Scrubs

Poliigon textures can be used mainly to create the scene around your LEGO models. No doubt about it. Andrew Price and his team do a really good job. I used a free pack from them to make a quick test on this particular render. For the LEGO parts, I used Mecabricks and the Advanced Add-on of course ;-) Jungle Buggy by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr You can check my flickr to see what can be done with Mecabricks and Blender https://www.flickr.com/photos/mecabricks/ Or the gallery from Zanna https://www.flickr.com/photos/137478436@N07

It is already implemented and ready to go in the Advanced version of the Mecabricks add-on Yo can see it in action on this render I made while developing it: Faraday Future FF91 by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

Hello, After chatting with the guys at Sketchfab I finally decided to make a mecabricks exporter. Feel free to try it. I will try later to improve the default materials at least to get the bump maps and metal maps automatically assigned properly. Here is the first model ever exported with this new module: https://sketchfab.com/models/a9cac66c6a214fcf9f5aede1c1930d5a Export function is available in the workshop: File > Export > Sketchfab (.dae)

I modeled some of the latest Nexo Knights pieces and drew the decorations for them. Here is a quick scene using the Mecabricks Advanced Add-on for Blender. It took only 1 hour to render this 4K version. Nexo Knights Grimroc by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

You need to remove it first and then reinstall the new one.

@JGuy This is because you have an old version of the Add-On. Re-download the latest revision 2.0.4 from Mecabricks. This is the only one working now. Everything before is obsolete and will fail to run. I made some core changes to the Mecabricks exporter and Blender Add-on yesterday. Remember to clear your cache again to make sure you have the latest version of the Mecabricks webapp in your browser - due to the fact the code has changed yesterday.

I re-wrote a big part of the add-on to fix various bugs. New revision can be downloaded on Mecabricks. Remember to clear your browser cache has I had to update the workshop exporter code.

Try to clear your browser cache. I had to update the code of the workshop last week to add new features. Therefore models exported with the old code can not be used (similarly old script does not work anymore).

@legolijntje There is a basic user manual in the package to explain how to install it. But really there aren't much to do now. Just go in File > Import > Mecabricks (.dae), select the file and then nothing else is required. No more run script button or anything else to do. @NathanR No, it works perfectly with version of Blender at least from 2.77 (I didn't try older ones). Nightly Build is only required for the shaders using Principled BSDF which is a new PBR shader that will be included in the next Blender release. It is also necessary to use the denoise template including in the package.

Hello, A couple of years ago I created a script for Blender in order to easily make photorealistic renders of Mecabricks models. It has been improved a lot over the years and it is now a proper Blender Add-on. Once it is installed, you can import models in any of your existing Blender scenes simply by going in the menu File > import > Mecabricks. It automatically handles decorated parts e.g. printed pearl, chrome or transparent pieces as well as stickers. You can get the free version here http://www.mecabricks.com/fr/shop/product/2 The image below has been made using the latest version of this add-on.

Double the time probably not too far but blur the decorations I never observed such things. Make sure that you don't scale the model (unlike what is said in the video tutorial).

They are not trippy colours but a representation of the normals in world coordinates :-) Pure green when face normal is only along y axis. Red and blue for x and z.

@Mars I like your animations :-) I don't render with GPU either - on my iMac core i5 or on my work PC (xeon 8 cores goes faster than the quadro GPU). The round edge shader only works on GPU (with OSL activated). You shall try just to compare, the results look way nicer as the parts are beveled.

@Mars Looks cool. I guess you deactivated OSL or rendered with GPU as the round edge shader doesn't seem to be present. For old parts, LDraw has more content for sure. However for newer items and especially decorations (prints and stickers) Mecabricks has way more parts. We have about 2500 part designs and close to 8000 decorations now.

I also made an experimental script (subdivision.py) that can be ran at your convenience to subdivide the Mecabricks parts imported in Blender. It doesn't work for all parts but for most of them. Therefore it is possible to get a very nice and smooth result for close up shots. The advanced script that I made doesn't use a round edge shader on the contrary of the lite version but adds real geometry. Therefore it is possible to render on GPU and it looks more real for close up. GPU rendering is faster if you have a high end graphic card. In my case CPU is faster anyway. I am also working on a version of the script with instances so that you can render faster and bigger scenes on GPU (as for now it is limited by the RAM your GPU has).

Blender Cycles support multi-core perfectly (Even GPU rendering). One of the new function that is in development (denoiser) is a game changer to cut render time. It already works pretty well but is only at an early stage. It has been used here to get a reasonable render time.

Mecabricks has come a long way since I started this webapp about 5 years ago. Its popularity has been boosted by the introduction of the export function to multiple 3D formats and a script to easily make good renders with Blender. In 2017 here is what we can achieve in a few clicks without knowing much about 3D: I rendered a low resolution myself that took 9 hours to render on a iMac core i5 and Renderbricks helped me for this 1080p version. I think it was about 4 or 5 min per frame. This has been made possible thanks to the development version of Blender that includes a new denoiser. Even if it has limitation it is already awesome. I also need to thank Stas who is a decoration guru on Mecabricks. He made hundreds if not thousands of them including the ones for this Speed Champion Ferrari.

Yes I sculpt with Blender. I still need to improve my skills but it is good enough to do some retopo. I made quite a few hair pieces like this. There is also another frenchman who made a few with zbrush for mecabricks even without the real pieces. He is really good! It was making the retopo job very easy. Sculpt cannot be used as is anyway. it is way too high poly.

I actually don't use it that much anymore. This is faster to model/sculpt from photos now that I have the knowledge. I doubt that the kinect will give you anything good.

This post is old, but I am posting here anyway to show you my latest creation based on the new Batman LEGO movie universe. This is built in Mecabricks and rendered with Blender Cycles using the script I provide. Batman by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

It is definitely not the Mecabricks part library. Was MOC builder using Ldraw library if I remember? It shall be still installed in a corner of my harddrive somewhere to check.

You have an autosave function in Mecabricks to avoid that. The first time you re-open the workshop after a crash or an accidental closing, just choose "Recover autosave" in the file menu ;-)

Hey, I know it is not free, but I put a very accurate Blender version of the minifig on the Mecabricks Shop today. It includes mold lines as well. It is only rigged as per a real minifig but I am sure it would be easy to do as the geometry is well defined and supports subdivision. Anyway it is another option.

Yes, got it. Thank you very much ;-) Stas is the new drawing Guru of Mecabricks. A big thank you to him for all those new decorated pieces added almost everyday!

Mecabricks works fine on Android tablets now (on ios too). There are a good amount of Technics bricks. Just browser the categories. E.g. Beams, connectors, etc. There are more than 5000 parts nowadays in the database.