Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

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FSTargetDrone
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by FSTargetDrone »

Excellent work! The truck looks great.
RogueIce wrote:I have no idea what the official model's rear bumper looks like, so I winged it. It is sort of like the front bumper, though I added backup lights and a license plate. I like the license plate for the fact it's recessed into the bumper a bit, something fairly common among vans and trucks that I've seen. Also, the rear bumper makes a nice little step into the rear compartment. An actual minifig would be on "tip toes" trying to climb it, but as anyone who has enough Lego experience knows, trying to scale to those little bastards is simply making it "good enough" rather than absolute.
You can see all views of this model (or any other) by using the kit number (7245, in this case) with the search feature at Brickshelf, assuming someone has taken pictures of the kit in question and it looks like someone has. Just watch out for pictures of alternative or modified kits. Usually they are labeled as such. In this case, it looks like there is a platform at the rear with plates forming steps.

Frankly, your design looks much better.
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by RogueIce »

Just to show I've still got love for the firefighters and paramedics, here's my ambulance and a new version of my fire truck!
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Nothing too exciting here. Biggest things are a correction to the forward wheel arch, which I originally had up higher than the rear set in my police van (which was what this started off as, but a recolor), and the back end details. I've fixed that on here and for the van as well, which made both models a bit more expensive. The police van is $99.16 and the ambulance is around $100. I think the higher price for this model is because of my 'paint scheme' work: I would've used slightly more bricks to make the stripes work the way I wanted them to.

The back end details are the biggest thing. As I mentioned before, I decided to add some stuff there. The black 'button' is for the sake of having an explanation for how the minifigs make it work. Since it hinges from the top, I assume the button has an open/close function as a powered door, since the minifigs wouldn't be able to open it with just their hands. The little angled plate thing is mostly there for human use, to make it easier to open it with your finger. Naturally, I've done the same mods to the police van. I also redid the tail lights and so forth a bit, changed on both models.

And now, my new, improved and most importantly, uploadable fire truck!
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So aside from changing up the color scheme to match with the ambulance, I changed the doors to be about the same as all my other doors now, except these are a bit taller to account for the fire truck being, well, a fire truck. :D I also changed the front and rear bumper areas as well a bit. And the lightbars, of course. I'm all about keeping a common theme. Additionally, a couple little tools are now on there as well, although the ladder went bye-bye.

But as mentioned before, the most exciting thing is that I took the time to go find the nonuploading pieces and take them out. This was the major reason behind the change in doors: uniformity is nice and all, but the big red doors of the original model can't be uploaded. The price for this beast is $162.86

Eventually I should add rear view mirrors to the engine. For those, I'll probably steal FSTargetDrone's method. :D Honestly I suppose my police truck and ambulance should have those type of mirrors as well, instead of the ones off my police car model. But what can I say, I'm lazy like that. :wink:

On that note, my sister saw me messing around with LDD, and said I should try and get a job with Lego as a model designer. Well, that wouldn't work out too well. Aside from having no idea how to be hired as a Lego model maker, I tend to put in too much detail. As an example, the official police mobile command post tractor trailer set is something around 50 bucks. My version is almost three times that at $149.93! Sure it's big and impressive looking, but the price is a bit much. Heck, my police cars, now that I've fixed those, run around 60 bucks, more or less. So yeah...I'd have to scale back a lot if I made models for general sale. :oops:

(This isn't even the most expensive thing I've made yet. I have a weird-ass scifi battle vehicle/transport thing with pew-pew lasers out the ass. That's currently around $240, and I'm still tweaking it every now and again)
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"How can I wait unknowing?
This is the price of war,
We rise with noble intentions,
And we risk all that is pure..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, Forever (Rome: Total War)

"On and on, through the years,
The war continues on..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, We Are All One (Medieval 2: Total War)
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by RogueIce »

So LDD has a new version. Yay! I'm honestly torn on this one. First, near as I can tell, there was no brick update, just the software. Second, it displays differently than it used to. I'm about to see how the new screenshots look. Third, and this is a good thing, the hinge tool is way easier to use with that little wheel thing up in the corner.

Anyway, on to the pictures.
RogueIce wrote:(This isn't even the most expensive thing I've made yet. I have a weird-ass scifi battle vehicle/transport thing with pew-pew lasers out the ass. That's currently around $240, and I'm still tweaking it every now and again)
Speaking of this, and just to prove I'm capable of doing something other than emergency vehicles, I had planned to showcase this puppy. It's probably a bit wank-tastic, but who cares? So I go to open up, LDD gives me the usual warning that it's an old model, so it may not open right, blah blah, and that one brick was placed incorrectly and was removed. No biggie, I figured; my cars had some problems like that on the doors and it was easy enough to fix.

Turns out, I was wrong:

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Yeah. Definately more than one brick. The weird thing is, apparently they're still there, but they just don't render! Sounds odd, but look at this:

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Yep, it's highlighting a brick that's there, but isn't displaying! It appears this model broke LDD. Although it didn't, because my other designs load fine. And when I reloaded this one after checking those, it was still weird (though slightly less this time). I even closed LDD, restarted it, and opened up the model and it still has the invisible bricks. When I move a brick, it's visible. When I put it back, it disappears again. So I have no idea what the deal is here...

Anyway, since that one's borked, you're stuck with...yet another emergency vehicle out of me. :razz:

This one is a police command post truck. Inspired by the actual LEGO model of same, but as usual bigger, more detailed...and more expensive.

First up, the frontal shot:

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Note that the one on top is the model, as it actually is. The second is just to show "what was" before. You see, when I did the new bumper designs, rather than the grille lights, I actually made it look like the second (bottom) image of the truck (this is also how official models do it, basically). I thought that looked pretty neat, but eventually I just went with grille lights and used the angled bricks on the bottom row as a bumper. Well since this is a truck I sort-of revived the old scheme; since it's a double height grille, I put the transparent blue angle bricks on the edge as a different form of grille lights, since I figured this wouldn't have it. At some point I've changed the emergency lights for police vehicles to all blue, hence why the red transparent light isn't on the finished model. So I basically tossed the second image up there for a little note on the evolution of my designs.

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Here's a side view. You can see I did the ball joint connector, and you'll notice I have a second connector coming off the back. More on that later. Biggest thing to note here is the door, which hinges up (unlike the official model, which has the whole side of the truck hinge). Also those clear 1x2 bricks are meant to be spotlights. I also did a ladder for the minifigs to climb up, and the stands are retractable.

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A back view. Nothing that exciting here, except noting that pretty much every emergency service vehicle I make gets the traffic control lights. You can even see it up on the cab.

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And here's a view inside. They basically sit in front of two computers, and have that clock. Don't ask me why the red and green lights are there; I saw something like them on the official model, and I guess I just copied it. I'm sure they serve a purpose. Also notice the trans-yellow 1x2s. Yes, I'm anal enough to make sure they have lighting inside the trailer. Also, those vents on the front of the trailer are for air conditioning, and you can just see that I also included A/C vents on the inside. Like I said, I'm a bit anal about some of these details. :wink:

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Another view of the interior. You can see the negotiator/command guy in the back at his desk. He has a walkie-talkie because there's no phone piece (I think there is in LDD, but it's non-uploadable so screw it).

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Here's a view of the back of the cab. You can basically see how I did the top joint. I also included one on the back, for a more traditional type of trailer, like you'd use to carry a boat on or something. I actually was making such a trailer for an alt-version of the model, but when I had made a ton of progress, LDD crashed and I hadn't saved. :( Since then, I haven't yet bothered to go back and redo it, but I probably will eventually.

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This is a close-up of the ball on the bottom of the trailer. Basically included to let you know that yes, I took the time to cover it up.

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And an interior view of it. Obviously, I didn't take the time to actually make the A/C extend back to the interior wall. I suppose this setup is a bit unrealistic, but hey, it just goes to show I'm not totally anal, just a bit overly anal; a subtle yet important distinction. :wink:

Although yes, I did do a SNOT for the ball joint. Blow me. :razz:

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And finally, in case you didn't know, these are the three pieces that go into it. The receiver on the cab is basically indentical, it just has the socket peice instead of the ball.

So in all this I realized; I forgot to give it truck-like rearview mirrors, and instead stuck with the car style ones. Especially annoying, because I updated my police van and ambulance with more truck style mirrors! Of course I realize I did this after I took and cropped the screenshots, so I'll just show the ambulance as an example.

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There you can see the truck-style mirrors. I also included the orange "running lights" (or whatever they're called) on the top. I also made some adjustments to the side emergency lighting and spotlights.

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A rear view, to show the clear 1x2 tile I used as the mirror itself.

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And finally, a "driving" view centered on my police car. Demonstrating that, if you're far enough back, you can see the mirrors. Which also means, the ambulance driver can see you! At least, that's what all those bumper stickers I see on semis tell me. :D

Well, that was a freaking huge update. Tell me what y'all thought, please.
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"How can I wait unknowing?
This is the price of war,
We rise with noble intentions,
And we risk all that is pure..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, Forever (Rome: Total War)

"On and on, through the years,
The war continues on..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, We Are All One (Medieval 2: Total War)
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by Phantasee »

I :luv: your mirrors. The fifth wheel and pin are also very nicely done. You guys are getting really accurate with your trucks, more than I ever thought possible at that scale.
XXXI
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by RogueIce »

After much time, I have created a military transport helicopter:

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I'm not really happy with the tail boom and how it looks, but I started on it and by the time I knew I wasn't happy I was too far along to want to change it. Maybe next time...

And yeah, it's kinda fat, but as usual, that's the fault of making it Minifig scale. And the cost? $129.99! Owch...
Image
"How can I wait unknowing?
This is the price of war,
We rise with noble intentions,
And we risk all that is pure..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, Forever (Rome: Total War)

"On and on, through the years,
The war continues on..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, We Are All One (Medieval 2: Total War)
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight
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FSTargetDrone
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by FSTargetDrone »

The thread has been quiet for well over a year but I just wanted to mention that the official Lego "Design By Me" service that allows you to design a model, upload it and purchase an actual set of bricks for your model is ending on 16 January, 2012. So if you are actually interested in getting your own custom kit, do it fast. I've tweaked my rig (seen earlier in the thread) off and on and I think I'm actually going to get the parts, probably this week. I'll post photos of it once I have it in hand and built.

There is no indication that the Lego Digital Designer software itself will stop working, so you can probably continue to build as many electronic models as you want.
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Phantasee
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Re: Playing With Digital Lego (Somewhat 56K OK)

Post by Phantasee »

I really hope you ordered the parts! I'd love to see it built.
XXXI
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