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!"

[Glitchipedia]

There are several words I could use to describe this: beautiful, stunning, magnificent, marvelous, stupendous, incredible, astounding, remarkable, and spectacular, to name a few. And not a single one of them would do this work of art justice.

[Pyro]

This is beautiful. Absolutely fantastic work.

[Cyrem]

Every time you update it @Arthuriel it looks more magnificent.

 

Awesome improvements!

[Purple Wolf]

Like many others have said this is amazing! I've always wanted to see it to scale and I must say it doens't disappoint. It's just so accurate. If I ever had the time, money, and space I would so recreate this model. Ah a wishful fantasy.

[kris220b]

On 12/04/2016 at 7:29 PM, Ben24x7 said:

 

I wish you the best of luck. I'm intrigued by what it'll look like in that game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=962182112

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814433561

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=798999793

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=798999831

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=807045605

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=807046408

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=807047832

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=807047648

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=807047391

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812070998

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812071038

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814433484

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814433467

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814433518

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814433534

Sorry amount the massive about of links, and the age of the screenshots.
But im not really going to have all of it updated in one place, before i fully publish it.

[Rackover]

Damn that looks cool !

Last time I used LDD, something like ten years ago, I remember it was quite expensive to actually buy the piece set you'd made on it. But still, this is an amazing work. Keep it up !

[Arthuriel]

This thread will never die (except when it does ; ) )!

Thanks to baraklava I thought, that I should check out stud.io and it's render function.
The import took about a minute and rendering varied from picture to picture (guess: 1/2 hour - 1 hour).
For further information I just insert the description, that I added to each of the new pictures on RRU:
"I tried out the photorealistic render option in studio 2.0. I used the very high settings at 4k resolution (or 3840x2160 pixels to be specific). The original pictures are all PNG files with a transparent background, but to save space on RRU I turned them into JPG files with a dark background and my name in the corner."
Overall I uploaded 8 pictures and added them to the first post. At first glance it looks like the colours are all desaturated, but that's due to the spaceship being predominantly grey and the background, too (although I prefer the background that way for viewing purposes).
Also: It's almost the 8th anniversary of this thread. Yay : D !
 

tl;dr: new pictures of the L.M.S. Explorer are in the first post of this thread

[Arthuriel]

A few weeks ago I also uploaded the studio 2.0 file on bricklink, where you are able to download it: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=105148
It's an io file, which is used by studio 2.0 (the program I used to make the new renders). Basically I just imported the ldraw file into studio 2.0 and exported an io file.
This way maybe more people will see the spaceship since bricklink and the program studio 2.0 seem to be quite popular in the LEGO community.

[Thomkok23]

@Arthuriel I want to build the L.M.S. Explorer, but it says for display only on https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=105148. I am not able to download it or able to follow the build steps, because there are only 2 steps. Do you have any tips for me to start building this? Do you still allow downloading this build? 

[Arthuriel]

I think that some time after LEGO has bought bricklink the terms of service were changed. The result was that creations that weren't based on your own original theme or idea were changed to display only mode. Luckily I have also uploaded it here on RRU. I should also change the link in the first post: https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/digital_models/ldraw/11-lms-explorer-r195/

Why bricklink shows two steps is a bit weird and I should check out what it shows in those two steps. Here is the thing though: I never intended to make a manual for this giant spaceship to begin with. The file can still be used to build it in another program or in real life, but keep in mind that this is basically just the hull without anything in it.

So yeah, I wish you luck with building the L.M.S. Explorer : ). May I ask, where you are going to build it? In a program or in real life? Both cases are impressive although the second case is probably even more impressive since I don't even know, if there are enough of the needed bricks on bricklink to build this thing.

[Thomkok23]

It is sad rock raiders does not show a whole lot of the inside rooms it has and where they are in the ship, but it is still awesome to see that you have created the hull. I can not even imagine how hard it has been to recreate this ship 1:1.

 

On 8/30/2020 at 12:44 PM, Arthuriel said:

May I ask, where you are going to build it? In a program or in real life?

 

I am glad you asked. I am going to try to build the L.M.S. Explorer in roblox. I am bored and I wanto to do something. I always wanted to create this awesome ship in my rock raiders themed game. Now I am able to try because of your commitment to this project.

 

On 8/30/2020 at 12:44 PM, Arthuriel said:

May I ask, where you are going to build it? In a program or in real life?

 

It would be amazing if someone would try to build this in real life. I would really like to see that happen.

 

Lol LDView crashes, because of the size of your build. I am happy Studio 2.0 can handle your build lol. Studio 2.0 also moves a lot smoother. This will help a lot with trying to build this. Damn the bricks are so small . I hope I can pull this off. I have to have a lot of patients on trying to do this. This will take a while.

[Arthuriel]

Well, I also recreated the bridge and the hangar bay room*. Maybe I will do the same with the other rooms one day and upload everything to RRU as a complete package (the bridge is already downloadable).
It probably took so long to make the L.M.S. Explorer, because I used the lcd file format (that and the sheer size of the ship), which takes way longer to load than ldraw files. Of course I only found that out afterwards XD.

Roblox you say? That's sounds cool. I once made on RRU a blog post about every L.M.S. Explorer recreation out there on the internet. Sadly many links don't work anymore, but in the case of a roblox one I managed to find a few working links:
https://www.roblox.com/library/7631919/rock-raiders-LMS-explorer
https://www.roblox.com/games/124400692/Galaxy-Six
https://www.roblox.com/library/8296862/lms-explorer-stuff

Yeah, it would be nice to see it in real life. About LDView and such: in my case this program and Studio 2.0 work, but I also prefer Studio 2.0 since it has an integrated renderer and such.

*another user called Sadiemeowsalot also tried to recreate the hangar bay, but it's unfinished

[Thomkok23]

I think I have some cool progress. I managed to generate steps for the LMS Explorer. No idea if the steps are reasonable yet, but this gives me motivation to edit and change the instructions for the build. Maybe if I manage to go through every page, will it be easier to build this amazing ship. Unfortunatly it is really slow . It feels like it reloads the whole intructions manual if I change something. If the instructions manual  looks promissing, I'll share the file. It will be an .io file, because of studio 2.0, so the LMS Explorer is also included. Maybe I will also create a pdf file separately for the instructions.

 

This a quick preview of the instructions manual. It has a lot of pages. I hope the system will not be painfully slow.

[Arthuriel]

It took me a few seconds, but then I realised that you are that user from YouTube .
I am glad that the manual has less than 17000 pages. Otherwise people might think that it is easy or something .
It's cool to see you trying to make a manual . Personally I never bothered with it, because I made the model just for pictures and
I assumed that interested people would just open the file in Studio 2.0 or another program (and may take some screenshots).
Yeah, speed can be an issue while working on the spaceship. It almost like a benchmark.

Hint (in case you are wondering, why some parts are weird): there are also quite a few superfluous bricks in the model and

a micro gap between big parts of the ship, because the position data got buggy during copying and pasting parts of the ship.
Since it is a digital model I also positioned some parts like the engines or the antennas without having proper connections.

[Thomkok23]

10 hours ago, Arthuriel said:

It took me a few seconds, but then I realised that you are that user from YouTube .

Yup. The original comment was actually before I made an account on Rock Raiders United, so this project got me into this forum .

 

10 hours ago, Arthuriel said:

Yeah, speed can be an issue while working on the spaceship. It almost like a benchmark.

It is pretty cool the ship is that massive. Unfortunatly it is also as slow in the manual editor of studio 2.0. For some reason it feels like it loads the whole manual again when I edit a page. I will probably try to report the issue on the bricklink forum to solve this. I takes unnessisarily long to update a page. It will not hold me back though.

 

10 hours ago, Arthuriel said:

Hint (in case you are wondering, why some parts are weird): there are also quite a few superfluous bricks in the model and

a micro gap between big parts of the ship, because the position data got buggy during copying and pasting parts of the ship.
Since it is a digital model I also positioned some parts like the engines or the antennas without having proper connections.

I have seen some questionable parts on the ship. It makes a lot of sense now. I hope generating the manual still sees the proper connections.

 

So these parts are not correctly placed, because of the bug? It is unfortunate to hear positions got buggy. Would it be anoying to fix? I have no idea if you tried it already. It would be awesome if it is possible to fix those issues, but I think it will be a project on itself to identify and fix it.

 

 

Also are those two parts supposed to be dark gray?

 

 

[Arthuriel]

Well, there are three different issues and each of them has a different solution:
1. Superfluous parts can just be deleted. That just happened, because I probably moved some parts and I forgot to delete the superfluous ones.
2. The parts without a proper connection: those can either be left as is or you try to come up with proper connections, but you may have to move parts for that.

3. The micro gaps. For that I just post a picture and its description here:

"Due to copying and pasting entire segments of the spaceship in the program LeoCAD the part positions of said segments got tiny but visible offsets that I couldn't easily fix.
It's probably easier to build the ship again to fix that issue than trying to move a segment here and there a little bit (and I mean really small amounts. That makes it so annoying)."

About the radar dish or whatever it is: yeah, I think it's supposed to be dark grey. The appearance also depends on the light source(s).

[Thomkok23]

I have checked the radar dish just in case in the rock raiders trailer. It is indeed supposed to be that way .

 

I think the best way to do this would be trying to finish the instructions manual. Then rebuild it again in a different project in studio 2.0 and compare the brick count and visual to the LMS Explorer build of yours. I could try that, but I hope that the manual generation is accurate or else it will be hard to find the missing parts.

 

Maybe this is a more reasonable project for now. It would help me build this amazing ship in roblox if this all turns out great.

 

Also submitted a bug report for the slow instruction manual editor on the bricklink forum. Moving images are too slow and should not be that way.

[Thomkok23]

@Arthuriel I have found something odd on the inside of the ship. It makes the ship not symmetric on the inside and would make less sense in the instruction manual. Unless it is supposed to be this way, could you fix this in your L.M.S Explorer file? I will just download it again, so no worries about the current steps I have done. I am still trying to figure out how to make it easier for the studio program to load faster and make it easier for me to create the instructions.

 

Location inside the ship

 

This looks different and does not have any purpose as far as I know.

 

This side looks more clean. I think this structure needs to be on the other side aswell.

[Arthuriel]

All those bricks do have a purpose: to close tiny holes that you would otherwise see from the outside.
Why I have chosen two different methods instead of one for both sides? I honestly don't know. I built the left and the right side at different points in time and I probably just thought that the gaps being closed was good enough and that's it (which is the reason why you see 8x16 plates closing tiny holes: I just copied the plates from below to do that).
Maybe I should build the ship again in Studio 2.0 one day (to avoid superfluous bricks and micro gaps).

[Thomkok23]

It is going to be a big project to do it again in studio 2.0, but it would be really nice and fancy if you would do it. You would be able to add steps and create the instruction manual immediately. It would also be easier to check if all the parts of the L.M.S Explorer are build stable with the stability check to avoid gaps, etc.

 

I think this would only be possible with a huge amount of time and motivation, but I would love to see you reach the end result .

[Raven319s]

Nearly broke my computer but I wanted to see if Unreal Engine could handle it. Awesome build!

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Raven319s
updated video with switching a couple scenes around

[Arthuriel]

Wow, that's great to see : D ! I assume that it would take a lot of optimisation to get a better performance in the game engine, right?

P.S. oh no the old bridge interior XD. I think back then the correct parts didn't exist in the program or I couldn't find them.

[Raven319s]

Oh for sure. So I am trying to make a base concept of a game where you simply import LEGO builds and use them. Obviously it's not all that easy and requires a lot of in between work, but so far I have gotten a couple of my MOCs somewhat working. I've been following your LMS build for a while now, and it came up in conversation in the Manic Miners Discord so I figured I'd give it a shot in UE. It super could be optimized, but I'm still a noob with Blender and Unreal that I don't have any idea where to even begin with stuff like that. It was a fun experiment though. I had to break it up into 9 sections just to get it in Blender to then import into UE. 

[Raven319s]

So... turns out this Nanite stuff in Unreal Engine 5 really makes things kind of auto optimized. A couple more tweaks and I think I can make this pilotable. 

 

Is there a more current download for the model?

[Arthuriel]

I think I remember the discussion from the Manic Miners group.
Yeah, it's great to hear that there are ways to optimise the model in the Unreal Engine (also: all those crazy colours in the beginning^^).

The the 2016 model of the 1:1 L.M.S. Explorer is already the latest version. There is also a separate bridge model, which represents the bridge in a more accurate way. All the links are in the first post of this thread.