* First of all, this topic is intended as a discussion and not intended to offend any users, on this site or otherwise. If it does, and I do get banned, let me say it has been a privilege being part of such a great mature community and I wish you all the best for the future.

But without further adieu:

Hai guise, lemme sho me noo MOC!

Epic MS Paint, my services are available at very unreasonable rates! Enquire within!

Okay, so maybe it's not quite finished, but you get the idea, yeah? You can see the shape and how I want it to look and that's all you need right? No? Okay, fine, I'll moc it up in LDD.

There. Finished. That's all that's necessary for a Moc to be validated, surely. It can be built out of bricks and look like it can hold itself together, that's got to count for something.

Look at all the pretty colours I can make it with! I actually like the pale red one myself.

Now you can see my building technique with the brick outlines, and can reasonably tell how it's been built and if it's feasible. Sure, who knows if those parts are actually available, but who cares, "amirite" ("bro")?

I've built it in LDraw and rendered it with POVRay. That's as far I can go without forking out the cash ("fork" that!) to actually build it. It's taken time and effort to get to this stage, through design, assembly and a time consuming render.

Lego bricks are really expensive, especially in the quantities we often want them in and the channels for their aquisition aren't ideal. Everyone is fighting over the best parts so getting what you actually need is generally convoluted. To try and get a collection to experiment with is a continuous expense as new parts are introduced and you use your parts in creations.

Storage and sorting is also a huge problem: as your collection grows, so does the space needed to keep it. A container for which you had parts in may no longer be sufficient, so that ongoing cost is another sundry expense that is often not taken into consideration. Having shelving for you to store your creations is really unreasonable for many people too.

If you're away from your collection than these digital tools are essential to keeping your mind engaged in the hobby.

To me, these tools are computer games to be played with and don't translate into my head as Lego. It can't be picked up, felt how it's weighted and can't be feasible or known if it's just a bunch of bricks floating as the structural integrity is removed to add detail. I understand their uses as developmental tools, but personally, I can't completely appreciate a digital creation until it's been realised in the brick.

My question to you, dear reader, is this: At what point do we say a MOC is a MOC?

I do not mean offence with this post, rather to start a discussion with both users and non users of the Lego based digital tools. For that reason, I have put it here as opposed to the "LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools" forum.

My view: A MOC is only a MOC when it is built of of LEGO pieces, until then it is just a design. The same way that a car is not a car until it is built or a house is not a house until it is built, before then they are just a design of a car or a house.

From my standpoint a MOC is MOC whether it is built in real bricks or using digital tools. The name says it all; „My own creation“. It doesn't say what it is, just that it is an „original“ creation made by someone. And that is the whole point; to create something with your imagination. The bricks are just a tool that represent your talent, and with which you can express your creativity the most.

So if someone doesn't have his own bricks then digital tools are the best way to express himself through a toy (LEGO) he enjoys to build with.

Ofcourse the real brick MOCs tend to be more impressive because of the fact that they were made with real bricks and that shows the amount of effort and dedication a person has put into collecting and building LEGO. But you make it sound like it's a competition on who's got more bricks or the right bricks to build a certain MOC, when it's not. We share our MOCs to isnpire others like we are inspired by other builder's MOCs, and it all comes down to imagination and the creativity rather then the count of bricks.

You wrote that to you: „these tools are computer games to be played with and don't translate into my head as Lego. It can't be picked up, felt how it's weighted and can't be feasible or known if it's just a bunch of bricks floating as the structural integrity is removed to add detail.“

But from a vieweres perspective i can't pick up, hold or feel the weight or other people's MOCs cuz all i can see are pictures of those creations. You can build anything form anything but what catches someones eyes is the creativity and that is something you either have or don't have. While you can always buy your bricks, that won't make you a greater builder if you can't build a good MOC.

One important thing to add up to this topic is that when it comes to sharing our MOCs, a digital creation is a more interactive and more appreciative way of sharing your builds cuz everybody can see the MOC from firsthand (in LDD or some other tool). All of the parts of the building, all of the little details and techniques can be seen very easily and that is something you can't fully get by just taking pictures of your creations.

I totally agree with omerai.

And I think a MOC is a MOC as long as it's your own design and you don't copy other's creations, I don't care if it's physically or virtually built. I prefer making MOCs with LDD because in LDD I have an infinite quantity of bricks, and in almost every color. Lego CAD softwares remove those constraints of quantity and colors avalibility, and allow me to be as creative as I can, I'm no longer limited by my stock. And I think MOCcing is mainly about creativity. So in my opinion, virtual MOCs are true MOCs.

Edited April 6, 201311 yr by Leewan

From my standpoint a MOC is MOC whether it is built in real bricks or using digital tools. The name says it all; „My own creation“. It doesn't say what it is, just that it is an „original“ creation made by someone. And that is the whole point; to create something with your imagination. The bricks are just a tool that represent your talent, and with which you can express your creativity the most.

So if someone doesn't have his own bricks then digital tools are the best way to express himself through a toy (LEGO) he enjoys to build with.

Ofcourse the real brick MOCs tend to be more impressive because of the fact that they were made with real bricks and that shows the amount of effort and dedication a person has put into collecting and building LEGO. But you make it sound like it's a competition on who's got more bricks or the right bricks to build a certain MOC, when it's not. We share our MOCs to isnpire others like we are inspired by other builder's MOCs, and it all comes down to imagination and the creativity rather then the count of bricks.

You wrote that to you: „these tools are computer games to be played with and don't translate into my head as Lego. It can't be picked up, felt how it's weighted and can't be feasible or known if it's just a bunch of bricks floating as the structural integrity is removed to add detail.“

But from a vieweres perspective i can't pick up, hold or feel the weight or other people's MOCs cuz all i can see are pictures of those creations. You can build anything form anything but what catches someones eyes is the creativity and that is something you either have or don't have. While you can always buy your bricks, that won't make you a greater builder if you can't build a good MOC.

One important thing to add up to this topic is that when it comes to sharing our MOCs, a digital creation is a more interactive and more appreciative way of sharing your builds cuz everybody can see the MOC from firsthand (in LDD or some other tool). All of the parts of the building, all of the little details and techniques can be seen very easily and that is something you can't fully get by just taking pictures of your creations.

I mostly agree with this. I do have to concede that digital MOCs and physical MOCs are two different types of MOCing that can't always be judged according to the same terms. But I feel like both should be considered MOCs because they are original creations using LEGO components, whether physical or virtual.

Certainly, there is a certain amount of freedom that digital MOCing can afford a builder, but likewise there are freedoms that physical bricks can be used to realize. Take, for instance, your example of MOCs for which the physical bricks might not be available in the right colors. This is generally a characteristic of digital MOCs, but it's just as possible in physical MOCs with a high-quality coat of paint (something which even the Master Builders use in MOCs of prototype sets), Likewise, depending on your MOC software, custom decorations can be just as possible as they would be with a set of custom-printed stickers or waterslide decals. Sometimes a digital MOC might take advantage of connections and collisions that would not be possible in real life. But is this really so different from cutting and gluing parts, as I see on some heavily-customized BIONICLE MOCs?

So it sort of gets back to that "what is purist?" discussion that took place recently. No matter what the medium, different MOCs will be built with different design constraints and it's entirely up to an individual's discretion whether one set of constraints (like "purism", studless building, or what-have-you) is superior to another.

yes i tend to agree with "omerai". A MOC is any creation made LEGO digital or physical. I only use LDD as a tool to help me figure out exactly what bricks i need to buy to brick build my creation. As mentioned, bricks are expensive, so i can't afford to buy more bricks than i need, but on the flip side i don't want to be a few bricks short of what i'm trying to build, so LDD becomes a very handy tool for me to use to determine what bricks i need to buy.

But, when i save my work in LDD, i save it as "ExampleMOC", because as soon as i lay a brick on a baseplate, I am creating something which is "My Own Creation"

In any case, building in the brick is certainly a lot more fulfilling, and there's nothing more exciting than trying to figure out where your newly made MOC will fit into your collection....

Just keep building i say, virtually and physically

Any designed unique creation is a MOC. Be it digital or physically built. As others have pointed out MOC is simply "My Own Creation". Now by building it in the brick you create a Validated MOC. One that not only has heft and feel, but that has been worked through such that it obeys the rules of physics, gravity and material strength that digital designs do not impose on it. They are all MOCs, they are all designed to get what is in your head to a firm that can be shared with others.

How about a structure (for example) where one borrows a window idea here, a door idea there, a wall idea somewhere else and puts it together with inspiration from a real building somewhere else. I guess that is still a MOC (I think so), I think all artist "borrow" some.

Where is the line in the sand, how much can we borrow? Does it matter as long as we try to give credit?

Andy D

@ Andy D : This is the limit between plagiarism and inspiration you're talking about, this is yet another debate...

@ Andy D : This is the limit between plagiarism and inspiration you're talking about, this is yet another debate...

I am firmly on the side of credit where credit is due.

I guess I was not clear, I thought the discusion was not just on digital vs. bricks MOCs, but when is a MOC a MOC?

If one borrows a lot, and gives credit for the inspiration is it still a MOC, no matter whether digital or bricks?

To me it doesn't matter, digital or bricks, a MOC is still a MOC.

Andy D

Edited April 6, 201311 yr by Andy D

like most people said here, i also agree that both physically and virtually builded LEGO can be considered as MOC. MOC is not about physical feeling, but about creativity, like to what extend can your imagination go? in my opinion, MOC is more like an art. you can appreciate them, no matter what media they use. comparing physical MOC's with LDD MOC is like comparing a sculpture and a graphic design or a painting. even though one of them is 3D, real, and have to obey Physics law and the other are picture of the artist's imagination that ignoring law of Physics, both are art that's woth to be appreciated. the same principle also applied for MOC. you can appreciate others creation, despite of them being physical or virtual.