Ted: What first led you to that process? What are the benefits? Any short-comings?įelix: Back in the early days of LDD, there weren’t really a whole lot of options to make your output look particularly good, especially with the old lighting engine and lack of real fine control over what the final product looked like. Afterward, I take the exported image file (from either LDD in the past or Studio these days because of the more in-depth rendering options) and drop it into Adobe Animate to do final linework and colors. Ted: Jumping right in, what is the process that you use to create your artwork? Are you building first in LDD or Studio and then importing it to another program to create the hand-drawn artwork?įelix: For the LEGO aspects, I always start with initial sketches in a notebook to work out the generalized design, then start building the model digitally. Ted Andes: Hey Felix, it is great to see you posting your artwork up on Flickr again! Seeing that your brand-new flying vessel (yet to be named) is preparing for its maiden voyage, I thought it would be the perfect time to reach out and do a feature of your work on BrickNerd.įelix Dyson: Oh dang, that sounds lovely. (Sadly, James died in 1997 at the age of 26 from complications of influenza something especially relevant to our current times.) In 2004, The LEGO Group released their own LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) tool for fan usage. In fact, one of my first MOCs coming out of my dark-age was a train that I designed using LDD, and then purchased the parts to build it via the now-defunct LEGO Design byMe program. These days, that type of integration of procuring physical parts to build digital creations is offered using the Studio program and its association with BrickLink. He created LDraw-and its extensive digital parts library-and then freely shared all of his efforts with the building community. Australian James Jessiman was the pioneer in creating the first digital building app that LEGO fans could use. Younger readers may be surprised to learn that digital building has been kicking around since the 1990s. There are certainly benefits to building digitally it’s fairly easy to swap out parts without needing a brick separator, to recolor models with a click of the mouse, to create gravity-defying structures, to have access to an unlimited assortment of parts, or even to create your own custom parts. For those interested in getting started, the Firestar Toys blog has a great write-up on all of the different digital building programs that are available today. This would only make the service too expensive.Digital building of LEGO models has become increasingly popular within the fan community in recent years, especially with digital rendering tools continuing to improve in quality. The feedback from Design byMe users has taught us that we would need to rebuild the entire setup of Design byMe to fix this. However, the overall Design byMe experience has struggled to live up to the quality standards for a LEGO service. Over the years, we have also added other simpler customized building experiences like Hero Recon Team. Despite this success, the overall Design byMe experience has struggled to live up to the quality standards for a LEGO service. Design byMe as a concept attracts several million people each year to build a huge range of amazing creations using the LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) software. The original Design byMe vision was for a unique customization service, where consumers could design whatever they imagined, display it and get the model sent to in their own LEGO box. We believe in the future of customization, but the service we offer has to be right for our consumers and Design byME has proven to be too complex for children. This is not the end of customization for the LEGO Group, but a revision. Bricks can be bought separately, using the Pick a Brick service. The HERO Recon Team Hero Creator will be unchanged and consumers will still be able to build and buy their own customized Hero. Consumers will also be able to download the instructions generated from LEGO Digital Designer. All existing models will be transferred to a new gallery on the LDD website. We will be accepting orders until January 16, 2012.Ĭonsumers will still be able to design what they want with LEGO Digital Designer and upload models into a public gallery as before. The LEGO Group is closing that part of the Design byMe customization service that allows consumers to order digital models in real bricks. Following close on the heels of the announcement about the closure of LEGO Universe at the beginning of 2012, The LEGO Group has just announced that the Design byMe program will also be closing in January.
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