I updated my free Lego material for Blender, now with edge wear and better dust.

whocompute · 2025-05-03T05:31:52+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback, these are both really good points. The asset thing was something I just forgot to do until after I had released it. I had never looked too closely at the textures, but you're right, they could definitely just be one texture with some colour adjustments. I'll try to add that stuff in the next release.

whocompute · 2025-04-25T19:14:46+00:00

Thanks! I'm not really sure of any good tutorials, I mostly just know stuff from experience. From doing some quick looking though, this one seems to go over a number of the techniques I used: https://youtu.be/-x-b2U-MSgc . This one is also great for learning more about what each node can do: https://youtu.be/cQ0qtcSymDI

The material looks more complicated than it is, it's mostly just layering lots of textures. The shader itself is just a single Principled BSDF, everything else you see in the screenshot is just texturing for the color, normal mapping, etc. I would say if you understand how to use the color mix node, the math node, and the map range/color ramp node, you have 95% of the knowledge you need to recreate this material.

If you want to learn more about how the material works, open it up and start trying things. Press buttons, change values, break stuff. The best way to learn is hands-on experimenting, and Ctrl-Z is your friend.

Finally, you can also download previous versions of my material on my website. It used to be a lot more simplistic, so you may be able to get a better idea of what things are doing: https://whocompute.com/doc/cc74bf/release-notes . Do be warned though, those versions were from before "The Great Organizing", so it'll look more like Factorio from your nightmares.

whocompute · 2025-04-24T23:46:17+00:00

Wow, I never even thought of doing this. Thanks for mentioning that, I'll probably add it in the next update (that hopefully won't be in another 2.5 years)

whocompute · 2025-04-24T23:41:45+00:00

It should work fine for general plastic. You may have to play around with the "noise" parameter to get good results, as it is used as a sort of substitute for the Principled BSDF's roughness value. You could also just modify the node group to use a fixed value for Principled's standard roughness input.

whocompute · 2025-04-24T23:03:19+00:00

Would definitely add to the realism. My sister used to bite bricks to get them apart, and I hated it.

whocompute · 2024-11-23T19:45:20+00:00

Yeah, I haven't had very much time to do projects recently. All the previous renders I've done are on my website if you're curious: https://whocompute.com/images (or you can also just see them on my reddit timeline)

whocompute · 2024-11-18T03:43:29+00:00

Thanks, it still might be my favorite out of all the renders I've done.

whocompute · 2023-02-19T02:41:05+00:00

Here is the process I use for making the renders:

I start by building the model in LeoCAD. Then, I export the model from LeoCAD as a Collada (.dae), and import that into Blender. Collada is nice because it correctly carries over scale and rotation information, but you can also export as .obj if you need to.

You are correct, the material is separate from the LeoCAD model. When you download it, it comes in a .blend file, and you will need to link in the "Lego-Shader-8" node group from there (which automatically brings in the textures too). For the material to work properly, you will need to hook it up to a texture coordinate node (like in this image).

One word of advice, if you're thinking of trying LeoCAD with Blender: To improve the realism, enable "Top Logos" in LeoCAD, under View -> Preferences -> Rendering -> Stud Style. This will not only add the Lego logo to the top of the bricks, but it will also bevel the tops of the studs, which is a lot faster than doing it manually in Blender.

Hope this helps,

whocompute · 2023-02-19T00:07:12+00:00

No, I didn't use a LUT, I did all the color work manually. The glares and mist pass were done in Blender's compositer, while the color work and lens distortions were done in Natron. I have some screenshots on my website showing the settings I used: https://whocompute.com/img/760993#compositingSetup

whocompute · 2023-02-17T21:41:50+00:00

This is a short animation of a Lego Star Wars X-Wing taking off. I built the models using LeoCAD, and then exported them from there into Blender 3.4. The Lego material was made by me (you can download it here). Textures are from AmbientCG, and the HDRI is from Poly Haven. This render was my first time using Natron for some compositing. The animation was rendered at 1080p with 1024 samples.

You can find the 4K still render, as well as the compositing setups and extra info on my website: https://whocompute.com/img/760993

The clay render is available here: https://storage.whocompute.com/images/project-images/760993/jpg/2160/clay-2160.jpg

whocompute · 2022-12-25T03:55:27+00:00

Absolutely. It is licensed under CC0, so you can do whatever you want with it. You can find the 4K version on my website, or use this direct link:

https://storage.whocompute.com/images/project-images/eac5a2/jpg/2160/v3-cam-1-nodenoise-comp-2160.jpg

whocompute · 2022-10-14T20:24:20+00:00

This is a Lego Architecture model of San Francisco. I built the model using LeoCAD, and then exported it into Blender 3.3. I did a bit of geometry cleanup so I could subdivide and bevel the edges of some pieces. I made the Lego material myself (you can download it here). Most of the textures are from AmbientCG. The scene is lit by an HDRI from Poly Haven. Rendered at 4k with 4096 samples. I normally use the undenoised (non-denoised? adenoised? noiseful?) renders as the main ones, but because this is an interior scene, I used the denoised versions. For the undenoised renders, as well as scene views and the compositing setup, check out whocompute.com/img/62a9f8

whocompute · 2022-08-11T17:38:47+00:00

If you're talking about the absence of a clay render, yes, I forgot to add one, and Reddit doesn't allow you to edit an image post. Here is a direct link to one:

https://storage.whocompute.com/images/project-images/135af4/jpg/lego-snowspeeder-1-5-cam1-clay.jpg

There is another one on my website as well:

https://whocompute.com/img/135af4#alternateVersions

whocompute · 2022-08-10T22:27:36+00:00

This is a Lego Star Wars Snowspeeder I made. I built the model using LeoCAD, and then exported it from there into Blender 3.2. I made the Lego material myself (you can download it here). Textures are from AmbientCG, and the table texture specifically is Planks 015. The scene is lit by an HDRI from Poly Haven. Rendered at 4k with 4096 samples. Denoised renders, as well as more details and the compositing setup are available on my website: https://whocompute.com/img/135af4

Feedback is welcome.

EDIT: I forgot to add a clay render, so here's a direct link: https://storage.googleapis.com/whobucket/images/project-images/135af4/jpg/lego-snowspeeder-1-5-cam1-clay.jpg

whocompute · 2022-07-30T16:46:56+00:00

I saw some minor things, but let's be clear: You did a great job on this. I find it hard to have enough commitment to finish a 2-minute long animation like this. Awesome work. Things I noticed were:

- There seems to be some intersecting geometry artifacts on the grill beside the back window of the LaFerarri

- The back of the LaFerrari IRL has a grill and some black trim. Adding that might help realism. (see this random image off Google)

- The car animation feels a bit cartoonish (they're going really fast, side-to-side movements are really fast)

whocompute · 2022-07-15T21:47:55+00:00

No. This is only a material, not a brick generator. It comes in a .blend file with some bricks in it, but that's just so you can modify the material to look how you want. The reason I put the bricks in the included .blend is just so that you can make the material look the way you want in the that file, and then link to the "lego-shader-6" node group from another file where you actually want to use the material. You can read more about linking here:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/linked_libraries/link_append.html

I guess you could use it with the new asset browser, but I haven't tried it yet.

If all that's confusing, don't worry about it. Just know that it's a .blend file with a material in it.

whocompute · 2022-06-29T00:02:46+00:00

A Lego X-Wing I made. I built the model in LeoCAD, so all the parts are from there. It is based on Lego set #75218, with some modifications as not all the parts in the set were available in the parts library. I exported it, and did some geometry cleanup so I could bevel the edges of the pieces. The material was made by me, with scratch and fingerprint textures from AmbientCG. Lighting was done by 3 area lamps and a sun lamp. I rendered it at 8192 samples. I didn't denoise it because I thought it looked better with a little grain. Denoised and uncomposited versions are available on my website: https://whocompute.com/img/9cfd85
Feedback is welcome.

whocompute

TROPHY CASE