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Since I haven't seen anyone build these, I decided to build them while ordering parts for the regular buildings. The Tool Station is missing some Dark Turquoise headlight bricks for the dynamite case and a barrier, one turquoise grille piece at the top, and I took the liberty of putting it on plates, otherwise it should be exactly as the official render: Tool Station (the "beta" Tool Store) And if you've never enabled it in the game itself, the back: Wiki reference image: Teleport Pad: Wiki reference image: Not sure if the proper name was "Mobile teleport" initially, the wiki is a bit fuzzy... That's it! I may make other prototype stuff but it will require some time modeling it

3DVIA Printscreen can capture LEGO Digital Designer models and save them as 3DXML files. It was discontinued years ago, but can still be downloaded from the web archives (direct installer link). Not many programs can load 3DXML files, so I made a program to convert them to OBJ. It does some other helpful things too. Download The resulting models are far more optimized than exports from other LEGO building software, thanks to LDD's hidden stud/tube removal. For example, a small house model that's 50350 tris exported from LeoCAD is only 13548 tris with this method - and with some additional tricks, only 2586 tris. More info here. I've only made this to work with LDD captures, compatibility with captures from other programs is not guaranteed. It will automatically name materials and textures with their official LEGO names/IDs. Setup: 3DVIA Printscreen should be configured so "Capture of textures" is on, and "Group by textures" is off. LDD should have high-quality rendering options disabled. 3DVIA Printscreen must be launched BEFORE LDD. Usage: Save your LDD model in 3DXML to OBJ's "Models" folder. Launch 3DXML to OBJ and enter your LDD model name in the first text box, then click "Move camera". This saves a new LDD model with the camera set in the proper position for 3DXML capturing. Open the new LDD model (it will have CAM_SET in the name) and capture it to a 3DXML file with 3DVIA Printscreen. Make sure it's saved in 3DXML to OBJ's "Models" folder, like the LDD models. Enter the name of your 3DXML file into the second text box in 3DXML to OBJ. I recommend leaving "Weld duplicate vertices" enabled. Choose a new color palette if you'd like, and click "Convert". It sounds more complicated than it is. Here's a model being converted and imported into Unity: And now, the advanced features, which are mostly for LEGO Universe-style color variation, but keep reading for some geometry removal tricks too. For color variation, we need to randomly adjust the color of each brick... But, LDD often batches bricks of the same color together into one mesh. Thus, we can't do it after capturing a model. We have to have the randomized colors displayed in LDD itself. So, it's LDD modding time! Setting up color variation: Download this LIF Extractor. Extract db.lif, found at C:\Users\YOURNAMEHERE\AppData\Roaming\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer Put the resulting db folder where the original db.lif file was, and rename db.lif to something else so LDD will use your extracted data instead of the original file. Inside your db folder is Materials.xml. Put a copy of it in the same folder as the 3DXML to OBJ EXE. Launch 3DXML to OBJ and click the "Advanced" button. In the "Edit Materials.xml" box, choose what changes to make. You can add color variation and also apply changes to the base color palette. Click "Edit" and it will create a new XML file. Now you'll want to update the program's own internal color definitions. Enter the name of the XML file you just created in the box below, and click "Update color definitions". Replace LDD's Materials.xml with your new version. Again, this all sounds more complicated than it is. There's a video further below showing how it's done. Adding color variation to LDD models is simple enough; in advanced mode there's an option for it in the same box where you set the camera position in your LDD model. Just choose how strong you want the variation to be. I strongly recommend converting all the materials to vertex colors for models with color variation. How you do this will depend on what software you prefer; in the video below I'm using Ultimate Unwrap 3D. There's one more advanced feature: You can keep meshes of certain colors from receiving color variation and/or being exported. This is useful for "dummy bricks" only placed in the model to trip LDD's hidden geometry removal. In 3DXML to OBJ_Data\StreamingAssets, you will find "Color Export Exclusion.txt" and "Color Variation Exclusion.txt". Add the desired color IDs here, one per line. Covering studs is obvious enough, but tubes are a bit more finicky. Original LDD model, vs export with the dummy bricks excluded: A simple brick has the entire underside present. These quickly add up to loads of polygons. Placing 1x1 round plates across the surface causes LDD to replace the underside with two triangles. Nice! There's a small handful of other parts with this effect, but 1x1 round plates are the best. In fact, even just one 1x1 round plate can trigger this so long as the rest is still covered. Covering the bottom entirely will cause LDD to remove it 100%. Beware: Some bricks, like those rounded 2x2 pieces, will look like they have the same effect as 1x1 round plates, but actually don't... They still leave much of the tubes intact. And finally, here's a video showing all of the advanced features, if the text wasn't clear enough: More tips and tricks! If 3DVIA Printscreen is causing LDD to freeze and/or not launch, see this post. If you have developer mode enabled in LDD, you can press Shift W to toggle wireframe mode. You can also turn rendering of different parts of bricks on and off. LDD's bricks come in four sections, and can be toggled as such: K: Toggles studs Shift K: Toggles bottom and inside of tubes Q: Toggles outside of brick Shift Q: Toggles bottom and inside of brick You can use this to, for example, capture a model without studs, and use that as a lower LOD. Don't have developer mode enabled? Go to the same AppData folder as db.lif and developermode=1 to preferences.ini. If you've modded LDD's decorations, or LDD has updated, you can update 3DXML to OBJ's internal texture definitions - just copy the Decorations folder from db to the same folder as 3DXML to OBJ's EXE, and click the button for it in advanced mode. (In case you're curious what this does: The program keeps a list of MD5 hashes of texture data, along side their file names/IDs. This allows the program to identify what textures are what in a 3DXML file, without actually containing any of the texture data itself.) You can add your own custom color palettes, just go to 3DXML to OBJ_Data\StreamingAssets\Custom Palettes and use the existing files as examples of how they work. If for some reason you need to, Shift R resets 3DXML to OBJ's saved preferences (resolution, most recent conversion options, etc). Replacing colors when converting a 3DXML with color variation will work... But look very strange, as it'll only affect bricks that happen to be the original color values. The ones that have been slightly lightened or darkened won't be changed. You can mod lower LODs of bricks from LU into LDD... But that'd be its own topic.

Hi everybody, I've just finished creating a documentary about the musical direction of Lego Island. Video version being edited. Audio version available from: Video now live:

I play most of the TT Lego games, but I really don't like the voice acting and the trend to make it more and more 'cinematic'. I preferred the miming and visual gags. I think that was funnier than the kid-friendly dialogue we get. Either that, or we get audio clips straight from the movie like Lego Avengers, which just looks really odd. Then they have really long cutscenes that do nothing but recreate the movie. It has an uncanny valley effect, when Lego should be spoofing the source material and should just be lighthearted and fun. Also, some of the clips are used in really weird ways: I remember playing as Scarlet Witch and she just mutters "You're a madman" every minute or so for no reason! And then her mortal scream from the film is played every time she uses her special power, gets a bit much. Then again, maybe I'm only saying that because I grew up with the originals!

Hey guys, tuning in from australia here! Between the time when lego racers drove in Atlantis and the rise of the lego gameboy games, there was an age undreamed of. Let me tell you of the days of high imagination! I remember as a young tyke I played racers, rock raiders and lego loco on the family computer. what an age it was! I also had many lego sets that are still in storage tubs albeit unassembled and jumbled - the most memorable ones being those old spring type cannons with firing projectiles, and a large viking ship I got once... That was in the early 2000s when lego was much cheaper and way more creative. I would probably still be building it today if they kept up with producing their original stuff. I really miss LEGO universe for this haha. Anyway feel free to ask me anything or say hi, my favourite lego themes have always been knights, rock raiders, adventurers and pirates

So it might just be me who is really interested in cut content and things that is incredibly hard or impossible to recover, but if you've ever done some digging around in the LRR files, you've probably found a thing or two that does not appear in the game. One of those things is the Canteen, or Snack Bar, which appears to later have been cut in favour of the Support Station for feeding purposes. Contrary to the Tool Station (the beta Tool Store https://kb.rockraidersunited.com/Tool_Store#/media/File:Tool_Store_manual.png ) it does not appear to have an in-game model left over. This makes it immensely hard to recreate what it looks like. But lo' and behold, you can actually see (part of) it in one of the cutscenes! Take a look: ...well, partly, at least! This might point to one of the buildings of the Canteen building being a crystal energy harvester, or for sending crystals to the LMS... or it's simply just that they repurposed the canteen. YouTube link with timestamp: (If you're wondering how I found this, I'm currently meticulously studying the LMS architecture in order to try rebuilding the environments in Stud.io in glorious modern-day HD)

Well, yes, but Jimbo's instructions are way out of date, and what I meant with impossible is that some models differ betwee the render, in-game model and the game files, and some geometry is outright impossible. Case on point: Tunnel Scout's baseplate where the wedge plate cuts into the dome plate, and the in-game docks which features ladder pieces in an impossible manner. However many of the modeling problems due to engine limitations, and with that in mind I've been able to get incredibly close to what the "true source model" would look like. I'll be posting my meticulously researched Stud.io files sometime in the future, where I've tried to triangulate the models as much as possible ... Hey wait, this is a thread about the Canteen, what is going on

I fixed it.

Many fans throughout the years have built the separate buildings, but the problem is that some are literally *impossible* to build correctly as their in-game model is not very good and the official renders are only from a front angle, so people have to make estimations of how they are built. I've actually just finished building them all myself and the amount of details in the builds is astounding, no wonder people miss some. Personally I couldn't get satisfied at all with the Large Mobile Laser Cutter, it's a real pain to build... One of the best collections can be found here: Although I don't think he has the Beta Tool Station like I do

I've decided to turn development towards making a little "remaster" of Lego Racers 1. Racing around cartoony tracks shooting cannon balls at other brick built karts, pretty fun stuff. A bunch of work lately has been UI related and thinking of how the menus should look and feel. More work has also went into the kart/vehicle physics and feeling, there's still work to be done, but they're getting better. https://streamable.com/fmnp4 More work went into AI as well. They actually have a very small brain now! They're just smart enough to drive in reverse if stuck, and to follow a given course. Currently they are insanely good drivers, too good, they're very difficult to pass, let alone beat in a race. Gotta make em a bit dumber. https://streamable.com/q5r10 https://streamable.com/37ti3 Lots of other stuff has gotten work done, such as basic HUD elements, sounds, particles, a simple test-track "ripped from LR1" and more. I also quickly added a screenshot camera last night courtesy of Garry Newman, which allows you to take some super cool screenshots ingame. If ya wanna keep up to date further on this project, I've made a Discord server where I'll be posting development info and taking suggestions, feedback, etc. https://discord.gg/TT5FD5q

This tutorial was written for the 1999 version of LEGO Racers, so you may not need to follow steps 3-6 if you have a different version. It is important that you follow these steps in the exact order specified, or you may have trouble launching the game. 1. Insert the LEGO Racers disc into your PC. Rather than install the game conventionally, you will need to download le717’s Racers Alternate Installer here. 2. When the executable file has downloaded, run it and follow through the steps. Once completed, uncheck “Launch LEGO Racers” and press “Finish” to close the installer. 3. LEGO Racers uses SafeDisc protection (at least, the 1999 version does), which is no longer supported in Windows 10. You can however re-enable the driver that SafeDisc uses, but only do so when you wish to play LEGO Racers and other trusted games as it was removed for a reason. Open a folder in Windows Explorer, such as Documents. Click “File”, then mouse over “Open command prompt” and choose “Open command prompt as administrator”. 4. Type in (without quotes) “bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING ON”. Press enter and it will state “This operation completed successfully.” Now you can close the command prompt. 5. Download this file, extract it and place the “SECDRV.SYS” file into the following location: C:\Windows\System32\drivers Then restart your computer. 6. Upon logging back in, you should see text in the lower-right corner of your desktop, along the lines of “Test Mode Windows 10 Home” with some random nonsense after. You will need the Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider to actually make the SECDRV.SYS driver work. Go to this page and click “Download” at the bottom, then choose “Agree” to download it. Right click dseo13b.exe and select “Run as administrator”. Press Next, then Yes, and you’ll be at the main menu. Check “Sign a System File” and press Next. Now you will need to type in the location of the SECDRV.SYS file, which should be: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\SECDRV.SYS Click OK and OK again, then in the main menu check “Exit” and press Next. 7. The game should now launch without trouble, but it can also be made widescreen and prepared for easy modding. Download JrMasterModelBuilder’s JAM Extractor here. 8. Extract the folder and you’ll see files inside, including a “JAMExtractor.exe” file. Copy the “LEGO.JAM” file from your installation directory and paste it here. Then drag the pasted “LEGO.JAM” file onto the “JAMExtractor.exe” file to extract it. A new LEGO folder will appear when the program is finished, and your folder should look like this: 9. Open the “LEGO” folder, select the “GAMEDATA” and “MENUDATA” folders inside, and move them into your install directory. When that’s finished, you can delete the extracted JAMExtractor folder, including all files inside. Then rename the “LEGO.JAM” file in the install directory to “BACKUP LEGO.JAM”. Your install directory should now look like this: 10. Finally, to run the game in widescreen at custom resolutions, first download WillKirkby’s LR1 Launcher here. 10. Extract the downloaded ZIP and move its “LR1Launcher.exe” file into the install directory. Set the compatibility options to run the application with administrative privelages, by right-clicking it, choosing “Properties”, and entering the “Compatibility” tab. Then check “Run this program as an administrator” as shown below. 11. Run LR1Launcher.exe (you can make a shortcut to it elsewhere if you wish), select your desired resolution and check boxes as you wish, then click Launch and play LEGO Racers! When you’ve finished, follow steps 3-4, this time entering “bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING OFF”. Reboot the computer and it will be back to normal, with LEGO Racers not launching again. In future you will need to follow steps 3, 4 and the latter part of 6 - enabling test mode, rebooting into it and signing the driver - whenever you wish to play the game, but it’s far less hassle than using a virtual machine or transferring files to an old XP computer if you’re modding.