I guess I'll have to go to computer school so I can figure this all out? I know you are talking about a game of some kind. Whatever, it sounds wonderful and very challenging!!
Hope to hear more from all of you about this.
Janice
No need to sit in the corner and feel dumb, Janice. It's sort of a game, more like an open-ended puzzle. (The software is already made for Lego, we're talking about a Playmobil version.) It's a way to "build" a 3-dimensional object on the computer screen, by dragging, rotating, and dropping Lego blocks (or other elements) together from a virtual bin. You can then turn your creation any way you want for a closer look or to change things. It's used, among Lego-types, to build things that they don't own the parts for (or that don't exist in those colours, for instance) and then to publish them, so other people can see exactly how to build them and what pieces they'd need. These 3-D objects can be used to make high-quality computer-generated images or even animation, like the movies from Pixar.
What we're getting technical about, is that there is a version of the Lego program where people can create their own 3-D parts by listing the measurements of all the corners and surfaces, the way architects design buildings. So, we're thinking, why not design Playmobil parts - connectable building parts, generally - so we can make these 3-D objects too? Even if Playmobil doesn't create this kind of program for us to use, we can use the Lego one and use Playmobil parts instead of Lego ones. (Or both... or.... anything we can think of!)
If you'd like to try out the Lego version (no need for an architecture degree!) the official version can be downloaded at
http://ldd.lego.com . The Gallery is at
http://factory.lego.com/gallery/ , to see some amazing finished products. The more complicated user-run version is at
http://ldraw.org - takes a bit more know-how to get set up, but has hundreds more parts, because users made them, didn't wait for Lego to supply them!
Hope this makes it a bit more clear. It's pretty exciting, if you get excited about this kind of thing.
