Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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Looks like it's already been smoothed. I'm going to guess he's using Leocad, seeing as I had the same problem. However, I solved the issue by using out a handy cleanup and import tool that I learned about through Rioforce.
Last edited by legoguy501 (September 18, 2014 (01:11am))
I will make a note, that this is for an animation test, so I didn't want to spend too much time fixing up the bricks. When I do an actual film I'll be spending more time making the bricks and everything else look nice.
And I was using BrickSmith and a LDraw>Blender importer.
EDIT: On a side note, I'm glad you've pointed that out, because in addressing the problem I just found a way to bevel the bricks that's much easier and quicker than the method I'd been using before.
Last edited by Littlebrick (September 18, 2014 (01:47am))
Inset, right? 
Actually, I'm using a bevel modifier limited to vertex groups, and using 3 segments to get the rounded bevel look. That's only on the studs. The bricks themselves I should generally be able to use a bevel modifier without any limitations. It'll really depend on the situation. I should note that the bricks and the studs are separate objects.
I had tried using a bevel modifier on the bricks before but never really liked the results they gave, and since I already had to do a lot of cleaning up the meshes in Blender, I added the bevels in while I was doing that. But this LDraw importer script I've got cleans the meshes for me, so the results from the bevel modifiers are much nicer.
Last edited by Littlebrick (September 18, 2014 (02:50am))
Littlebrick - How did you put the face on the figure? I've been working on making head, but can't figure out how to do the face. I just tried UV unwrapping, but I couldn't get the face to show up.
It did involve UV unwrapping. I created and rendered a face within the same file as the fig (so I could animate them side-by-side), and exported that as a .mov. Then I pulled that back into the file as a UV texture. Only downside is it doesn't seem to play the facial animation as I animate the fig. Sometimes it'll change the frame while I'm working on it, but I don't know why. I'm sure there's a way to get that working to some degree.
This tutorial helped a lot with the UV unwrapping, though I still had to do a lot of tweaking to get it looking right.
hey, just a idea, what would you think if we where to create a lego stock footage library, so, say, a lego explosion to use instead of the standard stock ones......?
That's a really good idea! We just need to find some people nice enough to offer their stock footage. A CG Lego model library wouldn't go amiss either.
Haha I actually started one a few months ago. I used LDraw parts and modified them. I made rain, a laser from multiple angles, and clouds. I can upload them if you'd like. They may need a bit of refinement, but they're not too bad I suppose.
I think that would be great!
EDIT: my mistake, computer was lagging.
ok, well, I made a forum for it: (http://www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/to … ge-libary/) discuss in there....
Please don't double-post, Gentrystudios. If you want to add something, please edit your first post rather than making another.
Um, I don't think he did double post. The first one is Galactic Films, and the second is Gentry Studios. The avatars are very similar. Anyway, on to the new topic! 
Um, I don't think he did double post. The first one is Galactic Films, and the second is Gentry Studios. The avatars are very similar.
Whoops! My computer was lagging and showed me Gentrystudios' on both posts, should have looked harder (sorry).
A clip of our last film "Immortal". Rendered in Blender.
That looks pretty great; I like that there are mini-fig heads in the jet streams or whatever those are.
General question: what are the recommended settings for rendering in Cycles? Recent attempts at rendering have given me estimated render times of 20+ hours. My settings are pretty high right now, but when I try for lower, everything is grainy.
General question: what are the recommended settings for rendering in Cycles? Recent attempts at rendering have given me estimated render times of 20+ hours. My settings are pretty high right now, but when I try for lower, everything is grainy.
I usually use Branched Path Tracing on the Preview setting. But then again, I haven't rendered anything in a while, and I know that hey have changed the settings quite a bit. Another thing I often do is use normal Path Tracing with 200 or 500 samples, depending on how much grain you get. Low light produces a lot more grain than higher-lighting, so keep that in mind. Obviously, Cycles takes a very long time to render, so if you have an NVidia graphics card, be sure you are using it to render instead of your GPU. Depending on how complicated you setup is, it could take longer or shorter, which you probably already know.
Also, set the Filter Glossy (in the Light Paths menu) to about 5. At least, that's what I usually do. When you turn Filter Glossy to 1, it tends to be too dark, and the realism is gone. You could also try turning the light bounces down. Check out the below page for more info:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 … cing_Noise
Last edited by rioforce (December 30, 2014 (11:34am))
Thank you
Yes, these are various parts of mini-figs (heads, arms, etc.).
I recommended:
- reduce the amount of light bounces
- change the tile size: (256x256 for GPU, and 16x16 for CPU)
We use sampling rates between 50 and 500.
Do you render with CPU or GPU? I highly recommended GPU, it's a lot faster.
Another shot:
Unfortunately Blender doesn't support my graphics card for GPU rendering yet (Intel Iris), so I'm stuck with CPU rendering.
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