Digital 1:1 scale L.M.S. Explorer (+ldraw/studio 2.0 file downloads) - 2021-10-21: "Oh hey, this thread is 10 years old and still going!"

[Arthuriel]

Download Links:
1:1 L.M.S. Explorer (LDraw file that also works in studio 2.0): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r195/

1:1 L.M.S. Explorer bridge (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r358/
1:8 L.M.S. Explorer (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r194/
1:16 L.M.S. Explorer (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r193/
1:32 L.M.S. Explorer (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r192/

[NEWS]: (2021-10-21): With a delay of about three weeks I noticed that this thread is 10 years old XD. Let's see, if I can come up with something insightful on the spot to distract from my "perfect" timing^^:
I still think that this is a cool project and I would probably do it again . With today's software and hardware that's easier to do than 10 years ago and makes you appreciate the effort that the people at DDI & LEGO put into designing the ship over 20 years ago.
In regards to what I expected from making this thread/model and what actually happened the results are a bit all over the place: on one side I hoped that it would get featured on blogs and websites besides RRU and maybe even getting the attention from the LEGO Company itself, but that didn't really work out (I only remember two times, where the model was featured in a blog or video). Maybe I am too introverted and not annoying enough on social media to make the existence of this ship known to everyone XD. On the other side this thread has gotten a ton of views and replies over the last decade and people started to integrate the ship model into a game (like Manic Miners from baraklava) or game engine or make MOCs based on the digital models. Also a big thanks to Cyrem and Cirevam, because otherwise RRU wouldn't exist as a central hub for Rock Raiders related content.

 

Archive of older Announcements, News, Errata and Updates

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[UPDATE]: (2020-08-30): Due to changes on bricklink the download didn't work anymore (the page for the spaceship itself still exists though of course) and I forgot to update it. Well, here is the working one from RRU. It's an LDraw file from 2016 that also works in studio 2.0: https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r195/

[UPDATE]: (2019-10-27): Download link of the studio 2.0 file on bricklink (uploaded a few weeks ago): https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=105148
Edit [2019-11-01]: If you are an RRU user, you can also download the following files of mine:
L.M.S. Explorer bridge (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r358/
1:8 L.M.S. Explorer (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r194/
1:16 L.M.S. Explorer (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r193/
1:32 L.M.S. Explorer (LEGO Digital Designer file): https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r192/

[UPDATE]: (2019-09-28): Thanks to baraklava (whose Manic Miners project you can find on RRU: Manic Miners ) I got into studio 2.0 and imported my L.M.S. Explorer into it and made several photorealistic renders of it. I fixed or deleted broken (mainly image) links in this thread depending on if I had a better version of a picture etc. or not. Also: It's almost the 8th anniversary of this thread : D.

[NEWS] (2016-12-24): Download Link of the updated 2016 version (zipped ldr-file):

https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r195/

(2016-12-24): Added a download link and the picture from the gallery of the revised L.M.S. Explorer model and did some fixes in this post (repairing spoilers, links etc.)

 

Download Link of the old version (zipped ldr-file):

http://oresome.rockraidersunited.com/download/53

[2015-11-10: I tested the unzipped file, that I have on my computer, with the latest version of LeoCAD and it still works. I assume, that the file also works in combination with other programs. You have to zoom in to see the model at all, because there is a view limit in LeoCAD.]

 

Announcement: I made smaller versions of this ship (1:8, 1:16, 1:32) and one of them could become a real Lego set, if enough people support my L.M.S. Explorer project on Lego Ideas: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/38716

edit: The LEGO Ideas projects didn't get enough votes and are archived now

[NEWS] (2015-11-05): I added the download link on top of the thread, because otherwise people (including myself if I want to send someone a link) might not find the ldr-file.

[NEWS] (2014-11-21): I added a parts list, that I generated with MLCad.

 

[NEWS] (2014-11-15): New upload link for the ldr-file (in form of a zip file), because I uploaded it on the new RRU uploader. You can find the file via Upload File --> Database --> Miscellaneous --> 1-to-1 scale L.M.S. Explorer.zip --> Download

 

Errata (2014-10-29): I corrected the mistake with the lxf file, because it's actually a ldr file (can be opened with ldview, mlcad and probably others programs, too).

 

[NEWS] (2014-08-04): As a RRU-member you are able to download the ldr file of the L.M.S. Explorer in the uploaded files-section of RRU ("Upload files" in the top left corner --> View all uploaded files --> somewhere should be a "1-to-1-scale-LMS-Explorer" file)

 

[NEWS] (2014-06-13): The user "Sadie Meowsalot" recreated in collaboration with other users the hangar bays from the LMS Explorer. It's still WIP, but please check it out in this thread on page 9 (you can download the ldr file, too):

[NEWS] (2013-10-06): I uploaded the first picture rendered in POV-Ray (=much better quality and resolution). I also replaced most of the old pictures in this post with the new ones, because they look better.

 

[NEWS] (2013-08-07): I made an entry in my rru-blog, which contains a (probably) complete list of all the different LMS Explorer MOCs, which you can find on the internet:

[NEWS] (2013-05-09): I finally uploaded pictures from my finished LDD bridge model. I don't know, why I forgot it for such a long time, but in the last days I've completed this task.

Also thanks to Lair for the magazine picture from the RL bridge version on thread page number two

 

[NEWS] (2013-02-28): I've repaired all the imagelinks in this post and also incluced some of the other images from my several posts in this thread,

which will make things easier to search (or you just use the gallery function^^). Another thing: My rant about the elevators in the RR-intro was wrong,

because when I was building the LMS Explorer on the Minecraftserver (I don't know if it belonged to Phoenyx or CTXXTC), I've found out, that the

first elevator is in the middle of the ship and the second one (which leads to the hangar) on the right side (maybe I'll make a little sketch of it).]

 

 

 

Development Story (original Text from 2011 + 2013 Update)

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Hi,

I want to show you my LMS Explorer MOC, which is maybe the best recreation of the Rock Raiders colony/miningship I`ve seen so far on the internet.

The crazy idea began around christmas last year, when I was playing LEGO Rock Raiders again after many years and watching the intro and the outro.
My first thoughts were: "Hmm, had someone from LEGO or another person ever build a 1:1 scale model of this ship? This would be very cool".
After searching some minutes on the internet the final assumption was: There was no L.M.S. Explorer model in the original size yet. Maybe some people

hat started with the construction and gave up, because it was too big, too expensive, too complicated etc.
That was the moment I had the idea that building this spaceship myself would be a funny idea. I had enough time and started with this crazy project on my computer.

Phase 1 "Okay, lets start!":
In the beginning I downloaded the LEGO Digital Designer from the LEGO Company itself, because it seemed to be the easiest way to start. The reason for this

were the easy controls and the possibility to build with a high speed, but there were also problems like non available pieces or pieces in certain colors.

At this moment I hadn't figured out the biggest problem. I will tell you later.
Beneath a contruction program I needed picture sources too, because the LMS Explorer is a very big ship, it's difficult to see all the details etc.,

if you watch the videos only a few times.
So I decided to look on youtube and began watching the intro and outro over and over, while I was building the ship in the LDD (LEGO Digital Designer).
The hardest part is to figure out, how long or high the different parts are, but with some exercise you will get it. Then you will know for example "Hmm, this

could only be a 1*2*3 panel. That means that this section is 48 studs long and three bricks high" and other stuff. All in all it's just trial and error (or more

errors than trials in the beginning ).

Phase 2 "Oh, that's very "funny". Now I have to look for new solutions":
A month later the ship had around 16.000 pieces, but now the real "fun" (aka "Aaargh, WTF?!" or eternal damnation) began: LDD crashed more and more,

because the number of pieces was too high. With some tricks (lower details etc.) I came to a limit of ~18.000 bricks, but the program crashed again and

again (and again and again ), when I was adding just one brick.
I concluded that I needed a better program to continue. There were only two interessing programs: LDraw and LeoCAD
I took the last one (maybe it was a mistake, because some colors were missing and it was much slower than MLCAD, but in my opinion it has the easier controls).
After this decision I tried to convert the LDD file in a lcd (LeoCAD)-file, but it wasn't successful. The "pleasure" to build the whole ship in LeoCAD again wasn´t

very funny, but it gave me the advantage to change some construction mistakes, which I made in the LDD-Version.

Phase 3 "Building and building and building..."
It think that this decribes the situation very well, because you will know (while watching the videos on and on ), how to build the different sections of the ship.
Sometimes the programm crashed (I don't know, if it depends on the number of additional pieces, because it crashed sometimes after thousands of pieces or

only after five new bricks).

Phase 4 "Almost finished"
Now the ships contains (October 2011 is near^^) around 57.300 bricks (and it's just the hull) and LeoCAD crashes very often, but I can still continue.

I will have only a few, but optional, things to do:
-changing the five slope rows on top of the ship front
-changing the black area in front of the brigde
-maybe changing the engines (they look a bit to small, but it's hard to figure out the right scale)
-adding the teleporter
(-export the ship to MLCAD and changing the colors of almost all bricks, because the ships is brighter in reality. That means for example:

turguoise(I can choose this color only in MLCAD) instead of green etc.).

 

[Edit from 2013-05-09]: the only thing, that I've done from the points above is the reclouring part. I don't know, if I will do things like adding the teleporter etc. The reason is, that LeoCAD is too slow, MLCAD too complicated and LDD needs too much resources. Maybe it's easier to build a 3D-model with a real 3D program. The advantage would be, that you can probably use a obj-file for things like a new intro etc., which is much more useful.

Maybe I will realise only one point, because it's getting very boring to complete the ship, but I think that´s okay:D.

Here are some data (I used the dimension tool in MLCAD) from the ship:
Length: 975 studs/ 773,44 cm/ 304,51 in.
Width: 134 studs/ 106,38 cm/ 41,88 in.
Height: 133 studs/ 104,93 cm/ 41,31 in.
pieces: 57.397 (with a stable inner construction it would have 300.000 and more pieces and if you would build rooms with details for the hole crew

(2000 until 3000 rock raiders in my opinion), it would contain one million until two million pieces.
building time: 9 months (or 10/11 in the end)
weight: in reality it would be very heavy. Maybe 200 kg/ 441 lb. or more:D

Update [2013-10-06]: I didn't really work on the model since Oct 2011, because that was very slow and boring. I also slightly updated computer (new OS and a SSD) and somehow I can't even load it in LeoCAD. The only option is MLCAD, but I don't really like the controls of this program.
There are also good news: I replaced the old pictures with POV-Ray renders, which look much better (I always thought, that it was impossible, because don't have much memory, but it worked anyways ).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Separate Bridge Model In LDD

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Here are some images from my seperate LDD bridge model which looks much better than the bridge in my 1:1 LMS Explorer model or the early separate bridge model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links

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Main video sources, which were extremely helpful and I used to watch again and again (and often freezed to look at a single frame):

 

 

[Cirevam]

Lair is going to die from happiness when he sees this. He is currently working on just the bridge and getting it as accurate as possible, but you have the entire thing here. Top shelf!

[Arthuriel]

Thank you .

I have seen the two LMS pictures in Lair`s gallery and his attempt is better than mine (my first version of the bridge in LDD was too big, so I build a smaller version ).

Maybe I should post pictures from the LDD LMS Explorer version and the building progress too.

[Baz]

Wow. That's epic.

[Lair]

  On 9/30/2011 at 11:55 PM, Cirevam said:

Lair is going to die from happiness when he sees this. He is currently working on just the bridge and getting it as accurate as possible, but you have the entire thing here. Top shelf!

Actually, I'm more mad that I wasn't the first to build it, and that my estimation of 100,000 bricks was twice the actual size. Oh well.

Anyways, wow. This is a true masterpiece. Except the color is all wrong. The teal things are green for some reason. Don't give me that garbage about LeoCad not having teal, it does. Also the hull is light grey aside from a few stripes (the giant flat parts of the bridge), and you colored the silver bricks white unless it rendered like that. Could you get more pictures of the close-up areas? If you can, add Chief's chair in.

You even got the size right. The minimodel I made was too long and skinny.

...Well. I don't really have anything to say, Just...epic.

ALSO Watch the EXTENDED Rock Raiders intro on youtube.

Mmm... you've got a small flaw in your bridge at the base, it only has 11 windows instead of 12... oh well.

Edit again: You used green flat bricks where a green elbowed pipe should be used in the bridge, which does exist in leocad. Also in the back of the bridge the elevator shaft is seperated from the slope. Your bridge design is a little messed up in places (well I'm apparently blind lol, but really I think the shaft is different? Please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm being critical of small flaws, but that doesn't mean I'm complaining. I'm just trying to help. The fact you even made this yourself is just epic.

[removed because I'm a dipweed who doesn't even know where he got info from]

I give you a :af: :af: :af: :af: x9001

[Retsnom Kcor]

That is the most awesome thing I've seen today.

[Cyrem]

  On 10/1/2011 at 1:43 AM, Lair of Rockwhales said:

Your opinion is incorrect. From what I know, it has a crew of around one thousand. It probably could hold twothousand, but they don't want to overcrowd it.

On what moon did you find that information.

[Lair]

[__]

[Cirevam]

It's not a spam post, it's a legitimate question. Cite your sources, otherwise it is your opinion that is wrong. Besides, the majority of your first post in this topic was negative criticism rather than praise, so it seems that it's okay to not "congratulate the OC on his work".

[Lair]

[__]

[Toot]

Great job! Now build it IRL.

[McJobless]

This is fantastic. I wonder how much DesignByMe would state it would cost to buy the model for real life?

[Arthuriel]

@Lair:

Okay, you are right . There is Turqoise in LeoCAD. I don´t know, why I used the wrong colors. Maybe I thought "Hmm, I had build 10.000 pieces yet and used the wrong colors... ...aargh, I´m too lazy to recoloring the whole thing. I will do this later"

Jeah, I can do this now and recoloring is easy, but there are ~57.000 bricks in wrong colors.

for the bridge:

Here is another problem: Maybe it is more logical if there will be 11 windows instead 12, but in the outro it looks like 12. The low resolution of the video can be a reason.

And yes, there are round elbowed pieces... .... which I dicovered after finishing the bridge .

I searched shaft parts in LeoCAD, but I didn´t find the original ones.

Summary:

Thanks for your constructive critisizm and your comment. The general problem is that LeoCAD gets really slow with a higher piece number and adding or changing pieces can be really annoying, but I will try to realize the following points:

[x]find and destroy atlantis;) (just a joke, but some people will remember this point from Homer Simpson´s to-do list )

[ ]adding the teleporter

[ ]recolor the whole ship

[ ]correct some flaws etc.

[ ]adding other things ( e.g.: Chief´s chair)

[x]watching the extended version (I think it was August 2011). This is a good tipp, because the video show a lot of details in higher resolution etc. (e.g. the teleporter etc.).

[ ]adding other tasks to this list

P.S.: My crew number is just a long guess and my Rock Raider manual have been broken after a few years and I lost it later, so I don´t know, where I can find a reliable source for this information. Maybe you got this information from the manual, but I really want to know the crew number of the whole ship .

P.P.S.: Changing the colors in MLCAD will be easier (there is a list with every single piece in the model), but it´s a crazy task too .

@Toot etc.: Thank you . The main problem is that building the L.M.S. Explorer in real life means:

lots of parts--->lots of money ( 20.000€ and more) or sponsoring

Maybe I should try to contact the LEGO Company, but I don´t know, if they would be interested in this project.

P.S.: LDD crashed at 18.000 piecesand the price at this point was around 2500 until 3000 €

[Cyrem]

  On 10/1/2011 at 6:05 AM, Lair of Rockwhales said:

I don't see how they're relevant at all, as I was giving lots of constrctive critisizm while our chairman completally ignored the existance of his work.

Just because my first post in this topic is not a comment on his creation doesn't mean I'm ignoring it at all. Perhaps I intend to write a bigger reply later... Or maybe I saw someone saying Arthurie's opinion of how many raiders would fit into the ship was wrong, and trying to push their baseless opinion on him.

  On 10/1/2011 at 6:05 AM, Lair of Rockwhales said:

And, question? I thought he was saying something about moons.

If you think I was talking about moons than you really did not understand my question at all. 'On what moon' is a simple exaggeration/saying of 'where did you find'. Here is a Simple English version of my question: "Where did you find information on how many Rock Raiders would fit inside the L.M.S"?

[Arthuriel]

Aargh, I recolored 15 pieces yet, but then Leo CAD crashed. That means a veeery long recoloring time and in MLCAD I have to change every single bricks too . I hope that I will find a solution to select lots of bricks and recoloring them all in one step.

[Lair]

  On 10/1/2011 at 9:46 AM, Cyrem said:

  On 10/1/2011 at 6:05 AM, Lair of Rockwhales said:

And, question? I thought he was saying something about moons.

1. If you think I was talking about moons than you really did not understand my question at all.

2. Here is a Simple English version of my question: "Where did you find information on how many Rock Raiders would fit inside the L.M.S"?

1. Herp derp

2. I, um... I'm pretty certain I saw it in a manuel or a bo.... I'm sure I saw it in some Rock Raiders source but I... can't remember where, so frost me and ignore anything I say

Yeah, after you said that, I realized I didn't remember where I saw that. As far as we know it could be another monsters farting over purple crystals thing. I know it can hold hundreds to thousands, but now I realize I've been giving out info I thought was fact and now realize I don't remember where I got it from. Frost me >_<

Arthuriel, I crossed out the window part for a reason. You got that right, there's a wierd jut at the bottom. My point on the elevator still stands. Can you hide the areas you're not working on and fix it one area at a time or something? I can help on spots on the bridge if you are willing to take it or need it at all.

Now what I DO know is that they at least built the bridge in real life. Seeing how accuratley sized the ship is, I wouldn't doubt that they built the whole thing too. Jamesster says they've built things like this one giant tower from an old comic IRL, so why not this? Whether or not it's still assembled it another matter.

  On 10/1/2011 at 9:55 AM, Arthuriel said:

Aargh, I recolored 15 pieces yet, but then Leo CAD crashed. That means a veeery long recoloring time and in MLCAD I have to change every single bricks too . I hope that I will find a solution to select lots of bricks and recoloring them all in one step.

ffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Arthuriel]

Okay, I found two scenes, where you can see the back of the bridge:

Extended intro 2:03 - 2:08

Outro (travel without warp drive) 0:43-0:48

In my opinion the first one is better and it looks a bit like a seperated (3-4 studs) shaft in a brighter color, but it´s difficult to find out, because of the low resolution.

Hmm, I can group the bridge parts, but I had never done that, because it wasn`t necessary. The main problem will be the ex- and import part (high piece number-->high probability for crashes during importing). That means that it will be easier, when I do the few changes on my computer.

P.S.: It would be very cool, if there are still pictures from a real bridge or the whole ship (aargh, almost 8 m long ).

P.P.S.: Hiding pieces... ...maybe it´s possible, but I will have to figure that out.

[Lair]

Really you need the size of the elevator before you can make the shaft. It's difficult because it's inconsistant between two scenes. You know how there is a row of grid plates that the door slides on? You might need to add a second row despite what it shows there because we later see that's part of the elevator. I don't know, you be the judge of that.

I

just noticed you don't have the teleporters in the underside

[Arthuriel]

I already wrote in the first post that I am going to add some things like the teleporter etc., because the ship isn`t finished yet.

I found two scenes which shows the elevator: 5:28 and 5:40 in the extended intro. I think the evalator is 6 studs deep, 12 studs wide and ~6 bricks high.

[Antillies]

Well done, Arthuriel. This is very impressive. Good job.

[Lair]

  On 10/1/2011 at 5:01 PM, Arthuriel said:

I already wrote in the first post that I am going to add some things like the teleporter etc., because the ship isn`t finished yet.

I found two scenes which shows the elevator: 5:28 and 5:40 in the extended intro. I think the evalator is 6 studs deep, 12 studs wide and ~6 bricks high.

There were waves six bricks high!

THat sounds about right... or maybe not, I don't know. The red and green panels make it feel like it's eight bricks deep, so I'm not sure. It's got a flat brick as a roof though.

Here's the model. It shows bricks I've never seen before. If we can get someone from LEGO to show us all the photos...

[Arthuriel]

@Lair: Okay, this is the prove for the bridge model . ( I hope that there are more pictures from TLG  ).

Now i will modify the bridge, because there are some mistakes (wrong colors etc.):


P.S.: Aaargh, LeoCAD is really slow and MLCAD has complicated controls  .

P.P.S.: Hmm, I was coloring the floor tiles (~15 bricks) when the program crashed. In general that means a really slow advancement and lots of "fun" (changing 5 -10 bricks, saving, changing 5-10 bricks, saving, program crashes etc.). Maybe I should make a break or I will continue this with a slow speed. The best solution would be, if I already had the whole bricks in real life, but that means that I need a sponsor (TLG^^?) or lots of money.


for further explanation of "fun" I recommend the following article from magmawiki (it's a wiki for the game Dwarf Fortress, which I sometimes play):

https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing

@antilles: Thank you. I am glad that there are many people who like my project .

[Lair]

Yeah, there needs to be a shaft for the elevator, whatever size it is. Look at it in both its appearances and judge for yourself. Beware of where the doors are. Also look at the front of the Explorer (I have a good picture if you need) (It's just that I think that big dish is just grey but this image may be outdated).

Keep the good work. Tell me if you need help with anything.

[Arthuriel]

I had some problems with the front dish, because in my opinion it looks like that :
transparent-blue + a bit transparent purple + grey = WTF?! (Maybe I should play dice to determine the color  )

I also compared the bridge room from LEGO with my recreation and I think that my one is 2 or 4 studges too long. If it is 2 studges too long, I can build a smaller shaft. If it is 4 studges too long, I don't need a shaft (aargh, too many contradictions^^).

PS: Hmm, there are only 27 views on the site of my LMS Explorer project on mocpages until now. I hope that more people are going to watch this thing : http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/289436

PPS: Help? Yes, I need a program, which is stable, can handle ~57.000 bricks and is very fast. I can do all this changes at the LMS Explorer, but LeoCAD is extremly slow at this brick number and MLCAD is a bit faster, but it has ugly controls. It's easier (and faster) to build this ship in reality with an inner construction than building this thing in a program .

PPPS: I built just for fun the bridge in a new file, because I wanted to know, how fast LeoCAD can be and after ~25 minutes I had contructed the following thing (the speed difference overwhelmed me

Problem: I made this screenshot, because the program crashed at this moment

PPPPS: Okay, I have build the bridge and it contains 1049 bricks. Lair, we were both wrong, because the evalator is 7 studges deep and not 6 or 8^^. The base of the chair looks in the extended intro (1:56 - 1:58) more like dark grey, but in the real life version like light grey. The shell seems to be light grey (there are also some dark grey pieces) and the quality of the pictures is a bit low. Maybe it is the intern screenshot programm from LDView, which causes that (I took JPEG, because BMP etc. would be too big).

[Lair]

Can you please post the picture instead of linking to the gallery entry?

Anyways it looks better except the elevator. There isn't any room for the sliding doors in your model. Also I'd make it an octagon because that's what it is anywhere except that one scene, but that's your decision. Maybe it was error on their part.

I never saw those green pillars in the elevator O_O