Project Sandbox | Minifigures
Project Sandbox is the working title for an interactive AR/mobile experience with a simple goal: to translate LEGO building into virtual space in an intuitive and unique way, utilising AR and fully digital spaces. Through UE5, players will be able to experience LEGO in the year 1979, with a timeless yet historically accurate palette of bricks, minifigures, and colors, and the liberty to build and play with whatever their hearts desire.
This Showcase focuses on the Minifigure and accessory models I created for the project, as well as their engine implementation through flexible, modular materials used both on the figures and the bricks. For the figures specifically, I opted for a set of baked normals as well as combined occlusion, roughness, and opacity for SSS, which are then combined with a global set of micronormals and wear. Layered on top is a variation of the material used for prints. To save on performance, support mobile, and cheaply emulate the physical height of prints without additional normal maps, I chose to use modelled decal surfaces on the figure instead of decal projections. All in all, I am very content with the results, especially consodering how well the project performs on mobile devices.
Stefan Müller's (https://stefanmuller.artstation.com/) blog posts on LEGO materials (https://stefanmuller.com/exploring-lego-material-part-2/) has been invaluable in translating the toys into AR. As always, some corners had to be cut when working in real time, and on mobile.
Similarly, Rebrickable's LEGO color databank was a great ressource in determining which colors LEGO had produced up to 1979, especially regarding their lesser known systems like Modulex (https://rebrickable.com/colors/). The same can be said about Christoph Bartneck's precise measurements of the LEGO brick (https://www.bartneck.de/2019/04/21/lego-brick-dimensions-and-measurements/), which empowered the modelling process substantially. Lastly, Stud.io's large catalog of 3D models served as a great point of reference during the creation of my game-ready, modular bricks (https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/download.page).
A preview of the fully virtual environment player will be able to build in.
I wrote a quick custom post-process shader to emulate the desktop version's scene depth and film grain.
A simple render of the HP assets. As opposed to the LP, I intentionally diverged from an actual figure's details here to ensure a successful bake, most notable in the slim fingers and non-hollow legs.
Print quality can be affected through DPI, inaccuracy, and wear sliders.
The texture sets used on the minifigure. In contrast, the bricks create the same effect through vertex paint.
Minifigures and bricks share the same master materials, meaning both can be spawned in color combinations lego never produced.
Initially, the project was supposed to revolve around LEGO Star Wars, before I landed on classic LEGO Space.