LDraw.org: Hi Chris, please tell us about yourself and your hobby
John Haynes: I'm 27 years old, married, living in the Detroit area and I work with internet security for a living.
I started playing with Lego ever since I had memories. I started with Duplo and I then moved on to regular Lego and Technic. I "grew out" of Lego around 7th grade but I never lost my fascination with it. I built mostly earth/city based models.
LDraw.org: Before we get into the many interesting aspects of your file, can you tell us how did the idea pop into your head? Or perhaps it was more of a discovery process that led to a final image?
John Haynes: The idea mostly came about from me playing
around on the net and doing a search for Lego. I was absolutely
amazed at the Lego community; however, I have this childish belief
that playing with Lego at my age is kind of
silly. So to get around my own stupid belief, I figured it would be
OK if it was on a computer. I started to
look for digital ways of building Lego models on the PC and that's
when I stumbled on this fantastic community.
As far as this picture specifically, I was actually going to
submit a picture based on the famous Robot
Command Center model; however, LeoCad [3]
was giving me really weird exporting issues when dumping it into 3ds
(see picture below). For example, the wheels wouldn't be on an object
and pieces would be way off in the distance when they should be
attached to the model. As a result of that, I decided to make a scene
that was not really focused on the models
but more of a total picture instead.
LDraw.org: Do the models featured in the scene exist in real life? (If so, I'd like a few of them missiles, please!)
John Haynes:The foreground vehicle is the 452 - Mobile Tracking Station and the ship in the air is the 497 - Galaxy Explorer. The missiles and mountain terrain were just regular parts.
LDraw.org: Let's start dissecting your scene. How did you create the background? Sometime the sheer number of bricks in landscapes can really slow down even fast machines - any tips on how to deal with that?
John Haynes:The sky was created in Bryce 3D and imported into Cinema 4D as a Tiff file. The ground is a bunch of 10 X 20 bricks (LeoCad would crash when using a plate) and the mountain region is made up of 72 mountain range parts. I tried to limit the number of parts due to the exporting issues I encountered. This would have taken forever to do a decent animation with due to the obscene amount of polygons to keep track of; however, doing one frame is not too bad due to the fact that raytracing only needs to render what is in the camera path. So when doing still pictures, it's OK to have a ton of bricks as long as you have a decent amount of RAM; it's more memory intensive for larger scenes than it is CPU wise.
LDraw.org: Is the Galaxy Explorer part of the scene or was it composited afterward?
John Haynes:The Galaxy Explorer ship is in the scene. While it is way faster to just composite it in, I wasn't sure of the camera position that I was going to use, so by having every element in the scene I had much more freedom to move the camera around.
LDraw.org: One thing that I like a lot about this scene is that it is so dynamic that is seems like part of a larger story . Are you tempted by animation?
John Haynes: Unfortunately, there is no story behind the picture, other than me making it to teach myself more about Cinema 4D. I'm extremely tempted by animation. So much so that I'm planning on making a 5-10 minute short film using Lego and making a car chase through a city. This image was also a test for me to learn the particle system that cinema 4D has. I foolishly shot my mouth off that I could make a better car chase than the one from the Matrix Reloaded, so I'll attempt to back up my moronic statement. As far as my skills with animation goes, I'm a complete novice. I've only dealt with single frames until recently.
LDraw.org: You seem to have used a large and somewhat exotic software toolbox for this project. Did you compose the scene in Leocad or did you put together the different elements together in Cinema4D? Did you also use other Ldraw tools for intermediate testing or auxiliary tasks?
John Haynes:The scene itself was assembled, textured, and
rendered in Cinema 4D. The models were built in LeoCad and exported
into 3DS files. From there I imported them individually and corrected
some of the exporting flaws that I encountered. After that I
assembled them into one scene. The final part was then camera
positioning and lighting.
As far as other tools (beside MLCad), I
have absolutely no clue what's out there. I check out the forums all
of the time and I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
LDraw.org: You mentioned that Leocad has trouble exporting 3DS files. I've encountered the same problem (also with the free version of 3DWin) and I think it is related to the lack of BFC in the original Ldraw specs. So in the future, as BFC parts become more common, it might be less painful to convert them to other formats. In any event, do you have any tips on this process as things stand now?
John Haynes:Since creating this picture, I have started exporting the pictures as obj files. Cinema 4D doesn't support them as well (colors don't transfer over), but I have discovered how to create texture sets that I can easily apply. I have yet to see any issues with exporting into this file format from LeoCad. So if the program you use supports this format, I suggest that you use it for its stability with LeoCad.
LDraw.org: You are obviously experienced with Cinema4D, which seems an amazing piece of software. I checked the gallery at their site and it is truly jaw-dropping even for someone who is looking at this kind of stuff all the time. Can you tell us a bit more about the program? How does it compare to POVray?
John Haynes: PovRay [4]
is good for what it is, a free 3D program that can produce some nice
images and animation. My problem with it is that you have to look too
far for all that you need in it. Also, I'm not impressed with the
render engine for it, it's too slow and it can't touch a professional
render engine. I'm not trying to bash it, but the vast majority of
the pictures don't look anywhere near photo
realistic. I have seen some amazing work done with the program
only to see the end result damaged by quality of the rendering.
Cinema 4D is the least expensive and easiest to learn of the big
time professional graphics suites on the market. I originally used
Bryce 3D but quickly grew beyond the scope and purpose of the
program; it was too slow to render and the pictures never came out as
good as what I wanted. I started looking for a programs that could
also do radiosity and came upon the program
with the fastest radiosity engine, Cinema 4D. The program can do
pretty much anything that you can think of. From network rendering to
motion capturing, it's an all encompassing
suite. I've been using it for about a year and a half and have
probably used about 5% of its functionality. If you don't need all of
it's features you can just buy the ones that you need; it's a good
way to save on money.
LDraw.org: Can you share with us your "big picture view" of the Ldraw software universe?
John Haynes: I'm still a novice of the Ldraw universe but
what I see it as is a community that is being pulled in two
directions. One for building models and directions with these
programs and the other to make scenes and simple movies with. I think
that the Ldraw community should basically focus on one or the other.
If they are going to make apps that can export into the major 3D
formats then they have to completely change the way that they handle
the Lego pieces. For example, a 1 X 1 brick is nothing but a cube
with a cylinder on top. The way that it gets exported is as a polygon
object made up of 76 polygons and 46 points. This is extremely
inefficient for use in these programs when
doing animation. By exporting the object as a primitive,
quadragon/ Ngon, or even NURBS, it would be
much more effective in its use in 3d modeling.
The quickest way for the LDraw community
to dramatically expand is to make these apps start supporting
professional 3d formats. PovRay is nice, but by adding more support
for Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max, Maya, LightWave,
and especially the UBX file format (THE file format for use between
all professional 3d apps), they will quickly bring in a whole new
world of artists and programmers that will be willing to help out
however they can. It's basically win win.
LDraw.org: In your opinion, how useful is the ldraw system as a learning tool for higher-end programs such as Cinema4D?
John Haynes:It doesn't teach that much other than learning how to build a basic model/scene and what looks good. In the end these are tools for artists to create something with. You either have a knack for what looks good or you don't.
LDraw.org: Which is your favourite Ldraw app … and which are the ones that you use frequently and why?
John Haynes:I mostly use LeoCad for it's support of the 3ds and obj file formats and I prefer it's interface for when creating large models. I have used MLCad [5] and it definitely seems to have the backing of the community as the software of choice, but its lack of file support limits its use with me.
LDraw.org: What would be THE dream addition to the Ldraw software universe?
John Haynes:Make the LDraw system as a plug-in for the professional graphic suites. For example, make the Lego block catalog as primitives in 3d programs. By that I mean the blocks themselves would be more efficient and less memory intensive; you almost never need to see what is under a Lego brick, it's wasted polygons and system memory.
LDraw.org: What, if any, are your pet peeves about Ldraw-based software?
John Haynes:I don't really have any pet peeves, they are very good at what they do and I have not been a member of this community long enough to have any. I believe that LDraw was made with the idea of creating guides for building real world models, not making computer animation. I think it's time to start moving in that direction now.
LDraw.org: Can you share your motivations to participate in the Ldraw contest? (other than the fact you keep winning!)
John Haynes: I mostly wanted to bring attention to that fact that there is very little support or thought being put into the support of professional 3d applications. While they may not be free, many of them are quite affordable and are way beyond the abilities of PovRay. My picture is not really that impressive, I think the only reason it won was based on render quality of it.
LDraw.org: What would make the contest better, in your opinion?
John Haynes: I really like the way that it is done now. I think the thing that will help the most is to get more people to participate. No one should ever be ashamed to enter any of their work into these contests. As the community grows and expands, I think that doing theme based model and scene contests would be great; there are some incredibly talented and created people out there and I think it would be fun to see how everyone interprets the theme.
LDraw.org: Thanks once again for sharing, John.