to work on the 3rd version of the workshop - recoded from a fresh start - however I've been side tracked when I've seen that Threejs (the 3D framework that I use) is trialling a ray tracing renderer. I briefly played with it today and here is a picture that I generated from a scene built with mecabricks. It is not perfect, but very promissing. Maybe in a close future when this renderer is more advanced, I'll include it in the production version of mecabricks to render more realistic pictures of the 3D models.

I added a Setting Panel to the model viewing module (used on mecabricks itself as well as external websites such as brickset or bricker). Click on the top right button on the main window to make it appear. You can then change the Field of View (FOV) using the slider and switch between 2 control modes - Trackball (default mode as before) and the new First Person. This last mode is pretty cool to visit the inside of the big buildings. You can use the arrow keys to move forward, backward, left and right (works with Z, S, Q, D or W, S, A, D ). to go up and down use the keys P and L. Try with the Parisian Restaurant for example. I generally increase the FOV to about 50 to get a better experience with the First Person mode. Hope you like it .

Yep, it wouldn't be an issue. I can generate a single frame with a different rendering, save it as a png file and go back to normal settings. It's already what happens when you use the screenshot button in the workshop except that the rendering is the same. For touch devices, I agree that it's not very usable as it is. I'm in touch with a friend who is a android lecturer at Uni to see if we can maybe make a native android app. To follow... As a cool feature, I'm also coding a first person control to visit the inside of the model. It's pretty nice to visit the modular buildings!

Thank you for your comment Live rendering in mecabricks is pretty good, but I know that it could be even better - shadows, shading, textures... The 3D engine I use allows awesome things but I will have to expand my knowledge of the subject. I'm still way behind Ldraw in term of brick number, but it's a lot quicker for me to add new and decorated parts. Everything is instantly available for everybody as it is web based. The enchanted island is one of my favourite set - that I even brought from my parent's house to down under when I moved. So gave it a particular attention when I built it!

I set up two up-to-date CSV lists of LEGO sets and minifigures. [update] I deleted the list of URLs redirecting to the models. Just go to the library page on mecabricks.com and you can browser the models by themes. For more information about mecabricks and a quick introduction to the software, please see the related topic.

It's been a long time I didn't publish a model in this post but I think this one is worth the look: 10243 - Parisian Restaurant - Theme: Modular Buildings Link: 10243-1-parisian-restaurant

Yep, right. It was released end of june 2012 with building locations in Australia and New Zealand. From my point of view, it's more a marketing campaign for the LEGO movie released soon. It doesn't seem to have evolved a lot and the selection of parts is pretty limited. I can't complain though. Mecabricks is still way cooler lol

I just spent some time looking at the issue and I found a nice sneaky bug in the code loading the parts. It was even more obvious on big models. It is now fixed and all the models even big shall be loaded correctly now!

Yes, it's what I'm thinking for a little while now. I am considering making a part tracker for new parts and new decorations. Decorations for existing parts are easy enough to be made. For example for minifig heads, the process looks like that: Get the UV Map for this part: Draw the decoration with the colours from the mecabricks/Lego palette and rescale it to fit the UV Map: Save the final file as a PNG file. Done!

Thank you :-) Yep I saw your post on brickset. I just tried with the Taj Mahal and effectively it can be pretty long to display (a min or so on my computer from the moment I reached 100%). I changed the method of loading and displaying the parts in this player. It is a lot quicker than before on small/medium models but for big ones, not that great. I have a few ideas that I can try to fix it! I started to think about importing/exporting other software files like Ldraw/LDD. I'll see how feasible it is.

Thank you for you trial. I can understand that it's laggy for the workshop as it's pretty demanding even on a computer and not very optimised yet. I know I have some work to do on that . Sliders are not the easiest to move the parts!

I actually modified the normal gallery too and it shall work on touch devices. (http://www.mecabricks.com/en/gallery/). For the iframe I don't agree with you. It is an easy way to embed media on websites. Even youtube is using them ;-)

I think it's pretty good now to display the existing models on touchscreen devices. If you have a capable android phone/tablet, you can try one of the links from my previous post. But it's not possible to build yet.

Hello, I just finished a new player to display models made in mecabricks and it supports touchscreens. I tried today on a Galaxy Tab 2 and it worked fine! Use the links: http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/[iD] where [iD] is the Mecabricks Id of the model. I used 1 finger to rotate, 2 fingers to zoom and 3 to pan. I know that you can't build yet, but I might actually think about it more seriously after this great experiment. A few links to try: http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/355 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/508 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/461 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/515 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/529 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/435

I made an embed player last week so that anybody can display public models from mecabricks on their websites. it's pretty simple to use. Just copy and paste the following code: <iframe frameborder="0" allowFullScreen webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/[iD]?autostart=0&animation=1&transparent=0&white=0&antialias=1"></iframe> Replace [iD] by the mecabricks Id of the model (e.g. 438 for the Mini Tie Fighter). You can also use the lego set number (e.g. 6240-1) or bricklink reference of minifigs (e.g. ww021). You can customise the player with the following parameters: autostart: 1 or 0 - To automatically start loading the model (Default is 0) animation: Time in seconds - Duration of the animation when the model is loaded (Default is 1sec) transparent: 1 or 0 - To display a transparent background behind the model(Default is 0) white: 1 or 0 - To use the white color scheme (Default is 0 - black) antialias: 1 or 0 - To activate antialiasing if user browser supports it (Default is 1) I tried it today on a Galaxy Tab 2 and with the few models I loaded, it worked perfectly! I was able to rotate (1 finger), zoom (2 fingers) and pan (3 fingers). It made me want to buy one of them as Apple doesn't seem to be ready to open WebGL on iOS... Here are a couple of links you can play with: http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/col139 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/lor013 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/sh003 http://www.mecabrick...m/embed/10232-1 http://www.mecabricks.com/embed/6755-1 http://www.mecabrick...m/embed/31004-1

Hello, I reworked the user account pages including the account settings and the user library (file manager to organise/publish personal models). Log in to your account to access the new pages.

79006 - The Council of Elrond - Theme: The Lord of the Rings Link: 79006-1-the-council-of-elrond

Hello, As you already found, the parts are made with blender and exported to json using the export script from Threejs. There is currently no actual documentation on how to design a part but if needed I can provide samples of Blender files as well as the few rules that I use as a guideline when modeling them. Besides, If you want, I could put together a page including a simplified script to test your parts locally. Then to put them online, the only solution for now is to send me the blender file(s) and I will include them in the appropriate section of the part library . I'm currently working on a part tracker section for mecabricks where registered people could request parts/submit new parts-textures/download the blender 3D files. However it will take me some time before finishing it! Any help for part design is welcome as it is a big job to maintain & improve the website as well as modeling parts!