Evil Starship Factory

More Lego Stuff, Pt. 04

evil_genius_180 — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:46:02 +0000

More space Legos. The Space Transport. Though, I can’t imagine what it’s transporting, the cockpit is large enough for a single occupant and the cargo space is about big enough for his luggage.

The X1 Patrol Craft (though, I wouldn’t want to patrol space in an open cockpit. )

The X1 was partly built in PCLinuxOS in my compiled version of LeoCad while I was installing some other software.

LeoCad in Linux

evil_genius_180 — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:08:16 +0000

I just compiled LeoCad 0.75.2 for Linux. They have a .rpm package, but it’s for version 0.74, so I downloaded the source and compiled it. (I love open source ) Now I can play in LeoCad in either Windows or Linux. Though, unless I can find something that can import the LeoCad objects properly in Linux, I’ll still have to render them in Windows using trueSpace. Anywho, here she is and here’s my latest build also:

More Lego Stuff, Pt. 03

evil_genius_180 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:06:23 +0000

More Space Legos, the Space Dart and the ATV.

More Lego Stuff, Pt. 02

evil_genius_180 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:27:39 +0000

I decided to put together a few of the “smaller” sets in the classic space series. These 3 are from 1979, which is a very good year, I might add.

The only major import issue with these LeoCad models is the faces. trueSpace doesn’t like the geometry on the faces, so those were coming out bad. To fix this, I’ve been giving my spacemen plain heads and textured them in trueSpace with a smiley face texture I made last night in Inkscape. (I guess they all work in a space Walmart ) It looks just like the classic smiley head, but without the mesh errors. Once I go back to the SW stuff, I’ll have to make some more face textures for those heads, because none of them use the classic smiley.

Also, I tried to export one of my models to POV-Ray, but it keeps messing up on me. I point it to where the LGEO stuff is installed, but it keeps telling me that it can’t find LGEO. So, I’ve given up for now. I’ll try to figure that out when I’m not sick.

More Lego Stuff, Pt. 01

evil_genius_180 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:12 +0000

Yes, it’s more Legos. If you were hoping to see something else, too bad. For some reason, this is the only 3D I’ve been in the mood to do lately.

I wasn’t in the mood to do any work on the Death Star today. That’s a huge project that’s going to take a while and I’m going to have to work on it bits at a time so that I don’t get burned out on it. So, in lieu of working on that, I decided to do one of the old space sets, the Star Cruiser. Now, for some reason, from time to time, Lego released the same kit twice with a different number. This one was released as set #487 and set #924. They’re identical (even the instructions) and both were released in 1978, so it makes no sense to me. Anywho, I went with 924 because the instructions were in better shape. Anywho, it turned out really well:

LeoCad had all of the parts for this though, for some reason, they only had the small bricks and minifig chest with the emblem with a black planet. Since the planet in this set and most of the others from back then is yellow, I recolored it in trueSpace. I plan to do more stuff from the classic space series.

On a side note: these are Legos. They’re bricks, you put them together normally. It’s all basic construction, which can easily be achieved in LeoCad. I was looking at instructions from some of the newer kits and I was shocked at how complex they’ve become. They have all of these odd bricks, cams and pins and whatnot. LeoCad doesn’t like the irregular stuff, it won’t line up correctly with the grid snap turned on. You have to do it manually. It can be done, but it’s a PITA. I prefer the classic Legos with simple construction.

Lego Star Wars Pt. 08

evil_genius_180 — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:46:09 +0000

I decided I hated my first turret. Technically, it was pretty accurate to the one in the movie. However, the one in the movie had little greeble bits and painted details, neither of which is an option when one is working with Legos. So, I took some artistic license and made a new turret. After all, it’s not like my Death Star surface details are going to match what was in the movie anyway (neither do the ones in the Lego Star Wars games.)

Anywho, I’m happy now. Or at least happier, anyway. I’m getting sick, so that’s not a happy thing.

Lego Star Wars Pt. 07

evil_genius_180 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:21:53 +0000

Work has started on the bottom of the Death Star Trench. Obviously, this is going to be a much longer build than those Lego sets were.

Lego Star Wars Pt. 06

evil_genius_180 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:16:22 +0000

I’m getting into uncharted territory here. To my knowledge, there’s no Lego kit for this. I built a turret that’s similar to the ones on the Death Star’s surface and in the trench. It’s pretty basic but, without being able to really greeble it, that’s how it’s going to stay. I’m building at least part of the surface and trench, so there will be several of these on there.

Even though it’s not necessary because this is CGI, the turret is built like it actually would be out of Legos. The parts that should move are built so that they actually would if it was made in the real world. The top is on a 2×2 turntable brick and the guns are on bricks with hinges on them. The parts rotate as they should. I rigged it in trueSpace so that the top and guns rotate as they should, on their respective moving parts. To illustrate this, I rendered a short animation of it in motion.

Lego Death Star Turret Animation Test from Chris Martin on Vimeo.

It’s in 720p, so advise watching it in HD on Vimeo. This rendered very quickly, mostly due to the fact that the Legos aren’t textured, which means it’s looking like a good possibility that I might do some Lego SW animations.

Lego Star Wars Pt. 05

evil_genius_180 — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:32:41 +0000

The TIE Advanced X1 (Vader’s TIE.)

And the Dark Lord himself.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

evil_genius_180 — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:44:10 +0000

One of my favorite scenes from Star Wars, recreated in Legos. Yes, I know it’s been done before, but not by me. These ships were taking a lot longer to render than they should after I imported them from LeoCad, but then I changed the materials to make them look better in an art render and now, aside from looking better, they also render a lot faster (who knew? )

Anywho, this is just one of several Lego scenes I have planned from Star Wars. The rest involve me building the TIE Advanced X1 (Vader’s TIE) and at least part of the Death Star trench and surface in LeoCad. Also, if I feel up to making the Death Star in LeoCad, I might do the rear perspective of this scene. So, stay tuned for more.

A note about the planet: it’s intentionally “under detailed.” Since the Legos present a kind of cartoon-ish look, I decided that Yavin should also be cartoon-ish. So, I didn’t go to any great lengths to create it. It’s just a low(ish) poly sphere with a simple 4k texture map and a glow added to the background to simulate the atmosphere. Since the Legos aren’t that detailed and also look pretty low poly themselves, (even though they’re not) I figure it works.