Building with Bricksmith

Uploaded on Aug 18, 2007 / 271 views / 542 impressions / 21 comments

Description

Demonstrating the creation of a 228-piece LDraw model from start to finish with Bricksmith. I use a <a...

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Demonstrating the creation of a 228-piece LDraw model from start to finish with Bricksmith. I use a development version of Bricksmith featuring improved Part Browser searching, along with a few unofficial interface tweaks.
This is an alternate model I created with pieces from a single B-Wing Fighter set. Two of the little turrets can be built at the same time as the ship.
Even if you're interested in this stuff, this video gets pretty monotonous. I recommend downloading it and playing it on fast forward!

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Tags

  • lego
  • ldraw
  • mac
  • screencast

23 comments

1. anoved 94:49

Aug 18, 2007

LDView Cocoa beta

2. anoved 95:34

Aug 18, 2007

Fixing a goof.

3. anoved 77:29

Aug 18, 2007

Positioning at proper landing height.

4. anoved 0:19

Aug 18, 2007

Bricksmith remembers your last minifig, making it easy to reuse common configurations.

5. anoved 0:40

Aug 18, 2007

Positioning the minifig squarely relative to the submodel origin makes it easier to place in other models.

6. anoved 1:05

Aug 18, 2007

The Move panel is useful for moving a multi-part selection by some increment impractical (or impossible) with the the normal nudge controls.

7. anoved 1:13

Aug 18, 2007

The minifig editor doesn't do visors, so you have to add them manually. Happily, the visor origin matches the helmet's, so as you long as you select the helmet first, it will be positioned properly.

8. anoved 1:21

Aug 18, 2007

Bricksmith bug: parts listed later in the model (such as the head) are not visible through transparent parts that appear earlier in the file (such as this visor).

9. anoved 0:06

Aug 18, 2007

Starting with a template model. Duplicated using my Open As AppleScript for the Finder.

10. anoved 1:55

Aug 18, 2007

Cheating on this dude since not all the "Sullustan" parts are available in LDraw format.

11. anoved 2:48

Aug 18, 2007

Orient hinges along the relevant axis so the submodel can be rotated (or "posed") freely without needing to continously correct its position.

12. anoved 3:01

Aug 18, 2007

The keyboard shortcuts are displayed with Mousepose, by the way. It might have been informative to display all keypresses (not just control sequences), but I think it would have annoyed me.

13. anoved 3:53

Aug 18, 2007

Not too deft with the color panel keyboard controls.

14. anoved 4:05

Aug 18, 2007

Each part of the model that can move independently gets its own submodel.

15. anoved 5:48

Aug 18, 2007

The Part Inspector is useful for rotating parts (or submodels) by specific amounts or by increments impractical with the normal rotation controls.

16. anoved 7:44

Aug 18, 2007

This component could have been built right-side-up (and rotated as a whole where referenced), but it is just as easy to build it this way since new parts inherit the previous part's orientation.

17. anoved 77:44

Aug 18, 2007

Once things are lined up properly, I can delete my reference lines.

18. anoved 0:01

Aug 18, 2007

So iShowU may start recording before the "countdown" is complete. Oh well.

19. anoved 34:20

Aug 18, 2007

So the port wing is a mirror of the starboard wing with a few asymmetrical parts exchanged. There are probably a couple ways to do this, but I simply move and/or rotate the parts manually one step at a time.

20. anoved 34:37

Aug 18, 2007

Like these wings, most asymmetrical parts come in pairs with consecutive LDraw part numbers. Therefore, switching them is just a matter of incrementing or decrementing the part number by one. I never remember which is which I so I use trial and error.

21. anoved 45:04

Aug 18, 2007

The rails on these little plates will lock the pin-hinge-mounted "belly" submodel in position.

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