Guides

Turning a 3D model into a brick model

Tools that convert a 3D model into bricks are a quick way to get a starting layout for a sculpture, a vehicle or a character. Experienced builders treat the result as a draft. The grid gets the shape roughly right, and the craft is in what you do next. This guide covers what conversion does well, where it fails and how to finish the model by hand.

From mesh to studs

A converter samples the model into a grid of stud-sized columns, three plates to a brick, and gives each cell the colour of the nearest surface, matched to a real brick colour. A good layout then places bricks with their seams staggered, like a wall, and only uses part and colour pairs that were actually produced. In MOCsmith’s catalogue, 38 part shapes in 41 colours give 1,403 pairs that exist, and the layout only uses those.

Why converted models fall apart

Bricks only hold through studs above and below. A side-by-side touch holds nothing, and that is where conversions break:

• Parts that stick out sideways, like a tail or a snout, often meet the body only along a side face.
• Bulging surfaces leave thin outer columns that touch the rest only at their sides.
• Thin, flat areas, such as a truck bed one plate thick, become a sheet with nothing above or below to tie it in.

MOCsmith looks for loose groups after layout and re-lays nearby parts so one spans the gap. On its samples this leaves at most a handful of parts unattached, marked in red to fix by hand. Being connected is not the same as being strong, though: long overhangs can still sag in real bricks, so test the real thing.

Prepare the model

• Use a textured model. Surface colour comes from the texture; GLB keeps it in one file.
• Watch for painted-in lighting. Models made from photos often have shadows baked into the texture, so the shaded side of one colour turns into a darker brick colour. MOCsmith’s Remove light and shadow painted into the texture setting evens this out.
• Thicken thin legs and poles. A post one stud wide is a stack of single studs. Widen it in the model, or use Thicken 1-stud posts and legs to 2 studs.
• Pick the smallest size that keeps the features you care about, such as eyes, windows and wheels. Every step up adds hundreds of parts.

Finish it by hand

This is where a converted model becomes your MOC:

• Replace stair-stepped curves with slopes, curved slopes and wedges, and cover flat tops with tiles. MOCsmith does a first pass of this; faces and fine curves still need a person.
• Build small features like eyes, lettering and grilles sideways with SNOT instead of as coloured cells.
• Hollow out large solid areas to save parts, keeping enough internal structure to hold the shell.
• Swap colours that are hard to buy for close ones that are easy to get.

Export the result as an LDraw file to keep refining it in Studio or LeoCAD, or keep editing parts in MOCsmith and generate instructions there.

Convert a model