Tommy Styrvoky

It depends on the suspension but sometimes I will use half stud offsets to obtain optimal tension, or a worm gear and 8z gear on a swing arm to tension the idler wheel. Basically you want the optimal tension to have some slack, but not enough for the sprocket to skip teeth.

I use a Cannon powershot SX-170is, it doesn't have the best quality for video, though eventually I would like to get a Cannon D70 or D80 to replace my XSI Rebel, and have 1080p capabilities. I also use a Gopro Hero 3+. I highly recommend DaVinci Resolve as a free editing program, it also has a paid version with more functions, though the free version has most of the stuff that you would need for basic cuts, and it is great for color grading. The user interface is a little complex at first. Though It is probably the most powerful of all the free programs that I have used. It gives you a lot of freedom, and I haven't felt limited by it yet. For music I would suggest looking around Soundcloud, there are a lot of great composers that produce royalty free music there.Here's a couple that I personally like Mattia Cupelli, and Ross Bugden .( make sure they have they include Royalty free in the title, as not all of the songs are royalty free.) You can also contact youtube composers and see if they would allow you to use their compositions in your videos, I have asked a few, and most say yes. (just ask politely, and they will probably say yes) Though It may mean that you won't get monetization for the video, as they can claim it, though It wont penalize you for copyright strike, just that they will have the ability to claim revenue from the video. There are some that will allow you to use it and monetize videos, as long as you purchase the music. My setup, not the best quality photo, but It gives you the idea All set up... by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr For additional equipment, I use a brick built camera rail slider... if you want don't have it, just build it Teaser by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr Lego motorize camera rail slider by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr It would be nice to get a large collective of music sources, maybe by genre, this would be a great source for the community, as I am always looking for new music in my videos. Another good question for this topic is to monetize or not to? Is it worth it, or is it just extra headache?

wow, how heavy is the model? I guess one person could move it, though I would be afraid to drop it, or have the superstructure topple over.

you could almost fit 2 u-joints in there, but it would require shifting one of them back 1/2 of a stud.

Sets are a place good start, though If you just want to dive in and build a MOC of your choice, you could take a look around Rebrickable and you could use Bricklink to individually purchase parts of your choice. The wheel loader is a good set to start with, as it gives you one of every power functions motor, and the BWE is another good set for parts.

I didn't have any issues with the axle in the model, it wouldn't be too difficult to adjust the whole setup to fix the issue. When I built the model, I just wanted a robust axle, I didn't think too much about geometry at the time, as it was my first 4x4

Here's the front axle from my AEC II armored car. It has portal axles with a 3:1 reduction. LXF file here

or use 2x2 round tiles with a hole in the center, and put a flex axle through it.

What about using the same technique that was used on Barman's V8 exhaust manifold, it would be adjustable to length, and still be somewhat flexible /round

Lighting is important, a tripod or something to keep the camera stationary, a clean background is nice, though it can be edited out ( you can use fabric or printer paper taped together) For the picture, low ISO speed lower= less grain in image, use highest resolution preset for camera, higher F-stop= more stuff in focus, though longer exposure. You can use the focus and low F-stop to create a point of interest too . Try to find an interesting angle of the model (get up and close, rather than a top down 3/4 picture.) Editing always helps with the photos, If you can take the photo in RAW format, and use a post processing application to tweak white balance/shadows/color shift, I personally use Rawtherapee for tweaking the photos, it's a free program for both mac and windows. For editing and adding effects, you can use GIMP for most effects/removing background with paths, and I sometimes use Blender's Cycles engine for making 3D text/rendering Lego parts/objects. Another great free program for video editing /colorgrading is Davinci resolve Basically experiment and take lots of photos, then find the ones you like most, and edit them for improved color/shadow

Great job on this , I love the large amount of detail in such a small space.

Could you provide any more information on the motor's locations/tracks?, and are there pannels on the sides of the tracks, as from looking at the promotional image, it looks like there could be 3x7 or 3x11 round panels, as it appears that the injection port defect is visible from the image, thought this could just be noise in the photo. I also think I may have made the lower road wheels too shallow, they should use 4 stud long axles with stop.

Any idea what the red part is between the two upper return rollers on the tracked racer? Here's some progress on it in LDD. I think there's going to be some interesting geometry in the front of it, to give the body it's correct slope. tracked racer ldd WIP by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr

I think the spacing is correct for most of the parts. I think a L motor is hiding behind the panels on both sides, so there would be space for either a AA or AAA battery box in the middle, as it is 11 studs wide between the tracks. It either uses a 1:1 ratio with bevel gears, or a 5:3 for power. it's rear sprocket driven, as it appears that nothing is in the front, and that system seems to perform better for tracked vehicles (at least from my experience, as it limits track bind in the forward direction.)It's unfortunate that it lacks suspension, as it appears to be rigidly affixed to the panel, a simple bogie suspension would have sufficed, though the potential for modding in 4 road wheels with suspension wouldn't be too difficult.

I use a LG G2 ultimate, it's a rather cheap phone, it works decently, but has some connection issues. Though if you tweak the signal delay, it minimizes connection issues. With the last version of the app, I had issues connecting to multiple bricks at once, though they improved it in the latest update. I wouldn't say it's the best option, though for roughly the price of a sbrick, I am impressed that it functions decently.

Have you tried downgrading the APK for it, or posted something in the sbrick Android app forum on their site. As I found one of the older APKs worked better with my phone.

For the mis-colored panels, just replace those parts with plates.

Impressive build, packing all of the functions of a large model in a small package. It would be cool to see a line of these vehicles in a construction theme.

I don't like the idea of a seperate forum for MT, it would be nice, though I feel technic models and model team style models are very similar. The only major difference is the choice of system or studless parts. I also think model team contributes a lot to the technic theme, if you look at the HOF, there's a large portion of variety that is model team ( excluding all of the technic supercars). I think it will add a lot of confusion, and may be upsetting to some that want to participate in "Technic" contests, instead of the combined technic+MT style builds. I also feel that a combination of other topics with model team will mean that the impressive models that we see on this forum will become even more scarce/get covered up by lots of other posts. I don't think there is much of a common theme with the combined topics besides the usage of system parts. So there will be less similarities of interest between community members, thus potentially less interaction between builders. This would work, if there was a larger member base of MT builders, though on this forum, I feel there is only a handful of them that are very active.

The AT-AT would be a difficult build because of the high COG, even an AT-TE is rather complex, as I have attempted to build a proper leg structure a couple times, and there is a lot of intricate joints in the legs, and the middle legs are sort of difficult to work with because of the angle on them. An AT-OT would be probably the easiest to build, as it has 8 legs of the same size. here's an AT-OT

Yeah it's a fun challenge of making cad models of lego parts. I wonder if there is a good directory of tolerances for 3D printing lego parts. Say pin holes, or axle holes, ect. as there is some expansion with 3D printed plastics, and it probably varies from printer to printer. It's one of the things that I wonder about for printing 3d parts, as it could be too loose/tight for a good fit, even though the measurement is accurately based off of original parts.

I think you could use either Lpub's export tool, or LDR importer for blender, and export the original ldraw meshes into your CAD program of choice, to modify original parts. That's just a thought, if you want to keep part of lego's design for gears ect.

Interesting design for SHIPtember. That's one of the things I miss not participating in two years ago. Unfortunately I won't be able to participate for the next couple years because of college, but I always find it interesting to see all of the creative designs that come out of it.

I finally got around to creating a blog post, it's going to be a busy year at college (organic chemistry, calculus). I am unsure of when Fury will be posted, maybe in the next two months, as for the instructions... well they will have to wait until December, I have a complete LXF of it, but I personally prefer the more professional feel of proper ldraw instructions. As for making Lpub instructions is a long process, as my FT-17 took several days to complete, though Fury has about 2500 pieces, so about twice the time involvement. Also here's a couple more photos I forgot to upload. Churchill bridge layer by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr Churchill bridge layer by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr Churchill bridge layer by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr Churchill bridge layer by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr Churchill bridge layer by Tommy Styrvoky, on Flickr

what is used to deploy a scissor bridge, is it just gravity, or is it mechanically assisted?