Hey everyone, BrickJonas here, and today I'd like to introduce you a fantastic digital LEGO building tool - Mecabricks. I originally started to write this article a couple of weeks (or maybe months) ago, during the lockdown, but I was too busy to finish it, and in the meantime Mecabricks got many updates, and the original article became a bit outdated, so I decided it's time to write a new one. I hope you'll enjoy reading it, and it will help you learn the basics of building in Mecabricks!
What is Mecabricks?
Mecabricks originally started as an online LEGO building tool, but it became much more lately. You can still build LEGO models online, and store them in the cloud, so you can access them everywhere, but you can also make photorealistic renders of it, add custom decorated pieces, and Nicolas, the creator of this masterpiece, introduced the animation tool to it a couple of weeks ago too, so now you can make cool LEGO animations with it! Now it feels like a mix of a 3D designer software and a LEGO building software.
Getting started: the workshop
Let's see, what will you need in order to start building with virtual bricks. Oh wait, you actually don't need to install anything - everything happens in your browser! Visit Mecabricks.com, and click on "Workshop" on the header. You can start building without an account, but I highly recommend registering, because you'll need a profile in order to save your work. It is also worth to mention, that Mecabricks works even on touch screens, so if you prefer tablets, you can use it on those devices too!
So, when you open the workshop, this is what you see:
It might seem a bit complicated at the first time, but actually its usage is pretty straightforward. You can see the brick palette at the bottom of the page - when you click on a brick, it will be added to the 3Dworkspace. Next to it, on the right, you can change the colour of the selected brick (you can select a brick by left clicking on it in the 3D view). You can also change its material with the small dropdown menu.
You can see 3 tabs above the colour selector, and you can use these for moving or transforming the selected object, subdividing it (I'll talk more about it later), and you can also see some basic information about it. For basic transformation, there's a much easier method: you can move the selected brick(s) with the 3 arrows in the 3 axis, or you can also grab them with the 3 small panes next to the arrows.
There's a box in the top right corner, where you can see the project hierarchy - you'll see the list off all objects here, of course in a hierarchy. Notice that I said "objects", and not "bricks". It's pretty interesting that you can add lights, cameras, empty objects, and volumetric boxes to the workspace, so that's why I call everything an "object" in this article.
Let's start building!
As I said above, building - or just moving and rotating LEGO pieces - in Mecabricks is pretty similar to moving objects in some 3D designer programs. By default, you'll see 3 arrows (x,y,z axis) when you select an object in the workspace. You can move your objects in all directions using these. You can of course also rotate objects by clicking on the rotation icon on the top of the workshop, or by tapping the M key on your keyboard. Speaking of that, let's take a closer look at the top toolbar.
Top toolbar
From left to right, you can see the following options:
- Design view / Render view: in this article, we'll only use the design view.
- Show the workshop
- Animation node editor (more on that later)
- Brick palette
- Undo / Redo
- View dropdown menu: you can switch between different preset views (top, side, bottom, etc.) and view and rotation modes. You can also use your number pad in order to quickly switch between views, and I recommend you to memorise some of these shortcuts, because they are pretty useful!
- Display / hide the grid (or baseplate)
- Grid size (this affects the rotation and moving of the bricks)
- Move / Rotate and transform orientation (local or global)
- And last but not least, the workshop options. You can switch between wireframe or solid view, and also change a lot of other settings, like lighting, logo on studs, etc. You can also take a screenshot of your build with the last button on this toolbar.
Left toolbar
We have one more toolbar on the left side, and I'm sure you'll use this one a lot!
Let's see the functions of these buttons from top to bottom:
- Selection tools (W): you have seven different options here, for example you can select an area, select bricks that have the same colour, select clipping bricks, etc.
- Snap (S): this is probably the most important function in Mecabricks, because this will help you to build more quickly! In the Mecabricks workshop, when you hover over an object/brick, you can see a couple of small dots on it, which I'll describe in a minute
- Pivot point (P): you can basically select those small pivot points with this tool
- Clone (D): duplicate an object (or even a selection!)
- Delete
- Group / Ungroup: in Mecabricks, you can make groups of object, so you can later select those bricks/objects easily. It also makes your building process more logical - for example when you're building a set in the workshop, it's a good idea to group your LEGO pieces by building stages (bag numbers)
- Set parent / Clear parenting: this function is really useful when it comes to animation, but actually you can use it when you're just building a model in Mecabricks. You can basically make "relations" between objects. For example if you parent your model to a camera object, and later animate the camera, your model will move together with the camera object. But as I said, you can also define a relation between two simple LEGO pieces too.
- Update flexible part (F): you can only use this function for flexible parts of course. With this tool, you can add/remove points to a flexible LEGO piece, and bend the piece by moving around these points.
- Mosaic: if you click on this button, a new panel will open up on the right side of the editor, where you can import an image and apply some basic settings, and Mecabricks will generate a nice LEGO mosaic for you of the selected photo! You can choose between 3 different LEGO pieces when generating a mosaic: 1x1 bricks, 1x1 plates, or 1x1 flat tiles. Keep in mind that for bigger images, it might take some time for Mecabricks to generate the mosaic.
- Light: as I mentioned before, you can use some special objects in the Mecabricks editor. Light is one of them. You can add four different light types in the workshop. I suggest you to just experiment with them, I don't really have any advice for these, since it's a little tricky to learn using them. Do not worry - when it comes to rendering, we usually don't even need these lights, we can make great looking renders by using HDRI images. I'll talk about those later, now let's just focus on the basics in this article.
- Empties: you can also use empty objects in the workshop. These will be really useful for animations. Empties are objects which you can see (and move/rotate/animate) in the workshop, but can't see them on the renders. You'll probably understand why we like these object when we'll talk about animation!
- Volumetric box: with this tool, you can add an object called volumetric box to the workspace. You can achieve really nice effects with it on your renders.
- Camera: you'll need a camera object if you want to create a render of your creation! With this button, you can add it to the workspace. If you select the camera object, a small preview window will appear in the editor, but you also have some other options to set up the perfect camera angle - I recommend you to watch this video in order to learn to use the camera object!
- Hide / Show all you can also temporarily hide/show elements in the workshop. This function is useful when you need to access some parts of your creation and don't want to move around the bricks in order to access something in the inside of it.
This is what you see when you hover over an object/brick:
These are the "snap points", or pivot points of the objects. You can connect two separate objects at these points with the snap tool, which is pretty useful when you want to place 2 bricks on each other, or a technic pin into a brick with a hole, etc. You can do this by selecting a brick, then clicking the snap tool (or just tapping the S key), and then clicking on another brick's snap point.
Here's an example mosaic: a 48x48 mosaic of my profile photo:
An example of volumetric lighting:
Let's wrap it up for today
Okay, so I think I'll finish this article here. Hopefully it isn't too long, but detailed enough, so fellow LEGO fans can start using Mecabricks! As you can see, building in Mecabricks is a little different to building in LDD or Stud.io, but trust me, you'll get used to it! I suggest you to memorise at least the shortcuts for select (W), snap (S), clone (D), move/rotate (M), so you can build much faster in Mecabrick.
I'll now move on and start working on the next part in which I'd like to show you how to make photorealistic renders of your amazing creations using the Mecabricks workshop and render farm!
Until then, feel free to ask your questions here in the comment section, and I'll try to answer them, or wrote them on the Mecabricks forums.
83 likes
38 comments on this article
By Yooha in Hungary,
That looks interesting. I stuck with LDD, which won't(?) be updated anymore, but too tired of learning any other software. Maybe, this time.
By Brikkyy13 in Canada,
Very interested in the animation features. What’s the brick selection like?
By BrickJonas in Serbia,
@Yooha said:
"That looks interesting. I stuck with LDD, which won't(?) be updated anymore, but too tired of learning any other software. Maybe, this time. "
I definitely suggest you to try Mecabricks!
@Brikkyy13 said:
"Very interested in the animation features. What’s the brick selection like?"
As far as I know, there are 2-3 designers who're working on the 3D models of the bricks, and they usually add the newly released pieces pretty quickly. Of course there are some older bricks which aren't available, but the selection will be plenty for most builders. :)
By Veyniac in United States,
I personally find Mecabricks very challenging to build with. The drag-and-drop format on LDD and Stud.io is far superior, in my opinion. However, the render engine on Mecabricks is way more photorealistic than the one in Stud.io, so I build in Stud.io then import the model into Mecabricks to render it.
By fourstud in United States,
I love Mecabricks! I use it for all my projects now.
By Robo_Nui in Poland,
I was always impressed by Mecabricks’ features and rich parts selection.
However, I dislike how it markets it’s greatest flaw - being online-only - as an advantage. No installation needed, great. Just make sure you stay online, logged in and hope their servers don’t go down for maintenance or you lose access to all your work.
By BrickJonas in Serbia,
@Veyniac said:
"I personally find Mecabricks very challenging to build with. The drag-and-drop format on LDD and Stud.io is far superior, in my opinion. However, the render engine on Mecabricks is way more photorealistic than the one in Stud.io, so I build in Stud.io then import the model into Mecabricks to render it."
Yep, that's a solution too. I think it's different for everyone - I really like building with Mecabricks, and actually for me, Studios format is harder (sometimes the pieces doesn't connect to the right place, etc.). :) I'm glad you found a solution which works for you!
@Robo_Nui said:
"I was always impressed by Mecabricks’ features and rich parts selection.
However, I dislike how it markets it’s greatest flaw - being online-only - as an advantage. No installation needed, great. Just make sure you stay online, logged in and hope their servers don’t go down for maintenance or you lose access to all your work."
I'm using Mecabricks since 2015, and I had no problems like that with it so far. Once my internet connection aborted, but Mecabricks actually autosaves your work, so when I reconnected, I was able to click on the "Recover Autosave" button in the workshop, and everything was there. :)
By Mirakle in France,
I was not aware of this online tool. Thanks for the heads up!
The tool looks great. I'm going to give it a try.
By PurpleDave in United States,
@Robo_Nui:
Exactly. That's my biggest problem with this. Our LUG does a lot of shows where we don't have internet access, and the only limitation it imposes on me is that I don't have access to Bricklink to see what parts actually exist. We did a display at a small Harry Potter convention a couple years ago, and I was able to crank out a design for the flying Ford Anglia at one of these shows. If I'd had to wait until I had internet access, I either would have had to spend the entire show parked down in the hotel lobby at the other end of the building, or I would have had to wait until I could work on it at home (in which case I almost certainly would not have gotten it built on time).
By TWRAddict in United States,
I've been using Stud.io for a while now and don't see much reason to switch over. I wish the Snap function was automatic like LDD or Stud.io or could at least be toggled. It's too time-consuming to put together MOCs through there.
By snazzybricks928 in United States,
Haha, I just started using Mecabricks myself, glad I now know what all the buttons do!
By Lyichir in United States,
@TWRAddict said:
"I've been using Stud.io for a while now and don't see much reason to switch over. I wish the Snap function was automatic like LDD or Stud.io or could at least be toggled. It's too time-consuming to put together MOCs through there."
Yeah, that's been sort of my issue with it. While Mecabricks seems to be more powerful and versatile as far as I can tell, the amount of different keystrokes and shortcuts you have to memorize to use it efficiently just gives the entire experience of building on the program a lot more friction, and all the mental energy I'm exerting on trying to use the program effectively is energy I'm not able to use on the actual creative aspect of building. As such, I find it easier to stick with the comparatively less advanced but more user-friendly Stud.io.
By jlskywalker in Portugal,
I think I'm gonna try it, my head and my brain are the only softwares I use for the concept of a Moc. For the aesthetic is not the best tool lol, so... Thank you for the useful article!
By classicstylecastle in United Kingdom,
Ive been using and enjoying studio, and was about to say mecabricks looks like it has much better rendering/lighting options then read that you can import studio files to mecabricks (is that straightforward?). Will have to give that a try until studio catches up and creates those options.
By BrickJonas in Serbia,
@jlskywalker said:
"I think I'm gonna try it, my head and my brain are the only softwares I use for the concept of a Moc. For the aesthetic is not the best tool lol, so... Thank you for the useful article!"
I'm glad you find it useful! :)
@Andhe said:
"Ive been using and enjoying studio, and was about to say mecabricks looks like it has much better rendering/lighting options then read that you can import studio files to mecabricks (is that straightforward?). Will have to give that a try until studio catches up and creates those options. "
Yep, you can easily import Stud.io models into Mecabricks! Simply open the Mecabricks workshop, go to File -> Import..., and pick the format, and upload the file! In some rare cases some pieces might be missing (if they aren't available in Mecabricks yet).
By MrClassic in Sweden,
I think the greatest advantage of Mecabricks are the photo realistic renders which look fantastic, way above Stud.io and Lego's own product renders (but then they're not free above 1000 parts and/or 0.7 megapixels). Great to read that it now also supports custom decorations. I've been using LDD myself but certainly will give Mecabricks a serious try for decorations and rendering (by importing the LDD file).
By Givememorebricks in Netherlands,
Having used both Stud.io and Mecabricks, I can say that they can't beat LDD in terms of simplicity. If only LDD had all the new parts and a good built-in renderer.
By NathanR2015 in United Kingdom,
@MrClassic said:
"I think the greatest advantage of Mecabricks are the photo realistic renders which look fantastic, way above Stud.io and Lego's own product renders (but then they're not free above 1000 parts and/or 0.7 megapixels)."
Mecabricks offers a plugin for Blender, there's a free lite version and a paid-for advanced version. You export your model from the Mecabricks website, import into Blender, set up the scene, and then render on your own computer. The lite version is pretty straightforward, the advanced plugin adds features like thumbprints and scratches on the bricks to make them more realistic.
The Mecabricks render farm is phenomenally fast, I've had it render HD images in under 30 seconds that would take 20 minutes or more on my own limited hardware. I think it's very reasonably priced, and the results are well worth paying for.
By Galaxy12_Import in United States,
I was actually checking out this digital builder last week and it's on my list of things to learn. This article confirms my hunch that seems to be shared; less intuitive build process interface, but major upgrade for renders/animation/lighting/what can be done with the completed model. My process will probably look like: Physical MOC design at building desk with real bricks -> Stud.io model -> Mecabricks for renders and lights
By STL_Brick_Co in United States,
@Veyniac said:
"I personally find Mecabricks very challenging to build with. The drag-and-drop format on LDD and Stud.io is far superior, in my opinion. However, the render engine on Mecabricks is way more photorealistic than the one in Stud.io, so I build in Stud.io then import the model into Mecabricks to render it."
Same here. I did not like the interface at all. Much prefer Stud.io. One positive note on Meca is you can use it with an iPad Pro and Pen! I will have to try this method of taking my stud.io files and rendering them in Meca
By AustinPowers in Germany,
Great tutorial, thank you. Might try this too one day, but have just started to get myself acquainted with stud.io after having done my instructions/designs with LDraw and later LDD/MLCad for years. I still love LDD but the ever more missing parts are a major downer these days.
By BrickJonas in Serbia,
Thank you for the feedback everyone! I'll take some notes and try to explain as much as possible about rendering in the next article! ;)
By arselus in United States,
If I understand correctly, since Mecabricks is an online tool/service, the rendering is done by their hardware/ or somewhere in the cloud, not by my hardware, can anyone confirm this?
And also, you have to pay to render above 1000 pieces or .7 megapixels, can anyone confirm this?
By B_Space_Man in United States,
@arselus said:
"If I understand correctly, since Mecabricks is an online tool/service, the rendering is done by their hardware/ or somewhere in the cloud, not by my hardware, can anyone confirm this?
And also, you have to pay to render above 1000 pieces or .7 megapixels, can anyone confirm this? "
Correct, it’s done by their machines. And yes the better render options are not free, but I’ve bought some credits for some projects and they are reasonably priced.
By ra226 in United States,
Am I to understand LDraw in DOSBox is no longer the standard?
Seriously, though, I was just thinking of moving to a new app. I had Bricksmith on Mac but it always felt a bit lacking in features. MLCad on Windows was my go-to. What do people recommend these days? MLCad, last I used it (admittedly years ago) didn't understand 3D hardware.
By STL_Brick_Co in United States,
@ra226 said:
"Am I to understand LDraw in DOSBox is no longer the standard?
Seriously, though, I was just thinking of moving to a new app. I had Bricksmith on Mac but it always felt a bit lacking in features. MLCad on Windows was my go-to. What do people recommend these days? MLCad, last I used it (admittedly years ago) didn't understand 3D hardware."
I don't know about "standard", but people seem to be gravitating towards Stud.io. I will say its user interface makes it incredibly easy to pick up. First program I have felt like you are truly building with LEGO in a virtual environment.
I have wondered what will become of Stud.io now that TLG owns it. I have noticed (could just be coincidence) that new parts seem to show up much quicker since they bought it. The new curved pieces from the Minions sets were in the part library, before those sets were even released in the US!
By Brickchap in Australia,
Thanks for this article! At least you go through the steps on how to use so perhaps mecabricks will be a tad more user friendly than LDD.
I stick with LDD myself, I dont know why so many people treat studio as the best thing since sliced bread when its terrible!
Mecabricks seems okay, although if I have to press S every time I want a brick to connect to another brick, I wont bother.
As a sidenote: Would anyone (companies, mecabricks etc.) consider taking over LDD from the lego group and keeping it the same but just updating pieces?
Afterall, I think people's only issues with LDD are that it is no longer updated for parts and doesnt have an inbuilt render.
By Nordbart in Germany,
since LEGO bought BrickLink and Stud.io with that LDD is pretty much discontinued at this point. I don't know if LDraw is still a thing though. I made a lot with it in the old days.
By omnium in United Kingdom,
I find all these tools frustrating to use, and I wonder how anyone builds they really complex models I see online! But I found Mecabricks to be on par with LDD and Stud.io. And working in the browser is a top feature.
By Givememorebricks in Netherlands,
Could be a petition for LDD upgrade helpful?
By nu_montag in United States,
Mecabricks definitely has a bit of a learning curve, and isn't the most friendly if you're used to LDD or Stud.io. However, I think this is a very well-written primer. Honestly, I find the snapping functionality much less frustrating than trying fling parts of the build around while working with the other builders—at least with more complicated models. One thing not mentioned here is that you can click a snap point before adding a new piece to a model, and it will load in there instead of at the origin, simplifying some of the snapping you'd otherwise have to do.
Overall, I've been a big fan even since I saw it promoted on this site almost six years ago—the growth that the site has seen in that time has always been incredible. New features and enhancements are added regularly, and the standard of quality is just unmatched.
Additionally, for those inquiring about the rendering, while using certain aspects of the built-in renderer do cost money, a template for rendering models on your own in Blender (without size limitations) is available and well-documented in the forums here https://mecabricks.com/en/forum/category/7 .
By BrickJonas in Serbia,
@RuMontag said:
"Mecabricks definitely has a bit of a learning curve, and isn't the most friendly if you're used to LDD or Stud.io. However, I think this is a very well-written primer. Honestly, I find the snapping functionality much less frustrating than trying fling parts of the build around while working with the other builders—at least with more complicated models. One thing not mentioned here is that you can click a snap point before adding a new piece to a model, and it will load in there instead of at the origin, simplifying some of the snapping you'd otherwise have to do.
Overall, I've been a big fan even since I saw it promoted on this site almost six years ago—the growth that the site has seen in that time has always been incredible. New features and enhancements are added regularly, and the standard of quality is just unmatched.
Additionally, for those inquiring about the rendering, while using certain aspects of the built-in renderer do cost money, a template for rendering models on your own in Blender (without size limitations) is available and well-documented in the forums here https://mecabricks.com/en/forum/category/7 ."
Oh, you're right, I forgot to add that. :) Thank you! Will talk more about rendering in the next article!
By ra226 in United States,
This is good conversation--I'm old school and use POV-Ray for rendering. It's a pretty slow process...
By VerMonster in United States,
A non-SaaS version of this that worked with Stud.io files would be a great thing. Shame that everyone looks at the stuff in a conference room down the hall from the server things it is great and thus they green light it without ever being forced to contemplate "online solutions" require more bandwidth than a great many people have.
The problem with stud shooters is, when you shoot yourself in the foot with one, there are no consequences.
By BrickJonas in Serbia,
@VerMonster said:
"A non-SaaS version of this that worked with Stud.io files would be a great thing. Shame that everyone looks at the stuff in a conference room down the hall from the server things it is great and thus they green light it without ever being forced to contemplate "online solutions" require more bandwidth than a great many people have.
The problem with stud shooters is, when you shoot yourself in the foot with one, there are no consequences. "
You can import stud.io files to it, if you meant that. :)
By ra226 in United States,
Having used MLCad for years and just tried Stud.io--wow. I love that the app is intelligent enough to understand the pieces and automatically connect them. It even aligned ball joints on angled parts. And I have it putting out a rendering and the quality looks just as good as something Lego themselves would release. Thanks for the tips!
By PurpleDave in United States,
@Lyichir:
For most people, the system they are familiar with is the system that will work best for them for this very reason. If you already know how to make everything work, you either have to have a great desire to tinker with new systems, or a need that is not being satisfied by your current system to make it work jumping to a new program. I still use MLCad because I don't have to actually think about most of the processes I use, and I like the layout. What would be most likely to get me to switch to a different program is if the part library lags too far behind, but I'm never going to switch to something that requires a constant internet connection.
@STL_Brick_Co:
Back when it was just LDD and the various flavors of LDraw, they started supplying 3D data to the LDraw community so they could get parts into the system faster, and include much more complex parts that most of the community would never touch (_lots_ of Minifig parts and accessories only exist because of this). There's no reason to assume they're not doing the same now that they own Stud.io.
@Nordbart:
The LDraw community is still going, but various GUIs may have hiccups here or there. Most recently I discovered that the LDraw community changed the color chart (I accidentally downloaded the full installer instead of just the parts library), and it broke MLCad. First I had to port over an older copy of MLCad as a temporary fix, and then I had to track down a patched version that undid the color scramble.
@omnium:
As with building with real parts, there's a learning curve to building digitally. But it allows you to do things you simply _can't_ do with real bricks. When I design minifig-scale cars, I often like to start with the chassis and exterior body work first, and then finish up by adding the guts that hold everything together. Try arranging a hollow shell of parts that aren't connected to each other to a real-life build someday and you'll understand why digital can be better for design in some cases.
@ra226:
I've never really had problems with that sort of thing. Earlier this year I designed Starro the Conqueror, a giant psychic space-starfish that was the Justice League's first villain, and the model features five Mixel-jointed legs, each consisting of five individually-posable sections. I was able to curl the entire thing up into a pretty close approximation of how the physical model sits when I put it on our club layouts. There are a _LOT_ of rotation points (two for every Mixel joint, two for each shoulder section, and one to rotate the entire thing to the correct angle).
By Nat501 in United Kingdom,
I use Mecabricks a lot in my free time if you want to see my models my name on there is the same as here
