3D LEGO Design & Animation

[The_Director]

Hello all!

Be warned, large images will be in this thread. Please be amazed and hopefully the moderators will be too :D

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First time posting here, so howdy. lol I have already been infecting your discord channel before I even became an official member :P

A little about me before I start what this topic is about:

I work on building the instructions for installing curtain wall & storefronts as an real life job. So I work in the 2D & 3D architectural industry for a living. And I use Blender as an addictive hobby on the side. Go figure.

My goal is to start making 5+ minute animations in only a 3D environment, as while I do have legos, I don't have the space for a full on film studio.

I hope to enjoy a long stay with everyone here! I love to share my trade secrets to 3D modeling if your ever interested!

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On to my topic now:

 

Please see below my work so far making 3D Lego animations. (I apologize for not obeying the 800px square)

 

 

 

 

Thanks all, I will be updating this regularly!

 

T_D

[mocbuild101]

Nice, will definitely be following this, as I also use Blender a bit... 

BTW, it would be nice to know some more details on the renders (render time, quality settings, etc.).

[The_Director]

It ranges wildly on what it is I am rendering. I am going to be doing my animations in 1440p or full 4K, and I tend to set my sample size to whatever creates a smooth render with no fireflies. I’ll be posting a tutorial as soon as I have my first animation finished, that way I can work out any bugs or false starts to the tutorial.

 

the minifigure Benny takes about 30 minutes to render the 6k image. At around 1k samples. Full global lighting, with only .1 smooth filtering. Everything done so far is exclusively done in blender. 

 

Every material is is loaded with a dirt and thumbprints texture to give that aged look, and I am following the LEGO movie for an animation style. (No video game curvy legs or arms, strictly by the book) with Benny I took the extra time to mold extrusion seams you would see in a LEGO minifigure, right now I am only stuck on facial animations. But I did find one solution. I just have to try it ofc.

Edited November 28, 2018 by The_Director

[mocbuild101]

7 hours ago, The_Director said:

whatever creates a smooth render with no fireflies.

I'm assuming you already are, but are you using denoising? It can allow you to dramatically reduce the number of samples that are needed.

7 hours ago, The_Director said:

Every material is is loaded with a dirt and thumbprints texture to give that aged look

Nice, though IMO Benny's torso looks a bit too rough...

 

BTW, here's a couple of videos that might interest you, they're quite lengthy, but they're well worth the watch.

Spoiler

 

 

[The_Director]

Sorry when I said smooth what I meant was denoising. I have a GTX 1070. 1k samples isn’t that much for me to handle, and I try to just go for gold. An issue with denoising is that it can ruin bump maps, since bump maps are so subtle, so I keep it to a low level whenever I do use it, and just brute force through the frames.

Also, I use render farms when a project is ready. (Why would I spend weeks rendering? lol) And since a typical brick film is roughly 12 FPS, and I work 12 hours a day, a lot of rendering can be done at home while I am away. So long render times isn’t that big of a deal.

Thanks for showing blender Guru, I’ve already seen photo realism, (gleb from creative shrimp has tutorials that are more complete on the subject) but I never did see his tutorial guide, thanks!

bennys entire body is using the same material. So while the helmet doesn’t look half bad, with the light shining the way it is it does make the bump a bit much on the chest I agree you there.

[The_Director]

And here is another post :D No animations yet, this weekend ill get to that, but more assets are being dropped into blender to be ready for whatever I come up with.

[The_Director]

Lego Benny was just planted as a header over at blendernation.com !

There should be more news this weekend.

[Micmic84]

Hi.

I'm new to this forum. I just love Lego Star Wars. Over a year ago I started with making Lego stop motion. My first attempt was ok. And I made the films for my kids.  Of course it cost time to create cool settings and  it can cost a lot of money to buy the sets you need for nice scene. So I decided to work with blender. I want to present my latest project....

I'd like to her your opinion. And I'd like a sub if you like it. Then I know I'm on the right way. 

[The_Director]

On 12/8/2018 at 4:51 PM, Micmic84 said:

Hi.

I'm new to this forum. I just love Lego Star Wars. Over a year ago I started with making Lego stop motion. My first attempt was ok. And I made the films for my kids.  Of course it cost time to create cool settings and  it can cost a lot of money to buy the sets you need for nice scene. So I decided to work with blender. I want to present my latest project....

I'd like to her your opinion. And I'd like a sub if you like it. Then I know I'm on the right way. 

Not bad, at least, I really liked it!

 

I would say though the background was a bit bland, and the ground didn’t appear to be bricks.

 

the animation was great once they started fighting, but the walk animation was missing something... I’ve been working on breaking down the lego movie and it seems they don’t do much walking, more action running than anything, but I digress.

otherwise my only other thoughts is to cut down the credits at the end and beginning. Make sure your primary action is the film, not the “legal” stuff at the beginning and end of a film.

 

it takes a long time to get usable footage, and your off to a great start!

Oh, and here is what I did over the weekend, just forgot to post here.

 

I finally have a working idea for my first film, and right now I am just building the assets. 

The mech was just brought in, I am still fixing the mesh and adding the armature for animations.

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by The_Director

[Scrubs]

Hello,

Remember to use the bevel shader in Blender. It will add this nice bevel to bricks without spare geometry.

Did you try the geometry from Mecabricks? It imports nicely in Blender without any cleaning.

[The_Director]

No I haven’t tried mecabricks I’ll check that out!

 

i apply bevels by hand, the modifier is good but it applies evenly across the mesh and I only want it where I want it, gives it a more warm look.

[Scrubs]

I am not talking about the bevel modifier but the bevel shader. It fakes bevels at render time without extra geometry (normals recalculation). It works perfectly for non close up shots.

[The_Director]

Interesting I’ll have to look in to that.

[The_Director]

Hello all, here is the latest.

The critical issue is a script right now. Which is not written. this is a problem.
Buuuuuut I do have the idea in a firm hand on what I plan to do for a first film.

Currently I am just building the assets and converting them to Blender for posing and materials.
I am also working on upping the quality of the lighting, as some properties of plastic are being ignored.
Below is the latest and greatest, the first is just how the model came into blender with little clean up. the 2nd is today's image, all cleaned up and animated.

https://i.imgur.com/X7NbCUh.png

https://i.imgur.com/hrKIvwu.jpg

As you can see this is a massive improvement in the materials & model armature. It's not finished, however I do want to keep parts of the project under wraps just so that the plot isn't ruined.

As a question to keep this thread alive, can you give me some color suggestions? as well as ideas for variations on the mech suit.

[The_Director]

Hey all,

Since its the Christmas week, I am off work until January 3rd!

So now its time to get up on my lazy game errrr...... productive hobby?

 

So here is the first scene I have:

 

I know amazing right? And no. Its not a theater room. Its a.... well lets just say its going to be important 

This image is also an extra focus on what the final image output will be like. extra layers adding glare to all of the lights were added, and in general dealing with all of the little things that help make a scene believable. If you think you see something in my images that doesn't look right, speak up! I can really use the sharp eyes to find everything thats missing.

For instance, bump maps!

Ok its a bit much but its getting there... oh ya, and there are the lens glares... a bit much as well.

One of the issues with Blender is that lens glares are very picky, they depend on just the right amount of light, and the resolution of the screen messes them up as well. That being said, its better than image #1.

I am going back into my old sets to find spare parts to add to the asset library I did with an older PC, below is an example of a failed 3D project. And it just might work for what I have planned for this film.

Speaking of which, what will this first film look like?

So right now I have 4 films planned, each one will be called a "chapter" (so chapter 1, chapter 2 etc..) The story will focus around a key theme, seemly random but loosely connecting together in each part, before compiling into an finish in chapter 4.

As it stands right now:

Chapter 1: Future military theme

Chapter 2: City

Chapter 3: Space

Chapter 4: Grand finish. (surprise theme)

Goals of the film(s)

1. Describe the narrative in clear detail. (Which I can't describe to you in clear detail right now :P   )

2. Very high quality. (rendered in 4K, high samples (low noise) good audio)

3. Help me! find volunteers to assist with asset creation and most of all audio editing. (I can handle video)

 

Thanks all, and I look forward to reading your thoughts.

T_D