TerranCmdr

Stupid LEGO store sold all theirs two days before it was released here, went there today and was sorely disappointed. :(

Noooooooooooooo /Darth How did I miss out on this 50% deal?!

Amazing work, absolutely brilliant! Love the stand you've built with it as well.

Love it! If I may make one suggestion - see if you can add some blur to the propeller in the "old" photo to make it look like it's flying.

Nice work! I too have been enjoying Hawken since Alpha 2 and have been wanting to start a mech. Thanks for the inspiration!

Definitely thinking of making this my first LEGO train purchase. I'm a little bummed it doesn't come with track or power functions but it's a beautiful looking model! Besides, looks like I can get a pretty decent length of track from LEGO for only $20.

Great review and beautiful pictures! I solved the problem with the elevators by using a longer Technic beam.

Excellent presentation and modeling! I've added my vote on cuusoo. ;)

27. Myko - 3 Points 21. Domino39 - 1 point 29. Kristel - 1 point

10. CarsonBrick - 2points 13. Inconspicuous - 3points

Amazing work you've done there. I especially like the wood paneling on your cars. I can't wait to see them behind your excellent cab forward! I've always loved seeing that old SP at the train museum.

Great work, love it! I have to say one of my favorite parts is how you did the energy binder.

Very interesting. I've never heard of digital stop motion in this context. Have you thought about exporting your models to a 3d package and animating them that way?

I had no idea this Modulex stuff existed! I really want some now! Awesome tanker by the way!

It's actually on the backburner for the time being. :( I got a little distracted with an organic model I've been working on and I've also been commissioned to do a website so that's been eating up all my time. Apart from that, I'm a little bit stuck on that new-ish engine piece LEGO has. I don't have it in my collection and I can't find any decent references for it so it's kind of holding me up.

I've been trying to get bump mapping to work but I can't seem to get it to tile correctly across plates.

I really really like that rover wheel idea.

They definitely look a lot better. I chose not to chamfer mine to keep the polycount down and keep the models workable. May I ask how you went about getting the LEGO on the studs? I've been trying for a while and just can't seem to get it right.

Simply amazing! I would love to see a video of her in action.

Glad to see your work posted here, Walter. I'm a big fan.

Fortunately Max doesn't have an object limit. You're really just limited by the power of your computer. I have some significant slowdowns when panning around the X-wing because it's something like 500k polys but there's ways around that. And thanks! Btw, it's a secret, but I'm working on the midi-falcon right now.

Hey, no problem. Always willing to help out newbies. :P I didn't get a chance to say but noreha, your renders always impress me. Very clean and crisp. Your modeling looks spot on too.

I thought I'd do a quick write-up of how I do things. This is not speaking for all 3d artists and programs obviously, but this is how I go about making my LEGO models in 3d. Please see the bottom for glossary of terms and program information. First of all, this site has been immensely useful. I don't have calipers so measuring such small pieces on LEGOs is hard for me to do. When beginning a new piece, I'll first see if I have it in my collection. I find it a lot easier to model the piece if I have it in front of me and can turn it around and look at it from different angles. As you can see, I already have a number of pieces I use to cut out certain parts of the bricks. I have cylinders for the top and bottom, as well as for cutting out the holes in Technic beams and a cross shape for cutting holes for axles. I'll usually start by making a box. Say I'm going to make a 2x4 plate. I know from the site I posted above that each stud = 8mm, so I'll make a box 16x32. However, I need to account for the space between bricks when they are connected, so the actual size of my box will be 15.8x31.8. (The height is 3.2, or 1/3 of 9.6, the height of a brick) Once I have my box, I will bevel the underside so the plate can sit on top of other bricks. After making 100+ different pieces, I have figured out the exact measurements I need and recorded them so I can have all my bricks uniform. In this case, I need to bevel in -1.5 and extrude in -2.4. Now that that's taken care of I can place the cutout pieces for the studs. This is done using a tool called array. I have the studs placed, now I can use the same technique to put the buffers on the underside of the plate. Now that all my cutout pieces are placed, I can perform a boolean function. What this does is basically fuse all the parts together. The settings can be tweaked to either leave the object connected, remove it completely, leave a hole, leave an imprint, etc. In this case I'm choosing the "imprint" option. This will leave an imprint of the objects on my plate so I can extrude the studs and buffers from there, making the whole thing one piece. Picking the objects is as easy as pointing and clicking, and as you can see it doesn't leave the prettiest edgeflow but it works for what I need it to do. All that's left now is to extrude the studs! The final touch is to add smoothing groups to my newly extruded studs, so they don't look faceted. After the brick is complete, I'll add a material to it. I already have some materials in my scene that I've tweaked to look (kinda) close to plastic. It's a simple drag and drop interface to apply the material to the object. Once the material is applied, lights can be added to the scene and we can render! And that's about all there is to it. Some pieces are definitely harder to model than others, but they all start basically the same. When combined, the pieces can turn out to look like this! I hope this was informative to those of you who were interested. Please note that this is my own process, noreha's process might be totally different from mine because he uses a different program, and because everyone is different! Glossary of terms (Please note these are all basic explanations) Bevel - In this context, a tool used to take a face (that is, the connection of four vertices) and copy it. Various settings can be applied to make the face bigger and smaller, and to change its position. Extrude - A simpler function used only to copy and move a face over one axis. Edgeflow - The composition and position of edges on an object. An edge in this sense basically refers to the connection of two vertices. For example, most models need a consistent edgeflow in the sense that the edges are parallel to each other. Array - A tool used to make multiple copies of an object. Settings that can be changed include total number of copied objects, offset of copies from one another, distance the copies will cover, etc. Render - Taking the graphical representation and geometry information of the 3d model, calculating materials, lights, shadows, and geometry, and producing (in this case) an image. Programs used: 3d Studio Max 9 Photoshop CS

I love everything about your creation, but I have to say the technique you used for the dead rebel trooper's arms is definitely my favorite bit. Very creative and looks great!

I love everything about your creation, but I have to say the technique you used for the dead rebel trooper's arms is definitely my favorite bit. Very creative and looks great!