Poll

Invisible Bricks: Yea or Nay?

Yea
13 (31%)
I use them when I want or need to.
12 (28.6%)
I'm not really bothered by/inclined to use them.
8 (19%)
I avoid them using them as often as possible.
9 (21.4%)
Nay
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 42

Author Topic: Invisible Bricks: Yea or Nay?  (Read 882 times)

Oftentimes when I'm building, I try to go for a sense of 'structural integrity', a  sense that what I'm building would be able to support itself if I built it out of real Lego parts, or if t were an actual object. However, when it comes to building certain things, such as vehicles, odd or highly detailed structures, or things that rely on being small, I wind up using invisible bricks, which isn't exactly irksome or bad, but which sometimes makes me feel as if I'm not doing the best I can without 'cheating' a little.

For instance, if I were to build a rock face out of 8x cubes and wanted a wooden catwalk on it, if I were to try and build the catwalk directly into the side of an 8x cube, I couldn't- the 8x cube is too big, and I'd have to break the cube up into smaller bricks to fit in the supports for the catwalk. If I used invisible bricks, I could simply make an invisible support beam or set of beams to actually hold up the catwalk, and then make fake supports that look like they're going into the rock face. While the solution with invisible bricks is more brick-efficient, it doesn't give me the sense that what I'd built could actually hold itself up. If I build the catwalk without invisible bricks, it'll be more brick-intensive and potentially more ugly, but it would be able to support itself in reality, giving a sort of feeling of solidness and adding a bit of realism(?).


TL;DR
Sometimes you can use invisible bricks to do stuff more efficiently or effectively than by building everything solidly, but it doesn't feel right and gives the impression that the build couldn't stand or exist in real life or without those bricks (to me, that is).

How do you feel about using invisible bricks? Why?

I use them if whatever it is I'm building needs to be flat/clean.

But otherwise I try and build some kind of misc. junk item/ scenery on top to cover it.

"Oh hey nice tree!"

"Thanks, its holding up the four houses its connected to."

I will take great pains to never use invisible bricks in most builds. The only time I will use them in structures is when there is literally absolutely no way to not use them and still have the build look nice. I usually regard builds with superfluous invisible bricks as the result of laziness

I never put too much thought into that before, but I know what you mean. I don't mind having to use invisible bricks when need be, but it does seem to add a nice, almost sorta realistic quality to builds when you don't use any.

invisible bricks are nice in my opinion, i don't really have any problem with using them

Although I don't go out of my way to not use them, my first plan when building is "Connect all this stuff together normally". I don't need to think about that, I just do it.

If I come to a problem though, then I don't have a problem using an invisible brick. Which sometimes can still be annoying, particularly in tight areas, where the support beam may be in the way of a place where I might once have put in a decoration.

If there's one place I use invisible bricks the most though, it's in rooves. If the roof is large and I can't get one plate to go from one wall to another, then I'll put plates on both walls, and bridge the gap with another plate (or two) held to the others via invisible plate bricks either on top of underneath.


But if I go into a build, I don't go into it expecting to use invisible bricks. It's just something I'll do if I have to.

Off topic but, it starting to seem that every post I see from you is at least a paragraph long. Not necessarily a bad thing, but You type a lot  :cookieMonster:

edit: LOL I just saw your profile.
Quote
I'm the person that types too much


This is an example of when invisible bricks are unavoidable, unless you use a custom brick which IMO is a worse idea

i know for a fact mrcookie does not use invisible bricks

Usually I build with only invisible bricks, then I name them all and use events to render them. It is a true test of skill.

If you are doing things lego based you will have to use them to simulate technic parts.