A MecaBricks Newbie needs a little help.
Spanky45699 started this discussion in Help and Tips

Hello, my name is Klaus, I come from the Ruhr area in Germany, and I am 60 years 'young'.

With Lego I have occupied myself in between now and then, but my main passion with the colorful bricks is collecting superhero minifigures.

Unfortunately, I discovered Mecabricks only a few days ago and after a few initial 'difficulties' I also assembled a first model. I think the program is great.

However, it is not always easy for me to find appropriate help in the forum, which is mainly because English is not my native language.

With some functions I do not get along yet and therefore I would like to ask you for some help.

Mainly I have problems with not being able to rotate objects over the gizmos individually. I currently always use the Transform tab for this.

Also, I would like to know how I can download (or buy) the awesome objects from the library and use them in Mecabricks? I haven't figured that out yet.
Do I have to buy extensions or become a member via Patreon?

I hope my questions are not too stupid. I am looking forward to your answers. Thank you very much in advance. - Klaus / Spanky

EDIT: I have now also found the rotation function. 😃

3 replies · Page 1 of 1

Hi Klaus-

Welcome to Mecabricks!

For rotations, if you are using a keyboard then you have many options available to you:

The Home/End/Arrow keys will rotate a selection by 45º with each press.

  • Left/Right around the Green axis
  • Up/Down around Red
  • Home/End around Blue

You can also rotate a part by typing [R] then the axis [X],[Y], or [Z] then the degrees and finish with [ENTER]. Note that in Mecabricks Y Axis points up.

You also have access to keyboard shortcut [M], which toggles your gizmo movement from Translate to Rotate. Now you can grab the rings to rotate your part on the screen.

If you do not have a keyboard, you can still switch movement modes with tool buttons on the top toolbar. Look for two icons with a square in the center. One has 4 arrows pointing out and one has a circle around the square. You can choose Translate or Rotate with these two options. Here is a picture:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51047026308_5e3b987445_o.png

To the right of this you can choose Local or Global. This will change whether you rotation axes follow the part or always stay in the same orientation.

On the left of these buttons, you can change your Movement grid size. You can toggle through these options with [Q]. This will affect the step size for both Rotation and Translation when using the on-screen gizmos.

Grid Size - Rotate - Horizontal - Vertical 
Small     - 0.5º   - 0.2mm      - 0.2mm
Medium    - 22.5º  - 1/2 Stud   - 1 Plate
Large     - 45º    - 2 Studs    - 1 Brick

That should answer the first question... There's probably something I'm missing, but that should get you into the game. Now on to the second question:

When you make a model public, you have a toggle option titled Open in Workshop or auf Deutsch In Werkstatt öffnen. If this is set to on, then the model will have an EDITOR option below the name. This will open that model in the workshop.

This is Shipmaster's Overload model found here:
[url]https://mecabricks.com/en/models/0DvYd4Dbj9e[/url]

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51532653165_37b8d42d60_o.png

If you save it, you will now have access to it in your library. To use it in a different model, first open that model and then use the File -> Import... option or auf Deutsch Datei -> Import... Choose Format Mecabricks and IMPORT/IMPORTIEREN. Now click on the model you want to import. You also have other tabs at the top. MOCS will allow you to choose from the most recent "front page" MOCs, and you can import entire official sets and minifigs with the other two tabs.

I hope you could follow this and that it is helpful for you. Again, welcome to Mecabricks. Enjoy!

I would like to thank you very much for all this helpful hints. Now I am some big steps further.

And I have another question about the minigures. Can I download somewhere a template of the 3D basemodel for mecabricks to create my own textures for the minifigures? I could export a figure to Blender ad create my own template there, but in the end I would like to share my textures later with the users here and they should be compatible with the ones, that are used here. Thanks again for your kind in advance.

Hi Klaus-

If you want to get the 3D model into Blender, you should just build a minifig in Mecabricks and then export it.

If you want to upload and share textures, I have a tutorial for that:
Let's Build a Minifigure! - [url]https://www.mecabricks.com/forum/topic/2925#post35934[/url]

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