Mecabricks

Mecabricks is an online tool to build, render and animate Lego in your browser. In 2012, Nicolas Scrubs Jarraud released the first version of Mecabricks throughout it's lifetime but especially in 2020 it received several updates bringing about new features such as a tool to animate or the mosaic tool. Mecabricks is particularly popular for it's ability to export models directly to blender with materials (colors) intact and it's large library of models.
Tools on Mecabricks.
Workshop.
The Mecabricks Workshop is influenced by another 3D software called blender, as can be noticed by the way you move the individual pieces in the workshop or rotate them. This is no surprise when you factor in that scrubs has been using blender to model the pieces since even before the launch of the website (2012). The Workshop offers tools such as the mosaic tool, groups and visibility of individual pieces. You can change the material (color) of the pieces using a color palette which corresponds to the official Lego colors.&lt;br&gt;
Workshop can export and import these file formats:
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Rendering.
The Mecabricks render farm was custom built by Scrubs himself and allows rendering models in the browser by first sending the model in a .blend (blender) file to the render farm where it will be rendered. After rendering is complete, it will be sent back to Mecabricks where it can be downloaded. The render farm can be used for free, but has some limitations of the amount of renders allowed and their resolution.&lt;br&gt;
With rendering comes a few objects that can be of help, such as lamps, cameras and the volumetric box. Multiple frames can be rendered for rendering animations and other features such as scratches, fingerprints and dents can make the render(s) look even more realistic. Post-rendering composition is also available.&lt;br&gt;
After rendering, you can then upload these to individual models and they will stay as long as they follow the rendering rules set up by scrubs.
Animating.
Animation can be done in nodes, which is a separate area from the workshop view that can be toggled on or off. In nodes, you can create different node trees which will all be executed when the animation plays. The node trees themselves contain nodes which can determine a piece's position, material (color) and visibility over a timespan. It is also possible to instance large amounts of pieces.&lt;br&gt;
Other settings such as frame rate and animation length can also be determined in nodes.
Prints.
In Mecabricks, you have the option to add your own textures to parts, which you can upload using your limited free storage for these prints. These prints are then available to you and can be exported to blender using the blender addon. Other people can then save this print as their own if you allow your model to be public and open to workshop.
About the Creator.
The creator of Mecabricks is Nicolas Scrubs Jarraud and originates from France while working in New Zealand to model new parts, draw new prints, patch bugs and moderate the website.
Framework.
Mecabricks uses Three.js for the workshop to display 3D models in the browser (with JavaScript) and PHP to generate the thousands of pages on Mecabricks by ID. It uses Python scripts for tasks such as synchronizing the part library and models with the local backup in New Zealand or the renderfarm. The data such a images, models, posts and usernames are saved in a mySQL database.