alienwar9

OK here we go. I've been spending hours and DAYS working in LDD for the past few months on my extremely large model build, and at a few points I tried migrating to MLCAD and SR3D builder but both fell short or just didn't work properly. But in the time working on this build (35,000 pieces so far, completely redone) I've been making a mental list of features I really badly needed while building. 1. Pieces. The main reason I tried migrating was piece selection. Upon using the mod it finally became the useful tool I needed, but I still would like to have only actual color options, as eventually I am going to have to jump to bricklink or something every time I want to check if the piece exists in a color. 2. Brick count. Seriously, how hard is it to implement a brick count? I just want to know how many pieces there are so far. I have to post it to DesignByMe to find out, and with my model size, it's just not worth the time. As long as there is a tiny box somewhere on the screen that shows a number, I'm good. 3. Piece call-out. This can just be an end feature after the instructions are generated, but it would be really nice. 4. Prices. It would be nice to know what the prices are for each individual piece. It would also be a little better if I didn't have to click on "check price" every time. Think about it, if a kid has a limit on how much they can spend, wouldn't it be easier for them to see it while building? It would also probably teach them a little bit about money and management, etc. And for those worried about hitting a certain point, it would be convenient. 5. group/selection-color change. I made a 19 story skyscraper, with around 28 windows each floor. I then wanted to copy and paste it and cut out a few floors to make another building. I wanted to change the color....that was a pain. I had 5 buildings to make....... 6. Rotation?! Seriously, the rotation tool sucks, and that is a huge understatement. Almost every time I've used it, it has glitched out and jerked half my model around trying to figure out the most insane possible way to rotate the pieces. Or, it has rotated my entire 35,000 piece model instead of the one piece I wanted (resulting in crashes too). And the connection detection for rotating is terrible. I don't think it has ever worked for me, even when the connection was obvious and simple. 7. Camera angle. This is not for me, but for others, as I know some would love the option. Just make it an option though. Like, if you press and hold a key then you can move your mouse and rotate the camera. It's that odd axis that is in the other programs but that I find annoying. 8. Mirror tool. SR3D builder is great with this. I almost didn't need it at all until now, when I find my model in serious need of mirroring stuff. It is a very useful tool, but it adds a bit of complexity to using the program so I'd understand why it wouldn't be added. 9. Search. Yeah, with the limited pieces normally available I can see how it seems useless, but I think every once in a while it would come in handy. Searching a piece name, tag, or piece id would be great. 10. Hide. I love the feature, but it could be better. For example, I have selected a bunch of stuff to hide, and now I want to bring back only certain items. It would be nice to be able to "un-hide" pieces or groups. This is sort of similar to layering. 11. Drag and drop grouping. Wouldn't it be nice if you could drag groups into other groups, sub-group things, etc without having to click create new sub-group? This isn't really needed, but it would be kind of nice. But more so I would just like to be able to widen the group pane and have more than 1 column. It gets really frustrating to scroll through all the groups when you have a lot. 12. Piece organizing. If the piece selection would be customizable or at least you could change the categorization method a few ways, that would be peachy grand! Seriously, how awesome would it be if you could group "posts" or narrow items, and "smooth stuff". 13. Minor piece height differences. HOLY BRICK this is annoying. Has anyone placed a baseplate and then a 8x16 plate, built all over them, only to find out they are at slightly different heights, and even worse, sometimes things don't go together because of this? I've even had the problem where I've deleted the 8x16s, and moved things that were partially on-top of them, and had tiny height differences that are almost unnoticeable unless you zoom in stop me from building. That plate is not the only cause, as often I've had issues where all of a sudden somehow the grid "floor" has lowered and things just don't line up. I can't think of a solution to these problems, but they are problems, and for me, sometimes they cost me half a day to figure out and fix. Grrrr. 14. Stability!!!!! This is the most important for me. I know, there aren't that many cases like mine, but still. I have a system that can run it. It can run it well. But the program just doesn't utilize my system at all. It gets laggy when I move items, it gets laggy when I open the program now, and it gets laggy when I load larger models. It freezes when I make big moves or rotations, and it freezes when there are just too many pieces. It crashes too. It crashes when I try to save it when there a lot of pieces. But even worse, it now crashes when I try to save even less intensive piece models. I think it has to do with the number of baseplates, and/or the width of my model, as it goes off the grid. I understand that even with a fix, my model will still run slow or crash. But I just want to be able to get farther than "the base" of the model. I haven't even built any real details there. One thing I noticed is that I have a quad core processor, and LDD only utilizes 1 core. With the current market quickly moving towards multi-core processors, I think it is essential to allow LDD to utilize more than 1 core. Also, I have 4gb of ram, and although my computer is 32-bit, meaning it will not see all 4 gb, LDD at most gets my system to use 75% of my RAM. I'm not that tech savvy, but I think that isn't the max that my pc can handle even considering the 32-bit. I just think that LDD can be made more efficient and run more smoothly on systems. That would also mean helping out those with less powerful systems too, as I've heard other people complain they can't get much smaller models running too well. But definitely opening up more cores would GREATLY increase the ability of LDD to handle larger models, and run smoother on many systems today and in the future. PHEW! The funny thing is, I know I forgot some things Sorry for the long write. I tend to do that. But I think some of these issues are very important and make/break the usefulness of LDD.

SNOT roads are actually not that expensive if you buy the pieces from bricklink. I'm building a HUGE display (11x15 feet) so I really had to figure out the most cost affordable and viable method. A SNOT road built on a 32x32 baseplate comes to about $12 with the simplest form. If you want to add designs, more lines, etc then it probably becomes more expensive. Road plates are around $15 USD through Lego and about $4 from bricklink. It really depends if you are going to use those "extra" T sections and 4-ways or not. And if you have a lot of turns or intersections then the SNOT road becomes a bit more expensive also. As far as raising the buildings up by a brick, for a 32x32 building, it costs around $5.40 for the bricks and plates. So a single building with a road would be around $17 compared to just a road plate at $15 (with the extra spare odd plate). Now that doesn't count shipping or extra costs, but a tiled 32x32 is around $13. The prices aren't that much different if you are not making too many curves or special plates. Tiles don't look so great when making a turn, though SNOT turns use a lot of pieces. In the end, I'd say it depends on your layout and what you want. If you have just a single street, or a few square blocks, I'd say go with SNOT as the price difference isn't that significant. If you have a larger "square roads" layout, I'd say buy the roadplates from bricklink or somewhere cheap. If you have a smaller layout with a lot of turns, you can use SNOT or baseplates, its really up to you. And finally, if you have a larger layout with turns, go with baseplates. But if you want to add some style or complexity to your roads, the only good way is SNOT. Either way, I wouldn't recommend tiles. They look funky with the edges, and they are not cost effective (price is close to SNOT roads). Good luck with your layout which ever way you choose!

Hardest for me was the statue of liberty 3450. It was just so slow with all the same colors and similar pieces that my patience at that age was wearing thin. Otherwise I don't think any set was really hard for me. Now the few evil megabloks I bought back in the day...those were a TRUE pain. What was I thinking?!

I'm still having some issues with the angled roads. This is where I got the picture from, but it doesn't mention what club built the design. I can't tell from the pictures what pieces they used. The roads are looking pretty nice, though I think every street might have to be custom to that particular part of the city. I just have to add the roof for the subway station. The curved walls worked out real nice in LDD. Anyone have any ideas on how to "blend" the angled SNOT roads to horizontal/vertical SNOT roads? (the point where they meet)

Haha! I just filled up 8 holiday brick boxes also. But I went to 4 Lego stores to get the widest assortment of bricks I need to test out things for my build. I noticed the shininess of the black also, and the contrast and visibility of the road lines. But I think from what everyone has been choosing so far, I'm gonna go with the dark bley roads and light grey sidewalks. I feel like the contrast is too much with the black roads, and it pulls the eyes away from the buildings (some other people have noticed that too). to tedbeard: Yes, just baseplates would be cheaper, but I don't like the fact that the roads are only 2 lanes wide. I wanted to have wider roads, and now with my redesign, I need all different sized roads, plus a road that goes on an angle (which I could use help on). -------------------------------------------------------------------- Speaking of the angled road, I've looked at Mike's version, and I looked at the road in that picture I posted, and it seems that in the picture they got the angled road to "blend in" better. As in, there are almost no spaces between the regular roads and the angled road. Does anyone know how this was or could be done? Any ideas? The angled road I'm trying to make goes through a 3 way intersection, two 4 way intersections, a 6 way intersection, over a river, and at one point becomes a one way street. Yeah, now that I typed it out it sounds complicated, but I think it looks real good. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm going to TRY and get the redesign done quickly, but it's not going to be easy. I also was just tinkering and somehow ended up building an entire subway and station (albeit bad colors), so I'm rebuilding it in LDD and I'll post that quick. I'm still up for color change, so any ideas or picks are welcome! Actually, now that you mention it, I might just make some roads different colors to represent different districts in the city and the quality of the roads there. Though I'll have to check and see if it doesn't just look weird. The sidewalks will be staying the same color though (of course special sidewalks being an exception).

I photoshopped a few MOCs I found to test out color. These are 3 out of the 4 color options I'm looking at. I just thought it might be easier to get an idea what it will look like with better color representation and a background. Note: these are not mine. I just edited the photos and changed the color of the streets. The black street with light gray sidewalk is the original. It's just a quick edit, so ignore the sloppy color fill. I hope this gets a better idea of color options that I am looking at.

Thanks BlackKat! Those pictures gave me tons of great ideas too! I was really looking for stuff like that. to FreeBee: thank you. Those are Mike Gallagher's roads I believe though. They looked so nice so that's why it is hard for me to decide between black and grey. That's the same way my roads are (yellow medians and white dashies). The reason I did the whole setup in tile was simply because I thought it was cheaper. That way I could keep the buildings just on baseplates and not have to raise them up. But I've calculated the price difference for raising everything 1 brick height and using technic connections and it should be around $200 (which is not bad considering how large the model is). And also I think I'd save a lot using SNOT roads instead of an insane amount of tiles anyway. I already have to do the sidewalks (I prefer tile sidewalks to SNOT-walks ). And I've figured a way to do SNOT roads in LDD anyway. You just have to use technic holes and pegs and the road doesn't get caught on the Lego name on the studs. So this is what the roads look like in SNOT: I've cut out the light gray roads, they just look weird. So, which one looks the best? Thanks again!

Hi, I'm trying to figure out the best way to make my roads for my large city build. Since the entire layout depends a lot on the width and make-up of the roads, I thought it would be a good idea to start there. I originally tiled the roads dark gray with white markings, using 16x32 and 8x32 tiles (8x16 in LDD only) to have a total 24 stud wide roads. I had a problem as I couldn't make the roads 4 lanes wide, and 2 lanes would look too stretched, so I left it at 3 lane one way streets. Obviously this isn't the greatest, so I looked to vary the width of the roads throughout the city. This meant baseplates would come out differently, and the whole city layout would have to be completely changed (which I have no problem with). I started looking at road techniques and tutorials and finally came to Mike Gallagher's wonderful work. After seeing the possibilities with roads, I figured everything is now on the table...go wild with design. From there I probably would do some "conservative working" cutting out sections of design. But my main problem still remains... what color?! Here are the 4 possibilities that I think the roads could be: The actual layout of the road will be different. These are just the colors. The second 2 roads are actually black, ldd just seems to render black in a slightly blue hue. I know most roads now are being built with the 4th road, the black and light grey, but I think the 2nd one (dark grey road w/light grey sidewalk) seems a bit more realistic. I haven't driven on that many black roads, so in MOCs it looks kinda weird for me (but at the same time, very eye catching with the colors) I really can't decide. Any ideas? Which one's do you guys prefer? 1 (top left) 2 (top right) 3 (bottom left) 4 (bottom right) Thank you for any help! Here is the model with all the details about it so far.

Thanks for the help! I am near Deerfield, so I will look into that. (though I don't have any experience as you asked). And I'd definitely love to join the Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club! Oh, and thanks for the fix!!

Thanks! I do have a pretty powerful computer, but with the skyscrapers you see there, I had to go into compatibility mode to place them, and even then I can't save it, so I have to replace them every time I want to see. Also, I had to remove their interiors completely and all the glass to get it to work. I'm hoping MLCAD or SR3D will have more luck. I'll see what I can do about the re-size. With the words and directional hints on the pics though, it might be illogical cause then you can't read the words. (at least that's how it looks for me. I'm running 1080p though). True! However, I wanted it to be unique in a way. One of those, "every inch is awesome" things. So with the interiors, I was hoping to get some beautiful details in too. Of course, a good idea might be to only do the "outer" buildings, as they are the only ones in easy reach of a person. One idea I had in mind was actually having the buildings open on a power function (only the tall ones). But that's just an idea at this point. Oh, I never make my life easy. One of my firm beliefs is that anything worth doing isn't easy. I've always tried to go above and beyond. Make a short video? I make an hour long movie. 10-15 page paper? I do a 42 page (pictures included) study. Sure, this is probably a massive headache, but I'm really passionate about making it work (I've spent every free hour and some sleep working on this for the last month, and I expect that trend to continue). And while I do believe that the chances of auctioning off smaller parts is a lot higher and I'd raise more $, there is a sort of "collective" effect when you group things together. I think that at the end, if someone is actually willing to go for it there would be a higher price to piece ratio. And in a raffle system, it would garner much more attention hopefully. But it is definitely a lot to handle, and so that is why (thanks to the wise words of EB staff especially) it has become a team build. And thank you for your comments! I'm especially glad you like the ideas! Thanks!!!! Yeah, the dock area is one of my favorite parts too. It came out much better than I expected (with the piece selection on LDD). I hope I can get everything in the right place to make you less skeptical. Work in progress it is!

FINALLY!!!! The project hub post is here And the first project, a model city, is here Hope you guys like it!

Hi all, I wanted to get started with my large project and I thought the best way was to let you guys know exactly what I’m trying to do. It’s a bit long, but then again it’s a very big project. Hope you guys enjoy reading Note: City project is here Preface I've been a collector of LEGO for most of my life, but I've only ever done small and quick MOCs. My last big project after moving my collection to my basement was to put them all back together. Then I ran into issues...blah blah blah... and haven't gotten back to that since. But recently I've been thinking, what’s the thing I want to do most. I've watched all the different amazing MOCs here on Eurobricks that almost make me ashamed to call myself a LEGO fan. Through looking at all the MOCs however, I also found myself drooling over the idea of actually building something, anything, like what I've seen. The only problem was that I knew any one build for me would just seem tiny and leave me feeling like I'm missing something, some feature, etc. I know I could just build and build MOCs like everyone else, but there was another thing I could do… At the same time, I had an epiphany of sorts, and realized that although my life goal is to eventually help people for a living, I couldn’t wait until those days to actually start doing something. Though my actions would be small compared to anything I’d do in the future, they meant something none-the-less and as the saying goes, every little bit helps. So I had a Lego project in mind, and I had an urge to help. I realized how limited the time I had really was, so I decided, why not combine the two. Why not build the whole Lego project for charity? I could really do a lot of good with that much Lego and that much work! So off I went to plan and came up with the project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Project I came up with 3 large dioramas of what I wanted the most to build: a miniature model city, a space fleet battle, and a castle siege. Each of these was to be scaled to mini-fig size roughly. But upon measuring etc, I figured that building a 40 story fig scale building was just out of the question (not just money wise, but...where would I place such a monster?). I scaled down. And then still ended up with 3 roughly 12x12 foot models . I wanted to do full detail inside and out. I figured the space scene would have to do away with mini-fig scale, as I wanted it to be massive in scale (as in, capital ships, frigates, fighters). The castle would be an entire castle, including its protected "city", mountain, harbor, and open fields (including the inside caves of the mountain). The city, would be based slightly on Chicago (close to where I live), and comprise of an 8x8 block area with skyscrapers, industrial district, smaller 2-3 story buildings based off the cafe corner and its friends, and a lakefront. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Community And since I love this community to death (and much wish that I could be more involved in it. I mean, I’ve been here for 5 years and had so few posts) I wanted to keep everyone up to date with the projects, and definitely get help from all of you (with all your expertise in LEGO). This was planned to be around a 10 year project for me, with a 5 year pre-planning. I wanted to get some research in with building techniques, studying other people's builds and styles and to gather up ideas for how to set everything up. I would go over sketches with you guys, eventually together with everyone get down a final base plan, and start building. From there, through pictures like everyone does here (if I could figure out how to take pictures with my terrible camera), I'd hope to collectively plan out the details in each model, with my over-arching plans being the default on which everyone could add to. Upon doing some research, I felt it necessary to start some preliminary work on a basic setup. This lead me to the city build which I will talk about later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Finish Finally, I was hoping to auction off each of the models (I'd somehow have to either make instructions for everything, ouch, and/or glue some parts, icky). From what I can figure out, with the little research I've done, I calculated roughly a $10,000-$15,000 USD cost to each model. I based the $15,000 price point on the LDD file of the city layout. I figured since LDD is somewhat overpriced, and the model is about half way done there (piece wise) it would come out to about the same. (If anyone could tell me a better estimation, I would greatly appreciate it, because I don't have much firsthand experience with large scale MOCs). So the auctions would be for charity foundations, and/or go to extremely avid AFOLs, or some rich dude . P.S. of course I'd play with it for as long as I could, lol. But in seriousness, I really wanted the project to help people, and not just be a self serving fun time. And since I saw the need for help sooner rather than later (especially after Haiti), I decided that the project needed to move along faster, and the only way to do this was to make it donations based. That way I could collect the pieces and money for the projects to be built within a few years each and auction them off to help support the charity foundations. Any money that I could save over the time would also go into the project. I did some research later on and found the whole donations system to be a bit more complicated than I thought, and that lead me to the “donations post”. If anyone can help me on that, I would greatly appreciate it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Details At this point, I started planning. I wanted to get a basic size and setup for each MOC, figure out the type of lay-out, and where it could be placed. I wanted each model to be playable too. That means "action" features, opening buildings, etc. The second part of each model was that I wanted them to be 2 phased. One set was to be the "pre" phase, where everything was normal. The second would be the "action" phase, where everything is in motion, ala the many MOCs I've seen here, with figs running, rockets flying, buildings and ships falling apart, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Castle: My idea for the castle was for it to be a typical castle on a hill...but instead on a mountainside. Think lord of the rings (minas tirith for the fans), but much more asymmetrical. I've only ever been to a few castles, so I'm not an expert, but together with some of my favorite MOCs, I came up with a basic look. I also wanted a few ships to be docked in a harbor. The mountain would be cut in half (like the end of the MOC back wall), with the open slice showing the inside caves etc. The castle grounds would include the keep, the inner walls, the town buildings, church, etc, the harbor, and the outer walls. A few farms on the outside, and then a "rolling hill" open field stretching out the other half of the MOC, until a river, a couple hills, and a river overpass/guard tower would be placed. On the other side of the hills would be an enemy camp set up, with all the troops, weapons, etc. I still have not decided as to whether to make it with realistic aspects, or trolls and that sort of thing (it would be a mixed army still though). And yes, there would be a dragon in the caves. The second phase would be in the middle of the siege on the castle. Buildings would be on fire, giant rocks would be flying, roofs would be caved in, walls would be broken, the front gate would be penetrated, and the ships would be battling each other by the harbor. Basically some roof and wall pieces would be swappable, some ground pieces would be swappable with soldiers fighting, and the area around the front of the castle would be filled with the army in place. The whole piece would be around 9 feet wide by 12-13 feet long. I can make it this long easily because of the open fields stretching in front of the castle. The width is to accommodate a river, a harbor, a main area, and church. The mountain would be around 4 1/2 feet tall, with the highest point on the castle being around 3 1/2 feet tall. While it seems like a large footprint, there are a lot of “empty spaces” where water and fields sit, so the piece count will hopefully be more limited than the city. I will up-load hand drawn sketches soon. (maybe make a quick LDD of the layout if I can). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space battle: This one would be the hardest and most fun for me (I love giant space ships). The idea was to have two capital ships with their respective fleet at either end of space, ready to do battle. The one fleet would be set up in front of a space station protecting it both with its firepower and physically blocking any attacks. Through some searching I found that I wanted the main capital ship to be 7 feet long, and the other one to be 5 feet long. The main fleet guarding the station with the 7 foot ship (from now on called the “good” fleet. Yeah I know, sooo creative), would also have a carrier ship, and then a bunch of smaller ships. And the same would go for the bad fleet. While doing some pre-planning work, I finally figured out the scale I wanted the ships to be at. The fighters (the easiest thing to set the scale to) would be roughly 7 studs x 4 studs. I based this off of how many ships I wanted to be able to fit in the hanger bays of the ships. I think I figured that scale to basically be 1:360. So the 7 foot ship would be almost half a mile long. I really wanted the fighters to have some detail so the scale isn’t that huge. Basically the big ship is half the length of the star destroyer. The carrier would be 3 ½ feet long. There would be a few 2 foot ships, a bunch of ships in smaller sizes. I think 27 ships total. There would be a few smaller craft, and then 90+ fighters / bombers / etc. And finally there would be the space station, of which I am far away from making any definite plans on. The second phase would simply be when they are mid-way through battle. Ships would be blown apart, lasers would be cutting, and missiles would be flying. My sketches so far are very basic, and while I have done some LDD work with the carrier and capital ships, those are simply for shape and form. I won’t be returning to this soon unless my mind gets blown from the city build and I need a different setting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- City: This would be the biggest model of the three. I have spent the most time on this one, and therefore it is the first one I am going to build. It is also a good place to start because of its complexity and ability to adjust to my skills while building. It went through many planning phases with different sizes and I finally came to a set layout with everything I wanted to put in it. The entire piece is 11 feet by 13 feet and the tallest building is 6 feet tall. There are about 52 buildings within a 6 x 6 block area. There is a highway of sorts, a river, a park, and a “lakefront”. The city is divided into 2 sections, and upper area, and a lower area; where the lower area is actually about 13 bricks lower than the rest of the city. There is an industrial district, a market district, and a business district. There are 5 towers, the largest of which has 19 floors. I want to fully fill each building and the streets with activity, so there are a lot of interior pieces to be used. The second phase of this one is under consideration. I really badly want to do it, but I also realize that along with donation issues, it increases the piece and price count from an already high amount. Basically it would be an alien invasion scene. This would include all kinds of creatures that the aliens have, including a 3 foot tall monster, and possibly some smaller space ships. There would be holes and fires in buildings, people running everywhere, and a fully deployed military trying to fight off the aliens. This would include tanks, jets, helicopters, and par-trooping figs from a plane. Also, since I had so many ideas for it, I wanted to build a secret military unit hidden inside the city, with the semi-futuristic vehicles and equipment that might come with that (including mechs of course). But like I said, this one is under consideration for obvious reasons. It would definitely shift potential auctioneers also. The City post with pictures is here! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion Phew! So the first thing I’m doing now is starting the city build post, as I’ve already done the layout in LDD and I have enough content to finally post a “first post”. From there, I hope to figure out the whole donation situation, set that up, get some input into the overall layout of the city and see if there are any bigger changes that could be made, and then start the build with what money I have saved up so far. I’d probably have just enough for the base and the tiles. I’m hoping to fund at least a third of the city project on my own, and see where it goes from there. I also wanted to get other communities involved, at least in the donation aspect, so once I have a set system for the donations, I want to spread the word. Of course I would always come here first for any updates, comments, etc! I know all of this is a little long and dry, especially without any pictures, but those are in their respective model posts. The castle and space posts will probably come a little later on, but I will try to get them in as soon as I have the time. Thank you, and a special thanks to those that actually read through all of this (you guys have great patience!) I look forward to working on these projects with you guys and any comments you may have! -Alienwar9 P.S. Just to make sure, I am NOT asking for any donations or anything else yet. ________________________________________________________________________________ Update Without a restructuring of the project, I am not allowed to engage in any type of donation system or otherwise. According to the staff of EB, I would not be able to operate under the conditions that I planned. While I am a bit crushed, they are right in saying that this would barely work, if at all. The current plan is to hand the project over to someone with a history and expertise in large scale Lego model projects, and then recruit a team willing and able to help plan and build the model / models, allowing the project a much more stable and reliable backbone upon which to operate. This change means that I am looking for anyone in or around the Chicago area that is willing to head up a large charity based team build, along with people willing to help build and plan the model. The head of the project can also be an entire group, if there is a group willing. Also, if anyone knows of some people who would be interested in such a project, please either let them know, or let me know so that I may contact them. Along with finding a team, the time frame for building the model would be sped up to 1 year or less. The last change would have to be in planning. The design of the entire model, along with the style, would be decided upon by the team. I would hope to still have some control over the main design, but that would be completely up to the team and the lead. So my plans above may be slightly or completely changed. Also, the community would have a stronger input as to how the model would be built. Finally, the model would have to be partially built before any donations could be asked for. Please PM, leave a post, or contact me if you are interested in helping build or lead the project. Since this is still in pre-planning stages, I am just trying to see if there are any people out there willing to take up the project. If you have any suggestions or conditions before you would think about it, please let me know, or if you have any questions. This is only for discussion purposes. No plans are set in stone yet, and I still would need to run this through the EB staff before any final decision would be made as to whether this could happen.

Hi, This is one of my first projects, one of hopefully many. If you’ve read my “Introduction” post, then you can understand what exactly I am trying to do. Basically, this is a large scale city MOC that I want to build from mostly donations by communities, and that will eventually all go towards charity. I am currently in the process of pinning down the exact way that the donations and charity will work, and if anyone can help me, or if you just want to know how it might work, please look into my “donations” post***. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Update This has now changed to a TEAM build. I am looking for anybody with experience willing to lead the project, and anybody willing to help build. You must live somewhere near Chicago to be able to meet and help build. This is only to see if there are any people willing, and not an agreement or anything like that. For more information, see the update at the bottom of my main post. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ So onto the meat! What is it exactly? It’s an 11 foot x 13 foot mini-fig scale Lego downtown city, complete with building interiors, streets, 6x6 block area, and filled with features. There is also a second “phase” (see original post for more details. see below for this specific project.) where the city is under attack by aliens (including alien monsters), and the military and a secret underground force are trying to stop them. (The second phase is optional, and is yet to be decided if it will be included). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How did this start out? I started out just wanting to build a city that was based somewhat on the city of Chicago. I wanted skyscrapers, along with smaller corner café type buildings, and have a bunch of different areas. It went through many planning phases with different sizes and I finally came to a set layout with everything I wanted to put in it. The entire piece is 11 feet by 13 feet and the tallest building is 6 feet tall. It all sits on a painful number of baseplates. There are about 52 buildings within a 6 x 6 block area. There is a highway of sorts, a river, a park, and a “lakefront”. There is an industrial district, a market district, and a business district. There are 5 towers, the largest of which has 19 floors. Here are a couple more angles of the city. You can see the lakefront here, along with the river mouth, the skyline, and the industrial docks. This would be the main downtown area. It includes the two corner shaped buildings, and possibly another bridge across the river. A lakefront “highway” runs along the front of the city, and through the industrial district. You can see the light poles all along the way, as well as the bridge, skyway, and angled section. This was one of the hardest parts for me to do, as I am using the tiling method for roads, and so the roads are very thin and don’t have many options when it comes to angles. Through the pain of fiddling with the LDD program’s rotation tool, I got the road to sit on a separate baseplate system on-top of the main baseplates, and connect the walls to either end. The road and central column aren’t actually connected to anything, and are just held in place by the outside barriers. Unfortunately, this method also means that I was left with ugly bumps at the cross points. Here you can see the hotel entrance. I know, the exit isn’t very logical, and I forgot to cut out a piece of the central area for them to get to the opposite side of the highway. This is one area where I was going to ask for help on, as I had no ideas on how to create the curved driveway. You can also see the building footprint in the top right corner. That is the museum, and it has a courtyard in the back there (second picture). Here you can see the industrial district docks. There are 3 buildings here (one small one in the top right under the bridge). The docks would extend out from this area. You can also see the “skyway”, though it is not finished as I was limited to LDD pieces. The basic points of support would be roughly the same size and location though. Here you can see the “shops” area, where all the high class stores, apartments, restaurants, and businesses are located. The street is split, with a decorative center (with trees and stuff). This continues through to the lower section, with a market area, sized with corner café buildings. The right side is comprised of corner café buildings, while the left has slightly larger buildings (because of the slanted road. I will get to that). Here you can notice part of the slanted road, the stairs, and to the right, a smaller side street going through a building tunnel. This is one of the main streets, and is slanted at 2 points. Basically, the road is built on a baseplate and the hangover end is attached to a hinge allowing it to rest at an angle. The river divides the downtown area in half. Here you can see the highway bridge with the sidewalks along the way. These sidewalks would be extra wide and include trees, decorations, or lampposts. At the other end of the river is the tunnel building. It is a 5 story building, with a 2 story bridge over the river. At the left is the connecting building, with its own smaller “bridge”. Inside the bridge are glass floors that allow people to view the river below. From the bottom, more windows sit to let viewers take a look at passing boats. This was an extremely fun part to build. The river curves along the way, cutting from one city block lane into another, and causing the 2 corner shaped buildings to exist. Another bridge could be placed at the bottom end. At the “curving point”, there are a few more details. First, there is the angled wall (I really built it a stupid way. I was up to the morning working on it so my mind was acting up). Then there is a “pad” area. This could serve one of two purposes. It could be just a regular platform; letting underground facilities or docks use it. Or, go along with the “second phase” and become a secret extending “hover launch pad”. The hydraulics were placed underneath to allow the pad to raise up and down; and a vertical take of vehicle would come out the door from the underground base. Here you can see a dock area that leads up to the main roads. Just a little detail I wanted to add. The city is divided into 2 sections, and upper area, and a lower area; where the lower area is actually about 13 bricks lower than the rest of the city. The roads are in a grid form, with the two areas connected by the slanted road. Most roads are 3 lanes wide, and 1 way. I didn’t want the roads to simply be 2-way single lane roads like most baseplate roads are. This is 24 studs wide, with the middle lane being wider than the outside two. I have yet to figure out if all roads will be the same, of if I can get some roads to be both way, 1 lane smaller, etc. I want to fully fill each building and the streets with activity, so there are a lot of interior pieces to be used. This is an example of a rough estimate of one of the taller skyscrapers (second tallest). As you can see in the earlier example, each floor is created for a different purpose: apartments/condos, stores, offices/businesses, penthouses/luxury condos, sky decks, and maintenance floors. Each set of floors has a different height (and brick height number). There are center columns within the buildings where the stairs, elevators, and facilities are located. The elevator area has enough room for 2 elevators, and extra space for equipment, structuring, and inner workings. The base of the building has two main entrances on either side, plus an extra space for a store or restaurant in the front. The rear has either a security entrance, or service entrance (depending on what building it is). The lobby includes the central structure, the store, bathrooms, security/service room, and lobby entrance areas. The two elevator entrances and stair entrance can be seen here (I still have to figure out a door system for the elevators). The front store (4th picture) has 2 levels: the counter, and the second level area for eating or keeping store items. (Yes, a fig won’t hit their head walking up those stairs…I checked). I also quickly came up with a little elevator system with the LDD pieces. I’m sure with a little time a better system could be made, but I think it looks pretty cool. The piece would sit at the top of the building, with the round white knob on the outside (blending in). A lever could be pulled out of the round knob, and the whole unit pushed in to disengage the lock. The string would run around the two wheels and down the center, and pull the elevators up and down with the spin of the knob. The two pipes would run alongside the elevators (for looks). I also built a “mock” building to test out an idea I had. This would be building number 5. I wanted to create a round entrance to a building, and not just a 45 degree face. I already have (and found) better ideas for implementing a round entrance, but this is what I came up with. It is supposed to be a high end retail store, with 3 tall floors, and an open entrance. The side walls are a bit odd, and I couldn’t find a right color for the pieces next to the side entrances (gold and grey, ick). The tile-work is also a bit weird, but once again, this was 4 in the morning after 16 hours of working on the layout, so I was a little out of it. Here you can see the oddly placed windows. Those would go over the entrance door, much like the CC fire station window. Here is the second floor. You can see the open ceiling entrance, with the glass railings. And once again the weird tile work. An odd thing happened with this though. I was building the floor, when I noticed that I had built a white cross in tiles. I had no idea how that happened, but it’s just something that I noticed afterward. Here in the final picture you can see the height that the building would come to, and try to imagine what it would look like (sorry for making you imagine. I didn’t have time to finish it). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The idea for buildings was so far: 1: skyscraper 2: federal/government building 3: bank 4: parking 5: high end store (above) 6: shopping mall (with Lego store ) 7: skyscraper 8: hotel 9: TV/radio building 10: library 11: high end condos 12: mixed 13: skyscraper 14: skyscraper 15: modern art styled business building 16: theatre 17: restaurant/club 18: museum 19-21: mixed 22-24: mixed 25: hotel 26: pub/bar, houses/apartments/motel, stores 27-29: stores and houses 30-33: restaurants/stores 34-36: stores/houses 37-41: mixed 42: Corner Café 43-45: houses 46: Warehouse (secret operations) 47: electrical stations 48: mill/factory 49-51: shipping docks Some other ideas for what would be in the buildings are: Hospital Police station Electronics store Clothing stores Pizza place Nightclubs City hall Movie rental Pharmacy Post office Gun store Sports store Business headquarters I had a few extra plans like for a street underneath the higher level (like wacker drive), that would go under the bridge (making it a double deck bridge). I couldn’t find a good place for it yet though. Another thing I was thinking about was either a subway system, a rail system above the streets, or even a tram/trolley system (or a mixture of them). Finally, with the taller buildings, I wanted to see if I could build them so that they could open like a book, instead of having to take each floor off. One thing I felt wouldn’t be realistic or feasible within the size and style of the city was any form of trains. I felt it would just take up too much space, though any suggestions or ideas that could work them in would be appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Second Phase The second phase of this one is under consideration. I really badly want to do it, but I also realize that along with donation issues, it increases the piece and price count from an already high amount. Basically it would be an alien invasion scene. This would include all kinds of creatures that the aliens have, including a 3 foot tall monster, and possibly some smaller space ships. The monster would be about 36 inches tall and be holding onto the tallest building while walking around. Multiple different kinds of creatures would exist all over, along with piece built aliens. There would be holes and fires in buildings, people running everywhere, and a fully deployed military trying to fight off the aliens. This would include some tanks, apcs, humvees, a couple fighter jets, helicopters, and par-trooping figs from a plane. Also, since I had so many ideas for it, I wanted to build a secret military unit hidden inside the city, with the semi-futuristic vehicles and equipment that might come with that (including mechs of course). That would include the warehouse staging/vehicle construction base, the river pad, and an elevator system that would come out of an intersection. This would include advanced hover/heli vehicles, armored troop carriers, assault bikes, a hover tank, a few heavy duty mechs, and armed weapon suits. I was also thinking of a small network of underground bases. For the damaged parts of the city, I would have “plates” or removable and swappable parts like wall sections, trees, streets, etc that could be changed with the normal city so that you could turn the city quickly from model city to attacked city. But like I said, this one is under consideration for obvious reasons. It would definitely shift potential auctioneers also. It is something I really would love doing, and would definitely make this model unique (an in my eyes awesome), not to mention give the whole thing a scenic and movie like feel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, here is the Lego Digital Designer file for the layout, for one of the skyscrapers, and the high end store(includes elevator mechanism). WARNING: The layout is huge, so only open it if you know your computer can handle it. It slows even my system down, and adding any larger piece (like a skyscraper) crashed it or crashed it when I saved. Link to the brickshelf folder Link to the hub post Link to the donation discussion post Link to the LDD issues post ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Where to next? Well, other than the update (below), I am going to try and get the layout transferred to either MLCAD or SR3D builder and see if it can work there, as then I could sectionalize it, allowing me to actually work on it rather than having it freeze, crash, or not save. While I have issues with these other systems (it’s hard to get used to after LDD) I do need the extra pieces, colors, and ability for more complex piece connections. I’m then probably going to add in some of the street details, park, and extras. From there I’m going the “fill” in the buildings, putting up at least their outside walls to get a better sense of what everything will look like, along with picking the color schemes of the buildings. Probably the last phase would be to add in the interior detail, but I’m probably going to wait on that one for the team (maybe just a few buildings). And I’m probably at one point or another going to get distracted, start building some aliens, monsters, or forces, and end up doing a lot of work there (even though it might not be included). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Update (cont) Because of the group aspect, I am redesigning a lot of the layout, design, style, etc of the build. While many aspects will stay the same, building size, complexity, arrangement, will definitely change. I wanted to make the entire city more unique, diverse, and add depth and complexity to it. It needs to have more variety. Angled roads, different types of roads, different building sizes, a different lakefront with buildings on the other side of the highway and a beach, a bit more water in front, some surrounding roads possibly, larger city blocks with more buildings located in a single block rather than “1 building per block”, and maybe a more complex river are some of the changes I want to make. Now is also a great time to give me ideas, as it will be a lot easier to implement them into the design rather than later. Generally, I’m working more on the basic layout and what will be included in the city, so ideas pertaining to that would be the most helpful, but any other ideas are also more than welcome! ________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Thank you for taking some time to look at my project (and thank you especially if you had the courage and patience to read everything!). Please remember to let me know if you are interested in helping build or lead this project, or if you know of anyone who would be willing to. More information about that, and the other projects I have planned, is in my other post here. Information and discussion about the donation system is posted here I look forward to reading any responses and working on this project with all of you! Suggestions are more than welcome (they are suggested). This is more than a team build. It is a community build, and I want to let everyone have a part in this. And if you liked this, look forward to more work on this and my other projects. (Oh, and don’t worry. I will be working on this regardless of how the team and donation system work out. It will just take a LOT longer) Ok then. I’m DONE! (my fingers hurt)

Well, its 3 in the morning, and I just finished writing the post. I have been working non-stop on it since 6pm (with the exception of dinner). I still have to photo-edit to make some marking notes on the pictures. That is the only thing left, and then I can FINALLY post this beast. It came out to 5 pages on word for the main hub post, and 8 pages for the current build that I am planning. I'm getting dizzy however, so I think I'm gonna take my much needed sleep. But this is how it usually works for me. I try too hard, end up being a little late, but come in with way more than I thought I would. Bright and early I'm gonna finish those pictures and get it all posted. Sorry again for the delay. I just want to be as thorough as possible so that you have the best understanding possible. Thanks for waiting!!!!

oh my! It's already tomorrow! Sorry. I just got done resizing the images. I just need to add a few "drawn in" notes, write the descriptions for the pictures, and I'm done. There are 61 pictures, so it has taken me a while to take them, fix them, size them, etc. Should be out in maybe a couple hours. Working as fast as I can!

AHHHH!! Ran out of time again. Sorry guys, my first post won't be up until tomorrow (for me). There was a lot more content I saw I needed to put into the posts, not to mention edit them for the changes after the last few posts here. Also, the programs I was testing to see if I could get better pictures with ended up taking to long to work, so I ended up going back to LDD (and it takes a while to get that where I need it to be). All that, and I needed to eat I promise though that when I get home tomorrow, I will not stop working to get that post up! (even if it costs me a bunch of sleep). Funny thing though, after all this, just today I completely reworked the layout and design in my head, so what I post tomorrow isn't going to be my layout. I just thought, after all this wait, I have to show something for all my talk. Anyway, sorry for the wait.

Yeah, I thought about that too. To be honest, it's a little bit of both. I really want to build a large model, and I also really wanted to do something in the world to help people. I sort of felt I wasted so much of my life thinking of what I would do in the future and not of what I was doing currently. It was sort of a depressing moment, but I thought, maybe if I could kick start my efforts, it would in some part make up for the rest, and in another way get me on the right path. At the same time I was just beginning to plan this model, and I thought, what if I could combine my two efforts and do something I'm good at to help people. As for the sponsorship / private entity choice, I've looked into that a bit myself, and decided that the work, fees, and effort put into creating a non-profit would be too high a price, and that getting a sponsor is a much easier and more reasonable route. The only issue there is FINDING a sponsor. But, I have some spare time (of course I do if I want to build something like this), so I will ask around. (along with asking around for people who would be willing the head the project and join the project.) Thanks for your comments and help so much!

Understood! I completely agree with you there. I've been thinking about it, and although I may feel competent at building this, I definitely see how it would end up becoming overwhelming or fall apart. Though my heart is a little broken, I understand your points. However, I would like to ask questions as to my further options going along with your points. If I were to get someone with more experience to head the project, and allow me to be the lead designer, could that work? I am going to post my designs, plans, etc and from there maybe someone would be interested enough. I live in the Chicago area, so I know there are a decent amount of AFOLs here. I'd just need to find someone interested and willing to take up the project. Eilif posted a link to a Chicago community that does events, and I looked through and saw that they build similar stuff for their displays. I don't know yet, but I could ask around and see if I could recruit enough people from there also. But if I could get enough people... Like I said, I will be posting my initial designs, but from there I was hoping anyway that the community could help in designing. Now with a team, I'm pretty sure redesigns and possibly complete overhauls would happen, but I'm more than willing to put my project in good hands. I would still like to have a say in the project The only problem I would see is with designing it with eventual buyer in mind. With an auction I would find that hard to do. As for the charity, I meant to ask because I was afraid I wouldn't get enough supporters for a charity if I picked the one I support the most. But I definitely understand what you mean. In that respect however, I would still want to make sure at least the team supports the charity, but from this point I will stick to the one I really feel a need to help. That is a very good point. I was planning on initially building the model with my own money and then relying on donations. But I didn't think to have it partially finished before I would ask for donations. I suppose with a team at work on it, maybe some other members might want to help with the initial cost also, but I won't expect it. With a team, the time frame could be reasonable at under a year. I was just setting a time frame if I were to build it alone. I also ask that you view my post once it is finished before responding, as it might give a better understanding of what I am trying to build. But if I were to continue the project in accordance with the points above and any other rules or ideas you may have, I am asking if you would reconsider allowing this on EB. As for an additional note, not that it matters but, I have a personal reason for wanting to do this so fast without going through the learning curve of smaller projects, but it's extremely personal for me, and I think most would just look at me skeptically anyway. I am not trying to say anything there, it is just something that is very hard for me personally to work with, and so I would not want to ask anyone else to think about it.

Thanks for all the help and responses! I'm currently at work on the other post so it might take me a bit to give a response more specifically. Thank you!

Hi, I'm pretty sure you removed the "design by me" box filter. This adds the Mindstorms and Creator brick palette, which you are unable to purchase from. If you notice the 4 boxes above the brick palette that filter color, etc, the 3rd one to the right is the "box filter". It says "filter bricks by boxes". Click on that, and then on Design By Me (the first option). This will show you only the buyable bricks. I checked just in case to see if I got any new bricks and so far nothing. Unless its region specific, I think its the box filter. When you click on the "turn off filters" button it does that. Hope this helped!

Hi, Thanks for the help! To comment on your points: 1) I was thinking that I could specify the types and colors of bricks that I would be accepting. Once I make my "first" post with the details of the model (still working on it. I tend to write a lot and give tons of detail) you might get a better idea of just how wide a range of pieces I'm looking for. But still, I'd limit the types of bricks to ones I know I'm going to use or think I might use. I'd make an easy list for people to look through for what they could send. Good point about sending bricks back. I could sell unused bricks for more bricks if needed, like you said. 2) I was hoping that if I had really good donations I could use a small amount just for "start-up" costs for the next models. This might include the structural or base pieces, any non-Lego hardware needed to build, etc. Since I'd have a lot of that already from the first model, the cost would go down anyway. But this would only be if I'd get a lot of donations. Otherwise I was just going to try and save up enough money myself for every next project. 3) Yes I would! That is why I am asking the community which ones they support and seeing if I can match them with the charities I have in mind. I want to make sure that I don't end up supporting a charity that no one else supports (and since I support a few, there are options). 4) That's why I was also thinking of just displaying it myself on behalf of the charity. Thank you for the information on that! Now I know! I also thought I could bring it to a few Lego events and see if people would donate there. 5) Eh, that is an issue. I'm not a kid, so no donations in that respect. But with the whole sponsorship thing, exactly how would that work? Would they be sponsoring my project, which in turn is going towards a charity? How hard is it to get sponsors like this? I've got a pretty rich high-school right next door to me, but I don't know the laws on them sponsoring people and such. Also, if I were to go there and display, how would that work out? Especially in the legal respect. I really don't want to get into trouble trying to collect for charity and such. 6) Well, I was planning on expanding the raffle to beyond just Eurobricks. I was also hoping that some people might even buy multiple raffle tickets. I wanted to include as many Lego communities as I could, and also any community I could find and reach. That would include a few schools, colleges, some churches, and some businesses. Also, I live by 3 Lego stores, so I could go there (though i don't know how that would work either). I would have to find the right amount to charge for a raffle ticket though. But I would hope that a few thousand people out of the many Lego communities would want to buy a raffle ticket and not only get a chance to win a giant model, but also help support a charity. Though I don't have much experience in that sort of thing, so I'd have to ask you how many people would go for something like that. 7) That is always a risk in this sort of thing, but a risk I am more than willing to take. But that is also why I am here, to make sure I limit that risk to the smallest amount possible. Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I probably should fill out my profile a little bit more, woops Oh by the way, I couldn't help but notice that you are from Chicago. So am I! (yup, filling out my profile) I was thinking Brickworld wouldn't be a bad place to go for this. Back to work on my long post!

Working on the post at the moment! Should be up (I think in the city forum) in 2 days.

I had one other idea that came to mind. It has some issues with it, along with some benefits. The idea would be to have the whole thing set-up as a raffle. There are a few ways this could work. One way would be to have between the first $1 and first $10 go toward the project, and a place in the raffle. The winner would win the model, and it would either be a random draw, or a "piece guess". The rest of the money would go towards either presenting the model at fundraising events, or to the charity of the winner's choice. The model could be displayed at different events, or on behalf of the charity, and then after a certain period (as a quick idea, 1-2 years) be awarded to the winner. Another way this could work is that the winner gets to donate the model to a charity of their choice. All the extra donations would also go to this charity. A possibility with the second way is where the extra donations would flow over into the next project, and another winner would get to donate that model to a charity of their choice. Finally, with any piece donation, the pieces would be used in building the model, and any extra pieces not used would either be sent back or used in the next model, depending on what the sender requests. As a little extra, I was thinking that people could also donate "added art"; where people could send in small creations that would fit within the model, creating a collective work. This would not be a "section" build, but rather things like figs, decorations, vehicles, etc (depending on the model). I would have to ok any piece before it is sent to make sure it fits within the scope and style of the model however. I was also thinking about the charity question. Some of the ones I had in mind decently fit the "everybody" mentality, in which they are global entities, and perform work of a broad topic base effecting many people. Since this is a global website, with members from all over the world, I thought it would be best to support a foundation that works to help people all over the world. I've done some research into a few other foundations that fit this criteria, but I would still like some input into what foundations would be supported within the community. But like I said earlier, if it would be a raffle system, the winner could choose the charity. I would have to make sure the charity is a legitimate one. And one issue with this is that the charity the winner chooses could be one another person who donated doesn't support. But that is why I'm here to figure out how this will work. Thanks for all the help and input!

Well, unfortunately for me this is one of the first projects I'm doing. I know, I'm a bit out of my league and dreaming big here, but that's why I'm putting a ton of R&D time into building styles, designs, techniques etc. As for proof of my capability I'm working on that. I'm hoping to get my model plans and design up soon (within the week) and I'm building a "layout" in LDD (or MLCAD or SR3D depending on which decides to work) and a few detailed "testers" to show what I'm shooting for in terms of final look. The layout is pretty much finished. It took me a good month to do the "pre-production" planning, and a good 2-3 weeks (including 18 hour non-stop sessions) to build the layout in LDD. As for the charity, I have a few that I personally support and want to donate to, but realistically I think I would have to pin down a charity that would get the most support from the most people, because of the fact that it is such a large model. There is one issue with the project, and I think you prove it in a way when you say, "it makes a difference what the charity is both for the design of the project" as the design of the project does not fit the ideals or purpose of most charities. It's just a model. that fact also makes it seem more fitting to put the model up for auction rather than donating the actual model to charity, which I've thought about, but never really got to any good conclusion with. As for the timeline, I would be hoping to get the project done within a 2 year time span, but it would all depend on how fast the donations would come in, since the project relies solely on donations to be built once my few thousand dollars and limited assortment of pieces runs dry. I'd be spending a lot of time actually on the project, so the speed of my work wouldn't be too much of a limiting factor. Most of the design I'm hoping will be done with programs so that I can efficiently build the model. I'll be sure to run this by the staff. I'm also thinking of spreading the project across multiple communities, but I'm a loyal follower and love Eurobricks so I thought you guys could be the leading influence and heart of the project. As a final note, just to be clear, I am not as of yet asking for any donations. This is purely an inquiry into the possibilities that I have. Thank you for the help so far!

Thanks! I tried SR3D but the model didn't load. I'm gonna try loading it in parts maybe later, but for now I'm gonna test out MLCAD and see if I can get used to it (or if it will even work). I want to have an official "start" post where I post the files, pictures, and information about the model, so you will have to be patient with me on that. I'm trying to get it up this weekend but time's running short (it always does). When I get the file up there, you can test it out on your systems to see how it runs. This is so exciting!