Mike Walsh's LEGO® Blog » Planning

Layout Planning with BlueBrick

Mike Walsh — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:24:10 +0000

I have been using TrackDraw for layout planning for years. My friend and former NCLTC member Cary Clark wrote TrackDraw and I authored many of the parts in the TrackDraw library so I had a vested interest in using it. Compared to TrackDesigner, TrackDraw was a huge improvement particularly if you were planning a large layout.

But times change and Cary has phased out of the LEGO hobby and TrackDraw, while it still works, hasn’t been updated in years. At one point I could build it from source myself but about a year ago I tried to build it and was unable to. So the version I have running is from the RailBricks site and includes some custom parts in the library. TrackDraw still has some oddities and will crash from time to time.

Recently while working on the 2010 LEGOPalooza track plan I couldn’t get text to work correctly so on a whim I decided to try BlueBrick. I had looked at BlueBrick about a year ago and dismissed it as it had some real limitations. However when I looked at it again, most of my issues had been addressed and it works pretty well.

I have not tried to create my own parts yet but probably will soon but I do like the layering model in particular. I recaptured the NCLTC layout I am doing for 2010 LEGOPalooza in BlueBrick and did a couple more iterations using it. I really wish the layout area had scroll bars and I really miss the TrackDraw feature to add a bunch of elements using the numbers on the keyboard followed by clicking on the part you want to place but other than that, I don’t have any real complaints.

My turn in the WITC window

Mike Walsh — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:01:45 +0000

It is my turn again to set up a display in the Community Window at the Crabtree Valley Mall LEGO Store. I had the honor of doing the first community window when the store first opened and now I am lucky to have the holiday season too. The community window is a funny size – it is about 64 studs wide and 48 studs deep but really tall – about 30" inches as I recall. The best displays make use of the vertical space which is harder than one would think.

Since it is the holiday season I thought I would do something with my church but my church is too long, it won’t fit in the space very well. I have considered rebuilding it and that is probably what I will do but I am stuck on how to rebuild it. I need to get unstuck as I am supposed to swap out the display later this week!

Final Layout Plan for LEGOPalooza

Mike Walsh — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:10:49 +0000

My area of the layout got tweaked a bit today as we finalize the layout plan. In general the layout is a bit cleaner and it is by far the largest layout NCLTC has ever done. I have a few things to figure out but for the most part, I think I am in pretty good shape. My area looks like this:

The last module!

Mike Walsh — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:10:06 +0000

Renee and I just finished the last module I need for my neighborhood portion of the NCLTC layout at LEGOPalooza next weekend (yikes!).

This is a middle module and features a bunch of the dark red elements I got from the UTB project. Unfortunately I ran out of the dark red headlight bricks � I wanted to make it another level taller. I still may do so if I can find some on short notice.

Residential Neighborhood at LEGOPalooza

Mike Walsh — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:15:45 +0000

As part of my section of the NCLTC layout at LEGOPalooza, I will have a small residential neighborhood.� I had built a couple houses to a standard of sorts a few years ago, the most notable a lime green house with pink windows and a white roof.� It is very unusual looking but I like it.� It was a joint project with my oldest daughter.

This year my daughter Renee built a house on top of one of the unused baseplate modules I had laying around for her entry in the NC State Fair.

This house is representative of what the rest of the modules look like – they all sit on 32×32 baseplates with a tiled sidewalk made from 2×2 white tiles.� Each module is raised to provide some elevation and they fit together to form a city block (much like my modular buildings do).� I have six modules – four corners and two middles – to make a 2×3 layout.

Renee has been my helper on this part of the project – she built this module with very little assistance from me and has helped with two more.� Last night we built another corner module, a dark blue house with a light grey roof.� After looking at it again this morning I think I will add a third level to it.� It needs something else too – maybe some medium blue.� I’ll post a picture once it is done.