A "Lego" based shot...

[simon-s]

I would start by adding some foreground lights. Its pretty difficult at the moment to see whats going on in the center of the image.

[sirphobos]

you could try taking photos of real lego in those poses, and then simulate it in 3d, so you have a reference as to what the effects of a stop motion camera would do to not only the image quality but also the animation quality. Ive been playing (very) briefly with simulating the stopmotiony feel in 3d, and in maya at least there is the option to bake out animation curves. If you do that on twos, and then set the tangent to stepped you get nice jerky movement to your animation. Id say references are the way forward tho - check out the Monty Python Holy Grail lego version on the dvd, and also the white stripes video by michel gondry.

hope some of that helps

[cgdiver]

I like LEGO a lot, but I think your problem is that you have too big distance between every single part. I´m 3dsMax user but I think that the CHAMFER function is in LW the same...I think your LEGO parts should be chamfered like this :

http://img225.echo.cx/img225/6153/kostka8oa.gif (http://www.imageshack.us)

But keep working on it...good luck.
Cheers
Diver

[TailsNZ]

Thanks for the replies so far :) I've been playing with lighting, trying to get it brigher in the middle (and it seems Radiosity for Global Illumination is the way to get shadows blurry and not so sharp - although it massively increases render time - type: Monte Carlo - Intensity: 100% - Rays per Evaluation 4x12 - Indirect Bounces 1)

I build the scene in real Lego and took a photo, and wow it looks very different indeed. I made the textured almost invisible, and the blocks a lot glossier looking, with some reflections (although it seems they are bent and I couldn't find the reason, it's not an issue because they are so faint and blurred so they fade out quickly before reflecting too far). Lighting is a major difference yeah, and I noticed the tops of the bumps on my blocks aren't rounded like they are on the real blocks. So I fixed that.

Reducing the gap between them looks much better yes thanks. I still need to improve it more, as at the moment I have a different more glossy and light catching rounded edges to the block, otherwise I couldn't seem to get that line between the two blocks. How did you manage that? I'll keep trying to get it though, that looks much better in your image yeah.

Thanks again everyone! I'll have an updated shot once these changes are done :)

[simon-s]

Another way of getting your shadows more blurry, without using render intensive radiosity settings; would be to try adding some spotlights into your scene.

In your light properties panel you can set the shadow type to 'shadow maps'. This will give you the softer shadows you are after, without massive render times.

Hope this helps.

ps, if you are going to use radiosity, try this LW Lscript for size. It gives you some fast settings for radiosity with some pretty good results...

http://www.cgtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=70461&stc=1

[TailsNZ]

Thanks, either of those seems to makes renders infinitely faster yeah. The LightSetup plugin though seems to destory any reflective polygons, making the colors really washed out like it's reflecting a giant white object over them or something. Still playing with it all, should have a render to post today.

Been admiring the amazing Lego renders people have made here too, like these:

Technic F1 - http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=233620&page=2
Blocks - http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=215595&page=2
Lego Castle - http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=192937&page=1

[TailsNZ]

Rather than trying to tacle the whole scene above at once, I spent all day today working on things at a single brick level. In the end I took photos of real Lego blocks, and used them as textures... but still no there's several things wrong with this image I can spot right away at least...

On the red bricks, that texture on top is the same color as on the sides, yet on the sides it seems to "glow" as it reaches the top. Making it look very computery. Also on the white/grey bricks, depsite having the exact same side texture on the rounded edges, the edges always seem to stand out which make it look like there's no texture on them at all.

This is rendered with 4 spotlights in each corner of the scene and shadow maps, and one spotlight to the front and above, looking down. Each light is at 25%, and I photoshoped the color afterwards.

Thanks for reading :)

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