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!
A place to discuss, share, and create stop motion films.
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Anybody else use MS Excel to design their sets, and figure out how many bricks they're going to need?
I thought this was quite a cool idea!
Sorry, can’t say that I do.
nope, i dont
Last edited by Owen Garcia (February 8, 2020 (11:36am))
Sounds like a really cool idea! I might try that! 
Interesting.
I've never used Excel before, but if anything, I'd imagine something like LDD or Stud.io would be better for this.
Once I used some grid paper to calculate the size of one of my sets, (I was replicating the bridge of the NX-01 Enterprise and wanted the same scale) but otherwise, I've just grabbed some bricks and went to work.
When building sets, I just use what I have and change things if necessary. Calculating bricks needed sounds cool, but also adds more planning, more delays, and frankly creativity seems to flow more when limits present themselves (Like running out of the brick I need) and solutions must be found. The cool thing with Lego is that you can rebuild, retry, nix the whole idea and start completely over, and all with the same bricks you started with.
Maybe that means I'm less organized, but I just build want I can, and if they run out, get creative. Without the budget to blow on a lot more Lego, that's the next best solution for me.
Still, to each their own.
Do you use this often? What do you think of it?
I just thought it was a really easy, simple way to calculate what bricks I would need (as, in this instance, I specifically need tan bricks for the walls - and I currently have none...). As I've designed this, it would be the ideal solution, but I can also then very easily say "well, 1x 1x8 is cheaper on Bricklink than than 2x 1x4, so I'll just swap them out!"
I can appreciate working without a plan, but that's really not for me! I definitely like to plan ahead!
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