I was reading this article from Brickset about a scanned Bricks and Pieces No. 2 from Spring '75. It was an interesting read and a fun look into LEGO's past. I especially liked the "What is it?" article, a puzzle of instructions laid out in layers. I was pretty sure I knew what it was, but I just had to give it a go in LDD to verify. I was right, it was a Panda! Not content with just a simple screenshot, I exported it into POV-Ray. I think it came out very nicely.
A more interesting scene using the Polar Bear from January 2011 Monthly Mini Build.
![olar Bear by Steven Reid[/url], on Flickr](https://live.staticflickr.com/5006/5341984354_603c3391f0_n.jpg)
Polar Bear is the January Mini Build. This is celebrated monthly at LEGO(R) Stores. First new render for 2011. Rendered with POV-Ray 3.7 R2.
Thought this unreleased LEGO mini snow speeder would be fun to render. Not sure why this wan’t released. It was probably due to the cockpit. Oddly, LEGO released the instructions, apparently in 2008.
Ran across this 1983 Class Space set while perusing Peeron. It is a pretty simple model so it was nice quick project to build and render. Unfortunately, I didn’t have part 4360 (Black Minifig Accessory Camera with Side Sight) already. Fortunately, the piece had been modeled as part of the LGEO library so I used it. Some days I think I should just give up modeling my own.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I have multiple hobbies. I tend to want to try new things, which often means I don’t stay focused. In the case below, I divided my time between two of my interests.
Ran across these great seasonal models perusing Brickset. They are simple yet effective, really showing how LEGO models can shine with such few bricks. The Jack’o’lantern is just perfect and I love the use of the cheese slopes as teeth. I liked the yellow eyes of the bat. I didn’t bother modeling the ghost. It is a good model, but not enough to model.
I was having fun again with LDD and POV-Ray and thought this would make an interesting render after my first attempt. I also uploaded a slightly different version to LEGO’s gallery with different eyes stalks.
Okay, I went a bit overboard creating an updated version of my Waterfall with more accurate bricks and logo. I even randomly rotated the bricks to break up the monotony of the the logos. The first version with the LEGO logo was a bit too uniform.
This is the second version of my simple waterfall experiment. I limited myself to a 4x4 plate and the bricks and colors available in LDD. I added a bit more foliage and color variation to the cliff.
Okay, I admit that lighting isn’t my strong suit. I’m good with geometry and scripting. But I struggle making the images look as good as they should. These photos are my attempts to try to get better colors and realistic lighting from POV-Ray.
I’ve been having a lot of fun lately creating LEGO POV-Ray models and I thought I’d share! Brink Link was nice enough to post instructions for the SDCC 2010 Cube Dudes which I had to model! I’ve finished R2-D2 and C-3PO and they look great!
Here is my take on LEGO Stores Watermelon Monthly Mini Model Build for July. This model screams Summer and one just didn’t seem enough. Playing around with better lighting, fog to soften light and JPEG artifacts, and a bit of focal blur thrown in for good measure.
I uploaded a couple of LEGO renders today, a new one and an old one.
This is the wonderful 21006 White House. I love the look and did my best to recreate it, but I’m sure things aren’t quite the same. I didn’t finish the back yet, so don’t turn it around.
I found a number of old models from 1969 and rendered many last year, including this one. I finally got around to rendering larger a larger version with a better background (originally it has a seam in the back). If you search for this, you'll find that I fudged the trees and used something newer.
I rendered this a couple of weeks ago and thought I’d share. This is LEGO(R) Model 357 Fire Station with Vehicles from 1973. I’d like to create a more “action oriented” version in the future, but it is pretty nice to begin with. I personally like the middle engine with the two yellow rounds. It was the reason I rendered the model to begin with.
Flickr has become my new favorite place to share my LEGO creations. I tend to use Facebook for family and friends, mainly because that is what my family and friends use. But I digress. It is pretty easy now to use available tools, mine being Windows Live Photo Gallary, that allow easy publishing. That means more time building and less time cropping and uploading. In all, a good use of technology.
Well, I’m finding the 64bit version of Windows 7 works pretty well. I have most of my applications running again, using the 64bit versions if I could find them. The SSD drive is working great and I'm just using an external drive enclosure to get around the space limitations.
Playing around with POV-Ray animation. This is LEGO model 367 Lunar Lander. I’m trying to be a bit more ambitious with camera sweeps, using easing functions and launching the lander into space!
I finally got around to trying my hand again at animating some of my virtual LEGO creations. I decided to go simple and animate the vanes and a simple camera pan for the promotional Windmill circa 1976. And, to really get my geek on, I uploaded it to YouTube.
This is LEGO® model 5865 MiniDumper, part of the 2009 Creator series. I thought it looked really cool and was curious how close I could get to the original by building a virtual one.
I was playing around with World Machine and thought I’d add the height field to my Power Station image. I think it really conveys the overall scale of the scene. I also added a better star field that shows up under anti-aliasing (best seen in large version). Note that the image has been color corrected and converted to JPEG using Picasa.
I’ve finished rendering 21005 Fallingwater in POV-Ray. Only 3 new bricks needed to be modeled so most of the time was spent inputing brick positions. I like this angle as it really shows off the waterfall.
I don’t normally post “work in progress” but this one is pretty large and I wanted to show off what I had so far. It may not look like much yet, but I’ve finished my favorite part of the 21005 Fallingwater model: the waterfall.