I finished rendering the graphics for our eBay store. I added LEGO Minifigs to represent each member of our family and their interests. It’s a fun reminder to everyone that this is a venture for family fun – for us – and for you!
The model was assembled in LEGO Digital Designer 4.3. LDD is a great tool to build virtual LEGO models and design MOCs, but the output is lacking. Below is a screen shot of the model in LDD.
(Download the Free LEGO Digital Designer HERE)
The saved LDD file was converted from LDD to POV using a utility called LDD to POV-Ray Convertor. The POV file is then rendered with the Persistence Of Vision Raytracer, or POV-Ray for short.
(Download the Free LDD to POV-Ray Convertor HERE)
(Download the Free POV-Ray HERE)
This what the original render looked like.
I needed two separate elements for the eBay store – a store logo which was square (300px by 300px) and a rectangular banner (1200px by 270px). I just built them both and rendered them together.
Next, I used Serif PhotoPlus to crop the image and separate out my two elements and make the the right sizes for eBay. You can use any graphics editor to crop the images but I like the Serif products and own many of them. The Free version will work fine just to crop images.
(Download Serif PhotoPlus Free Starter Edition HERE)
Next I needed to add the “printed” parts and “stickers”. This can be done in the LDD to POV Converter but in more difficult and each change requires re-rendering the image which can take some time. Even on my Nvidia gaming monster overclocked PC it takes hours (sometimes days) to render my MOCs. My solution is to add the stickers in Serif DrawPlus.
(Download Serif DrawPlus Free Starter Edition HERE)
Again, the free version can do everything I did here. I added my logo and a couple messages to some of the tiles and even dropped a logo on the coffee cup.
And “Ta-Da” I’m finished. Want to see them in action? Visit our eBay store HERE.
There you go – all done with software you can get for free. Go grab these free downloads and start rendering your own LEGO creations. We would love to see them!