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LEGO Island 2 is a hilariously strange beast under the hood. Here's some fun things I've noticed while poking around. First, the game is hardcoded as hell. All the assets themselves are stored in the bob/bod files, but absolutely all of the information linking them together in any way is in the exe. The exe is filled with huge lists of file paths for every asset in each bob/bod file. The exception seems to be textures - these are stripped of meaningful names and referenced by number (like, say, text420.tga instead), and all the info on what textures go on what models, where those models are located, etc is all in the exe. But each level in the game seems to be pretty much entirely isolated from the rest. There's a small amount generic assets shared around, but 99% of the time, if an asset - a texture, model, whatever - is used in multiple levels, it's just duplicated, saved in each bob/bod individually. You know all the different hats the NPCs have, and how you can swap them around in any level with NPCs? And how trees/plants/sign posts can be swapped around in the same manner? And how there's usually 3-5 levels of detail (LODs) for each of these? Those are hundreds and hundreds of models, collision files, and textures - and that's fine, but all of that is entirely duplicated for every scene that uses them. Duplicated in the bobs/bods, taking up hard drive space (and what was likely not an insignificant amount in 2001), and of course that means a lot of duplicated stuff in the exe too. This also means the game wastes a lot of time re-loading assets that already had their duplicates loaded for the previous level. But wait, there's more silly duplication of assets! There are some exceptions like the standard minifigure model, but generally, if two models are identical, but merely have different textures, the meshes and collision files are duplicated anyway. So for example, every minifigure has a unique model for their head, as they have unique face textures... And each of those has several LODs... And alllllll of those are once again duplicated per level they're used in. Minifigure heads alone account for hundreds and hundreds of duplicate files. But there's sillier examples. There's two switches you flip in the Brickster's Palace minigame - and they account for four models. Wait, what, four? Yep - switch 1 up, switch 1 down, switch 2 up, switch 2 down. Because apparently sharing a model and then changing its rotation when it's flipped is too hard. There's plenty of other silly things like this, but I think one deserves special mention... Every single asteroid in the Asteroid Belt minigame is its own 3D model. I'm serious. There are 235 3D models for asteroids, and 235 corresponding collision files. They're divided into three sets/variations - 66 copies of asteroid variation A, 70 copies of asteroid variation B, and 99 copies of asteroid variation C. But it gets better, variations B and C are identical! (Thanks to Will for using a tool of his to automatically check which of the asteroid files were identical to each other.) So instead of just having two asteroid models (with collision files) for a total of four files, there are 470 files being loaded to achieve the same result. There's also a lot of inefficiencies in the models themselves. Excess polygons, using a bunch of smaller textures instead of a larger atlas... But here's my favorite. You know that skeleton in the desert on Adventurer's Island, holding a gem? It's a pretty low poly model (though it could be lower poly and look identical), with 1416 triangles... And 3065 vertices. Wat. Let's take a look at the UV map... The face is the only part of the model that's properly UV mapped. The rest is just given the plain white texture (text027.tga if you wanna try swapping it out), and while it's UV mapped, it's done in a pretty horrible way. If you're curious about the details, read this article, originally published in 2003 (two years after LEGO Island 2 was released) but still relevant today: http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf1.html http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf2.html The bits relevant to the vertex count are explained in part 2. In short, splits/seams/breaks in UV maps split/duplicate vertices... And the UVs for the skeleton's body are doing more splits than a masochistic gym instructor. What you're seeing in the first image there are all the triangles for the body UV'd on top of each other. If you lay them out separately (and I've moved the face elsewhere as it's not relevant), it looks something like this... This is a UV map straight out of hell. Just by fixing it up I got the vertex count of the model down from 3065 to 1686. And as you might expect, that's not an isolated case... Lots of models are like this. More coming, maybe. I think the point has been made.

Hi everyone, I recently looked into the RRU-Wiki and saw that the BLX-Format is still unkown, so I decided to share my knowledge with you. It contains 16*16 Images for the *.map file with the same name. One Images for each possible tileid. I guess they were used for the editor. I figured out the format by examining it with a hexeditor. All values are encoded in Little Endian. Header: "BLX " (4 Bytes, note the Space) Number of Images (4 Bytes) Width (4 Bytes) Height (4 Bytes) Unkown (4 Bytes, I guess this is some kind of Id for for Format, for example 11 for the surface map) Unkown (4 Bytes, I guess this is the file version) Images (BGR565) If you don't want to encode the files yourself, I attached some samples + testprogram + source code (PureBasic, should work with demo). The Testprogram converts all *.blx files in the same directoy to *.png. Emrg: Dugg: Cror: Surf Tuto: Fall: Erod: High Download Program+Source

Remember how those huge LEGO people occasionally wash up on the beaches? They must be from LEGO Island!

For years, one question has lingered in the minds of many LEGO fans, a seemingly simple question with an unresolved solution: "Where in the world is LEGO Island?" For those who are not aware, LEGO Island is the very first computer game published by The LEGO Group, predating LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game by 8 years. For many older LEGO fans, LEGO Island is considered the LEGO video game, surpassing even TT Game's latest offerings. Just as we know where we individually live on the earth, kids, TFOLs, and AFOLs have wanted to know where LEGO Island is located in the vast universe we call space. Although this is a simple question, it has no definitive answer. There are a few theories as to the whereabouts of our friends Nick and Laura Brick, Pepper Roni, The Infomaniac, and The Brickster. Some say it has no physical latitude and longitude coordinates, but instead represents a timeless location with a near-Utopian society. Unfortunately, philosophical answers portraying imaginary locations do not satisfy the inquiries for a physical location. One popular idea illustrates LEGO Island as a planet, while another says it is America. The only substantial evidence available regarding the official position of the Island is this one image displayed during the game's credits for a short time. Time and time again has this picture been subjected to strong scrutiny, and the conclusions drawn identify the geographical location of LEGO Island to the south of the Bering Strait or even Florida, the latter of which is suggested by internal Island Xtreme Stunts references. However, neither of these findings completely satisfy everybody. In June 2014, some really smart people from the Netherlands created a tool that allows limited (though more than previous tools) access to the game’s assets. Using this, access was gained to that very same image displayed in the credits. Upon close examination with assistance from rioforce, it was discovered that rotating the image 180 degrees clockwise/counterclockwise revealed the true location of LEGO Island: off the coast of India. Kinda spooky, huh?

So... just how little space could LI2 take up if nothing was duplicated?

Very interesting. Thanks, McJobless. As you can see in the screenshot below, I was able to use the values in the .cfg file to calculate the percentage given by Chief. As you can see, since the oxygen doesn't deplete (10 points), ore doesn't matter at all and both the energy crystals (60 points) and 1 cavern (10 points) must be found to complete the level, you automatically have 80% by just completing the mission. To figure out how much of the last 20 points I had, I used the number of seconds I took, 136 (2 minutes, 16 seconds), subtracted that from the total number of seconds on the timer as given in the .cfg file ,900, to get 764 and divided that by 900. This showed me that I should get 84.889% of the possible 20 points for time, 16.978. Adding that to 80, I got a total percentage score of 96.978 which rounded up to the 97% seen in the screenshot. Anybody feel free to check my math but it seems to me that getting 100% (or the 99.5 that would theoretically round up to 100%) would require one to complete the level in 22.5 seconds.

I'm a pretty big fan of the extremely short lived Lego space theme Unitron. The theme only got 4 sets total and 3 of them were only released in the States. They were the original counter-parts to Spyrius, but for whatever reason they didn't stay around anywhere near as long. Since the theme only got 4 sets, it ended up lacking a really big spaceship. Since I'm not really a fan of the Ice Planet theme, I decided to take the awesome big ship, the Deep Freeze Defender, and build it in Unitron colors. I also modified it to better fit in with Unitron's other sets. I've dubbed it the Deep Space Defender. I built most of it in LDD first so I would have an easier time ordering the bricks. I couldn't just swap colors because Ice Planet uses a different balance of white/blue/trans than Unitron uses blue/gray/trans. Heres the actual test build I did to finalize the design. The middle received the most change here. Finished product: I managed to not take a good picture of the middle section. So heres the LDD. Its got a maneuverable star-fighter vibe to it in person. Satellite dish in the middle section All three segments Rear engine compartment houses the same spiffy auto-launching little scout vehicle that the original set had Front pod attached to rear engine, kind of a gunboat feel to it Next to prototype

now you've got me doubting myself. I need to check again but I seem to remember the last time I thought about this I compared the coastline and it matched up to the US pretty closely. but now I'm not so sure... Edit: I took a couple pictures https://www.dropbox.com/s/gqb2fhkwb5kekkw/IMG_20150810_185908263_HDR.jpg?dl=0 here is the continent as first seen all the way from space. If you look closely you can see a couple spots that match the coastline of Canada. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ztxhpdc67extt9a/IMG_20150810_190221028.jpg?dl=0 and here is the immediate coastline surrounding the city itself. I don't think I've quite match today exactly to a single spot on earth but it probably could be. and that's the info I have on lego city. don't mean to derail this topic further

The the continent seen from space in LCU actually isn't ambiguous at all. It's very obviously North America, with legocity replacing New York

Remember that bit in LEGO Island 2 where you parachute down to Ogel Island from space? The model of the planet is "legoworld_lod1.msh" (and lod2 and lod3 of course), and here's the texture: Meanwhile in the intro... (0:14)

Why are we not talking about the fact that the island is INSANELY MASSIVE in that picture? The jetskis alone would create massive tsunamis for any neighboring countries. Earth is doomed, and its because lego men need to go fast, definitely fast e: also what the heck happened to africa

Display cases for the fun packs! I may actually grab a couple to use for displaying small MOCs, they don't look too bad...

I skimmed the intro and saw the LDD model, at which point I thought "Ah it's just another LDD build". Then... KABLAMMO this-is-incredible-I-have-to-read-and-study-the-whole-thing-in-proper-detail. Awesome model you've built there, IncogM!

This site has been running for 4-5 years. There are members here across all age groups, with thousands of posts and hundreds of likes under their belts. We have collectively worked together to solve some of the toughest modding challenges for these classic games. We are universally recognised as THE website for classic LEGO games. If we say something is a certain way, chances are we speak the truth. If you can provide evidence against us, then you're welcome to challenge us, but without the evidence, you need to learn to have respect for the people who are responsible for this site being what it is.

Are you seriously implying that I would somehow "cheat" to show something that, if it had actually been a "cheat", could have been easily disproved by anybody else? That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Yet here you are refusing to believe something multiple people have said and one actually shown with a screenshot, yet you're claiming they're all lying, without you even testing it for yourself. Wow. Edit: Here's a video I recorded to show you, as apparently you don't want to test it for yourself: