Digital LEGO Racers Car Builder and Quick Builds

[PeabodySam]

On a forum such as Rock Raiders United, where could I possibly go after successfully recreating all Rock Raiders vehicles and buildings in LEGO Digital Designer?  There are so many possibilities for things exclusive to classic LEGO software that can be recreated in LEGO Digital Designer!  Except... what hasn't been done already?  LEGO Racers circuit host cars, LEGO Racers NPC cars, LEGO Island buildings... heck, even my attempt to recreate the LMS Explorer bridge has become redundant.  What could I possibly do that others haven't done already?

 

Wait... of course!  LEGO Racers cars!

 

...

 

Hasn't that already been done before?

 

Not like... this!

 

I hereby present to you, the full LEGO Racers car builder... in LEGO Digital Designer!  Now, you can build LEGO Racers cars in LEGO Digital Designer!  Of course, special thanks goes to jamesster for the chassis of circuit hosts and Ageha for the Basic, Race, Space, and Castle chassis, but all the rest of the car parts were assembled by me while scrolling through the brick selections of each car set.

 

There are a few errors here.  Most decorations are either incorrect or missing altogether due to LEGO Digital Designer's limitations.  LEGO Racers also uses a pair of angled bricks that do not exist in real life; wherever these bricks show up in the car sets, I have substituted in 50373 Brick 4X4/18^o instead.  Also, keep in mind that the car builder in LEGO Racers takes some... liberties with how certain parts can be placed on the car; see the errors below to have an idea.  Some bricks, such as the jet turbines in Rocket Racer's car set, required some interpretation in regards to how they would work.

 

I'll be honest with you.  While it's nice that LEGO Racers gives you the option to mix bricks of different car sets when building your car, I think the car builder in LEGO Racers 2 is far superior and much less frustrating to use.  Despite having a larger palette to use, the LEGO Racers car builder is far too restrictive; too often, I'll be trying to build a cool car only to discover that a brick that I want to place is bumping against the all-too-tight invisible boundaries of the vehicle.  And if you change your mind and want to take out a certain brick, you have to take off every single brick that you put on the car after that one brick, while LEGO Racers 2 gives you the option to cycle through the bricks you've already put on the car.  For those reasons, I rarely build good-looking cars in LEGO Racers... but now, in LEGO Digital Designer's much more user-friendly building software, I can actually build cars to the full freedom I want to use.

 

Want this car builder for yourself?  Here's a download link for the LXF!

 

So then, I was wondering... what was the best way to show off the capabilities of this car builder?  Well, since all NPC cars have already been taken care of... why not build the rest of the Quick Builds?  As far as I know, this has never been done before... until now!

 

Of course, given that LEGO Racers' car builder does cheat in a few ways, there are a few necessary errors in these LEGO Digital Designer recreations.  Without further ado, let's take a closer look at each car!

• The first Basic quick build is a nice little compact car.  It's quaint and nothing special, but easy on the eyes at least.  It can also be built free of errors LEGO Digital Designer!
• The second Basic quick build has a similarly quaint appearance.  The decorations on the tile bricks are obviously incorrect due to the actual decorations not being in LEGO Digital Designer.  Because the actual car uses those nonexistent angled bricks, I substituted in the actual brick placed on an extra 2x2 plate.
• The first Race quick build is a little jarring in appearance, to be honest, what with those giant engines on the front raised so high that the driver cannot possibly see what's in front of him.  The flags also look a little out of place, but that's likely due to the car builder's restrictions not allowing the flags to be placed any higher than directly on top of the chassis.  See what I mean about it being restrictive?  But at least this LEGO Digital Designer model has no errors.
• The second Race quick build looks better in my opinion, but against makes use of that nonexistent pair of angled bricks.  Substituting in the actual brick means that 4746 Rocket Engine has to be raised 2/3 of a brick higher on this model than it actually is in-game.
• The first Space quick build strikes me as an oddity, since it makes enough use of the Castle car set to appear more Castle-themed than Space-themed.  This recreation has no errors.
• The second Space quick build also uses Castle bricks, but at least has a slightly more futuristic appearance.  Unfortunately, those fake angled bricks are used again, but this time in a way that makes it impossible to substitute in the real brick, so instead they have been replaced with 6564 Right Roof Tile 2X3 and 6565 Left Roof Tile 2X3.
• The first Castle quick build looks quite odd, what with the contrast between the Castle wheels and the Space rocket engines!  There are no errors in this model.
• The second Castle quick build, again, makes use of Space rocket engines that contrast with the chassis appearance.  What with the wars between Castle fans and Space fans, I guess LEGO Racers was trying to be the peace negotiator?  No errors here!
• The alternate Captain Redbeard quick build... hoo boy, this one's a doozy.  The handles on the treasure chest, which are left out of the in-game model, collide with the bars and the steering wheel, so I had to raise the whole chest by a whole 2x4 brick to clear them both!  And then, to prevent them from colliding with the rear wheels and engines, the two parrot pieces had to be raised by two plates.  Obviously, the flag decoration is incorrect as well.
• The alternate King Kahuka quick build has a nice compact design to it, almost looking like an Islander bunker!  Better yet, it can be built without errors!
• The alternate Basil the Bat Lord quick build is basically a souped-up version of the main quick build.  As a result, it looks much cooler and leaves you wondering why that wasn't made Basil's main car.  There is only one error here: because the rocket engine collides with the 2432 Clamp 1X2 bricks, I had to move it back one stud.
• The alternate Johnny Thunder quick build is another one that I like.  Between the flamethrowers and the bow/arrow, it has a rather unconventional appearance, but still looks like it would fit in the Adventurers theme.  No errors, as far as I know.
• The alternate Baron von Barron quick build is... eh.  Especially because there are no plates in the car builder, that gap between the front hood and headlights parts really bothers me.  The pair of antennas and the white spoiler also look out-of-place.
• The alternate Gypsy Mother quick build looks really cool in-game, so I'm not altogether sure why I feel... underwhelmed by how it looks in LEGO Digital Designer.  Aside from missing decorations, there are no errors here.  Also, ignore the fact that the wheels look metallic in these screenshots; I just noticed this and corrected this in the LXF but was too lazy to retake the screenshots.
• The alternate Rocket Racers quick build looks a little odd, what with the giant jet turbines.  As I said before, these parts required a little interpretation to figure out how they would attach to a 1x2 brick.  Aside from that, and the missing decoration on the hood, it's error-free.
• The alternate Veronica Voltage quick build is surprisingly different in appearance from the main quick build, especially since it mostly uses white bricks from the Basic and Space palettes.  Unfortunately, those darn fake angled bricks show up again in a way that I cannot substitute in the real brick, so I had to do the same thing here that I did with the second Space quick build.

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So, what do you guys think? An impressive attempt at recreating the car builder and quick builds in the most accurate presentation to date? Or am I just someone who is late to the game and trying my hand at something done countless times before me to much greater fanfare?  Once again?

 

And what could possibly be next on my agenda?

[Aokpisz]

...

Wow. That is just... wow. I dunno why no one ever thought of this. Now I can render Racers scenes by LDD>POV-RAY.

[lol username]

Sweeeeet. Great work here, that's one heck of a task... But oh no, you forgot the totally legit Truck Driver car set that nobody has ever actually seen, which has such amazing things as tank treads and a cannon! :0

[Jimbob]

My eyes... They have tears...

 

This is amazing. Fantastic work. One of those things where I just can't put down the words to describe it.

 

And what could possibly be next on my agenda?

I can't wait for this to be released. It'd be great to see level recreations made through it.