In this build from the World Builder game, it appears the blue and green stripes running up the length of the tower take up 1/3 of 4 studs. Is this or a close enough approximation possible to achieve, or is this just artistic liberty from the game designers? I know a plate is 1/3 of a brick height-wise (3.2 / 9.6 mm) but apparently is 2/5 width-wise (3.2 / 8 mm). So stacking plates horizontally it in theory could be approximated by 3 plates, 4 plates, 3 plates.
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Oh man, World Builder is so fun! Has anyone ported it to JS yet?– AlexanderAug 10, 2020 at 14:09
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@Alexander-ReinstateMonica given that it is a Flash game, probably not. The only known way of playing it is through biomediaproject.com/bmp/files/LEGO/gms/download/ClubGames– qwrAug 11, 2020 at 7:23
3 Answers
You're right. They cheated.
This youtube video shows the Robot Lab from a different camera angle.
Here you can clearly see what looks like three 1x2 bricks on a 2x4 brick of the same width. Cheaters! Boo!
Alright. Let's cheat, too.
I think you are looking in perspective at a digital render of a tower base that has 1x2 blue bricks on each side (1 wide) with a 2x2 lime brick in the center. It only appears to be 1/3-1/3-1/3, but is in fact 1/4-1/2-1/4. You can see this best if you zoom in on the base plate and look at how the studs line up with the lowest tier of the base.
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2I'm still not convinced. The green section looks smaller than two studs which are just barely visible.– qwrAug 6, 2020 at 18:25
I also think there's some funny business going on there in that model, and in a few other models.
For fun, I built it in BrickLink Studio (or at-least, how I think it would be built, my answer here has the instructions) and rendered it from a couple of angles. While it didn't give me enough control over the camera to reproduce the perspective exactly, I think it's close enough to determine something is off about their render.
Original:
My Renders:
If the green part were twice as large as the blue, I would expect it to be almost-exactly twice as wide in those renders.
Some of the other models appears to have odd scaling on some of their parts too.
The printed slope on the Gas station appears to be a 2x1.5 corner slope for example (how would that fit over the studs?).
It's even worse on the Marina, where that piece is now sitting halfway over studs in both directions, in addition to the stilts being too tall for a single cylinder brick.
I also think there might be some cheating in the Steamshovel and Freighter and maybe some odd scaling on the Snail, but they are too low-res to be sure.
My guess would be that Gamelab's 3D models had some cheating where they re-scaled certain elements in impossible ways.
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1Yeah I'm trying to make models of every unit in the game that isn't a direct model from an existing set, and I've noticed some odd geometry.– qwrAug 7, 2020 at 2:13