July 2010: Like stepping on a lego brick

[stwert]

So I'm definitely excited about doing this one, and as I haven't seen any Lego yet... a legoman!
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5620/legogeofront01.png

And the back... the holes were quite tricky.
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5671/legogeoback01.png

And a wireframe image.
Fullsize (http://img63.imageshack.us/i/legomanwiresback01.jpg/)http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2541/legomanwiresback01.th.jpg

Still getting used to this imageshack posting... moderators? What's the best way to post these? If I use the full-size via a URL, is that a problem? Thanks.

The legoman isn't really my project, but it will enter into it. My main project is my stuffed tiger, Caspian, that I got at Disneyland when I was little. Caspian, because he's a Caspian Tiger, unfortunately hunted/habitat destroyed to extinction. Hope you enjoy it! Comments, crits, please.

[Dean]

real nice looking lego character :D

[stwert]

Thanks, I'll get it textured in the near future.

[stwert]

Well for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that I'm having a blast with this Lego, I've decided to focus on Lego for my project. Maybe I'll model my tiger in the future, but I can imagine that the Maya fur -never having touched it- would be quite difficult to get looking right, and I want to do a bit more...
So I've decided to do a small lego set that I had when I was a kid, two merrymen type guys in a forest hideout.
So my thread will be erroneously titled for the remainder of the project, which is alright I guess.

UVed my lego guy here. Legomen are only really ever textured on the face, the front of the body and occasionally the front of the legs. So that's where the main area is in the map.
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/920/legouved.jpg (http://img708.imageshack.us/i/legouved.jpg/)
I found the instruction booklet from the set and I'll set to work on that soon.

[stwert]

Haha, well although I never chewed on my lego, I will keep that in mind when I texture it. Thanks.

[purplemikey]

cats do...
my cats chewed all my legos when I was young... I was furious to see my little guy with the mustach chewed... he was the one leading the army so it was kinda sad to see him hurt even before the war started!

anyway... nice modeling + Uv warping!
if you want to go into lego you should make a little lego village to make the turnable in

[stwert]

Started making some bricks... here's a bunch of them. Having so much fun with this! I love lego... :D
http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/8950/legopiecesocc01.jpg

[stwert]

Some more pieces... this is getting tedious :)
I've got most of the measurements down, or at least estimated, but I keep running into new challenges. Well, I'm learning lots anyway.
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/6870/legopiecesocc02.jpg

[purplemikey]

I really like the bricks good looking stuff =]

[stwert]

Few more! Still gotta do weapons, fire, ladder, treasure chest...
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/3896/legopiecesocc03.jpg

[DjVoyager]

Kewl! Legos were huge back in the 80s and 90s, extremely sturdy too. Ah, I still remember that feeling of stepping on one...not pleasant.

[stwert]

Haha Dj, all too true...
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/legos

[DjVoyager]

Haha Dj, all too true...
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/legos

LOL! This can be used as a metaphor, "You know when you step on a lego? That's how it felt..." and most ppl will get it right away.

[stwert]

A couple more pieces, the bottom of a treasure chest... I don't have measurements for things like that, and I don't like just guessing for how big it should be. It's tricky to estimate sizes, cause you zoom out to see the lego piece regular size and see that it's way too small or something. Anyway, should be on to some weapons relatively soon :)http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/6621/legopiecesocc04.jpg

[stwert]

And a couple more...http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3752/legopiecesocc05.jpg
Done all the bricks essentially. The only things left to model are 5 weapons, a shield, and a hat.

[purplemikey]

I like it.
Can't wait to see the final version of it! won't be too hard to texture ^^

[Blodiiks]

wow who never had a lego??
Good work Stwert

[stwert]

Haha, thanks for the tip Bravo. I have been doing that right from the start, made templates for bumps, holes, brick heights, plate heights... it was going really fast until I ran into things like fire and leaves. You might be wondering why I've modelled the bumps for all the pieces as many will be covered... but I guess you'll see eventually.

[mariofurtado]

Nice modeling man,
keep it up.

[spyro]

Lol, I'm sure you can make any LEGO box from the store after doing this project :p! So many parts already! Keep up the good work.

[stwert]

Thanks mariofurtado!
Haha, spyro, I'm surprised by how many different parts there are in this small set alone! I think I've got just a fraction of all the possible pieces. But maybe after this competition, I'll keep making new parts and start building bigger and better sets, who knows :)

[stwert]

And a couple weapons finally, after a short break. Hoping to have the modelling essentially done by the end of the weekend, only five more pieces to do. If anybody else ever wants to work with lego, peeron.com is an essential resource. Love that site.
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/4404/legopiecesocc06.jpg

[purplemikey]

thanks for the website !
good looking weapons!

[stwert]

And the rest of the weapons. On to the texturing and assembly! (Got a hat to do yet, but I'll do it later when the lego guy comes into the picture again).http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/1389/legopiecesocc07.jpg

Edit: I know the occlusion isn't the easiest to see sometimes, but I'll post some wires a bit down the road too.

[DigitalSprocket]

Those are looking fantastic stwert. Really starting to bring back some nostalgia here. Keep up the good work.

[purplemikey]

I was just about to ask wires of the weapons haha.
Can't wait to see 'em!

[stwert]

Assembled at last! Putting it together was a snap (pun intended) with x and z step size of 8mm and y step size of 3.2mm. http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9765/assembledsettest01.jpg
Added a bit of color, but not happy with it yet. Using a phong material, but it doesn't quite have the punch I want. Any tips? And the colors are slightly wrong too, despite using the "official" RGB values. Weird. Anyway, the promised wireframes too, of my 30-odd pieces.
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/1375/wiresall.jpg

[DigitalSprocket]

Hey hey, its assembled. Your Lego's are lookin' pretty sweet. I'm not great with materials myself but I like to play with colors and material attributes till it resembles kind of what I want. During my adventures in render land I have noticed that the basic shaders can only give you so much. Are you just using Maya's "default" lighting for now? What will really sell those Legos overall look will be the lighting you add to your scene. Also you might want to try out the PhongE, from my understanding (I may be wrong) Phong is a deafault "metal" material while PhongE was created to give models more of a plastic look. Keep on crackin!

[stwert]

Thanks man, actually I'm using a simple 3-point lighting setup. I'll definitely give the PhongE a go, and mess with the attributes some more. I think part of it too is my sharp edges. I need to add some bevel/smoothing, which will be a pain, but probably worth it.

[spyro]

The assembled version is looking good! Can't wait to see your final render.

[stwert]

Thanks spyro... I've got a lot of animation and stuff to do before a final render... hope I have time :)

[Gadgetfun]

That looks awesome, really nice modeling!

[stwert]

http://a.imageshack.us/img651/8636/legoman01.jpg
Here's a bit of texturing. Spent some time going through a couple Mental Ray introductory training kits, which was very informative, but it's going to take some time for it to absorb and get properly transferred to the renders. Hoping to get done what I want to this week.

[stwert]

And both together, with their little forest hood things. Didn't have very good reference material for the hats, so hopefully they're something like the lego.
http://a.imageshack.us/img822/363/legomen02.jpg

[Dean]

really nice progress, the hats look good :D

[Gadgetfun]

Good progress! But maybe you should add a reflection map HDRI.

[stwert]

Thanks Dean and Gadgetfun... yes, my plan is to add a reflection map/IBL, but I've just been trying to learn how to do that. DT has some good tutorials, but any quick tips from you?

[DjVoyager]

stwert, can you post the final 360 turntable video as soon as possible? Thanks!

[stwert]

Hey DJ, will do.. but today's still the 31st right? We have till midnight tonight?

[DjVoyager]

Hey DJ, will do.. but today's still the 31st right? We have till midnight tonight?

Yup, just wanted to post a reminder :)

[stwert]

Ok, thanks for the heads up :)

[stwert]

So I rendered all night last night and checked it this morning to find terrible spots on about a quarter of the frames, so I'm having to re-render them today. It'll be tight, but it'll happen :) Another reason not to render out as avi's!
The final gather settings were set way down for the render in order to keep the render times down. Unfortunately almost all my test renders happened to look relatively good, so I thought it was fine, but I just have to bump them up to improve (if not totally remove) the blotches. Good opportunity to learn a bit more about final gather.
I was going to post a sample frame, but imageshack doesn't handle .iff images. :p So stay tuned for the animation a while later. Haha.

[purplemikey]

can't wait to see it! I really like your project!

[stwert]

Thanks man! Means a lot to me. Got about 20 frames left, then I can assemble it with After Effects. Haven't really used it before, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there won't be any hang-ups.

[purplemikey]

I hope!
I never used after effect for composing hope for you it'll be easy and fast!
good luck Stwert!

[stwert]

Phew! Here it is finally. Spent all day re-rendering various frames with ever so higher FG density and accuracy. Got rid of most of the spots, but if you look closely you'll find a bit (so don't look closely ;)). Well it's never perfect is it.
13793075

Hope you like it! And you can see the HD version over at vimeo I guess.

[DjVoyager]

Impressive! Love the render/animation. Fine little story too :bang

[stwert]

Thanks DJ! Glad you like it... would have liked to have a bit more animation/story with the lego guys, but time was tight as it always is.

[bianconero90]

Great job!

I like the stop-motion style of the animation.

[stwert]

Thanks bianconero! Yeah, I thought that would be fun to do, since I've always enjoyed doing real lego stop motion in the past.