Rock Raiders-themed LU Rocket

[Ben24x7]

MOC Update - 26/03/2021

 

 

The MOC has been tweaked to fix some of the nagging issues I had with the version I originally posted (the old version, as well as the original Topic OP, is still available to view just below this update).

 

 

MAIN CHANGES:

- Overhauled the structure of the Cockpit module's base (improving the exterior hull and the colour of the interior) and an improved base for the Engine module (with an improved underside, smoothed out with slopes rather than chunky-looking plates)

 

- Cockpit module is now 1 plate taller to help it fit better with LEGO Universe's official Nosecones and Engines (still some alignment issues, but only with modules taller than the Venture Faction Rocket kit)

 

- Colour scheme has been updated: The model now uses Modern Grey and Dark Grey colours (the previous version used the LRR-accurate Bluish-Grey and Dark Bluish-Grey colours, but due to personal uncertainty over whether LU had support for those retired shades of grey, I felt it was worth replacing them)

 

- The colours on the front and back of the Cockpit module (as well as the front of the Engine module) has been fixed to continue the module's respective colour scheme/design (this is something most of LEGO Universe's rocket modules do too, but I didn't implement it properly into the original MOC as the design of their bases at the time didn't accommodate for it. With the reworked module bases, I was able to accomplish this and I'm pleased with the result

 

- Removed the weird Trans Yellow/Green stub on the end of the engine. Not sure why I thought it was good enough to leave it like that, but I'm happy it's gone now.

 

 

MORE SCREENSHOTS/RENDERS:

Spoiler

 

 

For clarification, the above renders were rendered in Unreal Engine 4 (just so I have more control over the lighting/shot composition). There are loads of nagging technical issues with these renders, mainly caused by the conversion process of bringing the model into the engine, but that aside I'm pretty pleased with how it looks.

 

 

 

All-in-all, it's still not perfect, but I'm faaaaaaaar happier with the MOC in it's current state than it was before and, for me at least, that's all that matters.

 

 

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ORIGINAL TOPIC OP:

 

(I'll be surprised if somebody hasn't done this before)

The "Bit's 'n Bricks" Podcast's recent coverage of LEGO Universe has gotten me interested in LU once again, and digging through wikis and old videos has been inspiring me to experiment with creating LU-like content.

 

In this case, I wanted to experiment with building rocket modules, specifically by taking the bulky, rough style of Rock Raider sets/vehicles I'm quite fond of, and translating that style into LEGO Universe compatible rocket parts:

 

OVERVIEW :

NOTE: This is a screenshot of an earlier version of the MOC. For the current version, please look at the 26/03/2021 Update at the top of this Topic.

Spoiler

 

 

The end result might be a bit rough (it's been years since I last tried building a LEGO MOC, much less one using digital building programs like LEGO Digital Designer or Stud.io) but I'm somewhat happy with how it came out.

 

Spoiler

The MOC split into it's 3 separate modules

 

 

 

LEGO UNIVERSE COMPATIBILITY :

While the rocket looks fine using modules from the same MOC, using the MOC's Cockpit and Engine modules in conjunction with pre-existing LEGO Universe rocket parts leads to mixed results.

Ignoring the obvious problem of mis-matching colour schemes, the design and shape of the Rock Raider modules work better with some module sets than others (for instance, both the middle and rear sections fit well with the Nexus Tower rocket modules - another rocket module set where the cockpit is roughly 6-7 studs wide - but the bottom of those modules, as well as the top of the nose-cone, don't align smoothly with the shape of the MOC's Cockpit module).

 

Spoiler

The MOC Modules applied to various, pre-existing LU rocket sets, specifically the Nexus Force, Classic (Blue), Nexus Tower and Venture rocket sets respectively.

 

While I was working on this MOC, I considered trying to build my modules using bricks that would've been available at the time LEGO Universe was out (since brick-built models would be restricted to the brick library available in LEGO Digital Designer at the time), but this plan fell apart very quickly.

In the years since LEGO Universe's shut-down, LEGO has released plenty of bricks that help with building small details that likely wouldn't have been possible back then (pieces like the 1x1 bracket and the 1x2 slope with a smooth tile top were extremely useful, and I'd still be struggling with building the roll-cage if Minifig-sized hockey sticks didn't exist - Side-note: I'm sorry for not referring to those bricks by their actual names/Brick ID).

As well as using bricks that wouldn't exist at the time, the MOC uses the old bluish-greys used in Rock Raiders, rather than the standard Grey and Dark Grey we have now. I'm not sure if LU had support for the old grey colours, but if it didn't then the colours would need to be fixed.

 

 

 

MOC EVOLUTION :

(This is a really really really long section, so don't worry about reading it unless you are genuinely curious about the evolution/process of creating this MOC, as well as the mistakes and lessons learnt along the way)

Spoiler

 

Having not built with LEGO for quite a long while, it should come as no surprise that I didn't get it right on the first try. In-fact, it took a lot of iterating (as well as occasionally getting people's opinions on the RRU Discord server) in order to get the MOC into it's current state, and even now I'm very much tempted to completely overhaul it to improve it, but for now it'll do... it'll do.

 

Evolution of the MOC. Earliest version on the left, newest version on the right

 

Iteration 1. [On the left in the above screenshot]

My first attempt at this MOC. It was quickly scrapped as, not only was it extremely ugly, it failed to fulfil the goal of this mini-project: to create a rocket design that adopts Rock Raider's design/aesthetics while staying within the restraints of LEGO Universe's already existing rocket designs, where-as this version felt like a recoloured Classic Rocket with Rock Raiders parts/theming slapped onto it.

That, mixed with some design issues such as building a suitable roll-cage, gave me good reason to start over and do better.

 

 

 

Iteration 2. [In the middle of the above screenshot]

Having scrapped my first attempt, I decided to start from scratch, trying to focus on capturing the design-style of Rock Raiders' vehicles first and then toning it down to fit LU's standards.

 

While that design wasn't perfect, it was a vast improvement over the previous iteration, successfully capturing the chunky visual style of the vehicles, while using theme-specific pieces in specific/deliberate places (e.g. using a Large Vehicle wheel as an exterior shell for the rocket engine) rather than placing them haphazardly all over the MOC.

I even managed to build a decent-looking roll-cage (it's extremely rough and, if it were to be used in-game, it would need to be modified so it doesn't get in the way of the player's "Climbing into the rocket" animation, but I was happy to finally make a version that looked half-way decent).

 

Around this time, someone on the RRU Discord made the sensible recommendation that I should import LU's official rocket modules (available as .lxf files) into the scene and compare my MOC with them, just to make sure they were compatible. In retrospect, this is something I should've done far earlier into the project, but instead I was only using screenshots from the LEGO Universe Wiki's Rocket page for reference, and as a result comparing my MOC to official in-game models revealed major issues with the design of my modules.

 

 

 

Iteration 3. [On the right in the above screenshot]

The first major problem was the connection between modules. Not only was I using Technic pins when the official LU modules uses Technic axles, but the position of the connectors was not suited for combination with other pre-existing Rocket parts (causing annoying issues with mis-alignment).

Unfortunately, because the MOC was designed around these connections being incorrectly aligned, the best solution would've been to start from scratch and get the alignment/measurements correct before building/detailing, but with sunk-cost fallacy setting in I didn't want to scrap what I had made so far, and instead just adjusted the position of the connections (I had to make some messy adjustments to the rear module to fix it and I'm still not happy with how the modules align with LU's other rocket parts).

 

Another major problem was the colour palette. LEGO Universe's Rocket colour palettes are very minimal (take the Classic Rocket for example, that's basically 3/4 colours), where-as Rock Raiders' colour palette is messy, especially when applied to a small scale.

While there's some method for how Rock Raiders vehicles are coloured (e.g. Large wheels are always black, Roll-cages are always Brown), LRR's vehicles are basically just different shades of grey with Yellow, Turquoise and vibrant Greenish-Yellow sprinkled everywhere.

 

In comparison to LU's minimalist palettes, the colours on my MOC were too messily arranged and, as a result, looked ugly when used in combination with other rocket parts. With this iteration, I tried to fix it by applying colours to large chunks of the model, rather than applying set-accurate colours to random bricks (e.g. instead of the cockpit's hull being a random combination of turquoise and two shades of grey, the hull was made dark-grey with a big turquoise stripe going down it).

This, as well as making the patterns consistent across both the middle and rear module (e.g. how the aforementioned "turquoise stripe" carries over onto the engine module) helped to simplify the palette and make it less visually "busy". The simplified usage of colour also helped to push the blocky aesthetic of LRR/LEGO System sets as it made most of the small bricks seem like part of one larger brick (e.g. the light-grey arch at the top of the engine module).

 

The only other note-worthy changes are the addition of further details (such as the broken/missing light on the left of the cockpit) as well as the addition of the "Mudguard spoiler" (during work on iteration 2, I thought the end of the engine module was too simple silhouette-wise, so I wanted to incorporate Rock Raiders' Large Vehicle mudguards/shrouds to add some bulk to the back of the MOC. If you were on the RRU Discord yesterday, you might remember me asking for opinions on different designs before settling on using it as a make-shift spoiler for the rocket).

 

 

In my humble opinion, I think the end result looks good enough, but I could make it better if I started again from scratch, building a solid framework/set of rules and guidelines that'll make the modules fit nicely with other rocket parts, and then build the modules on-top of that framework.

 

 

Anyways, that's my first publicly posted MOC.

Umm... enjoy??? [Shrug]

 

(While not required, any thoughts/feedback you have about this MOC would be appreciated)

[Neal]

Looks awesome! I'd love to see what it looks like in-game, but I'm not sure how modding rocket parts would go. (is that something you could just replace a brick model for? hmmmmm will have to look) Makes me wish DLU was already at a point where we'd have the spare time to add items like this.

[Ben24x7]

2 minutes ago, Neal said:

Makes me wish DLU was already at a point where we'd have the spare time to add items like this.

 

Honestly, the [not 100% confirmed at this time unless stated otherwise by an official DLU dev team member] possibility of implementing custom content for DLU in future is also part of the reason why I wanted to tamper with making LU-like content (although I edited that part out because I wasn't sure whether that subject matter could be mentioned publicly without creating harmful expectations from the public).

 

I guess implementing it also depends on how difficult it is to update the game's brick library (considering LU uses .lxf files for rockets, and how my MOC uses some bricks that didn't exist back then, I doubt the model would entirely survive the transition to a 2011/2012 LDD brick library).

[Jimbob]

This is frickin' amazing! I really enjoyed that podcast too, your MOC captures both Rock Raiders and LEGO Universe so fantastically well. I love it, especially that curved angled chunk at the back.

Thanks for all the detailed pictures and info you shared with it too!

[Ben24x7]

 

MOC Update - 26-03-2021 - I've updated the MOC to fix some of the nagging issues I had with the version originally shown in this topic. More information on the new version (as well as some new slick renders like the one above) can be found in the Topic OP. Enjoy!