Hasta La Gadget!

We usually hear of fictional worlds brought to life in Minecraft, but there’s more than one way to skin a globe. A group called the Middle Earth Digital Elevation Model Project or MED-EM has been using a program called Outerra for the past 5 years to make a realistic model of the world of The Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien’s other fantasy books. Redditor and MED-EM member cameni shared some images of their virtual planet online.

Outerra is a 3D graphics engine specialized for creating planets and terrain. It’s been in development since 2008 and is still in alpha, but it seems to have attracted a following already. One of its defining features is that it lets users create a world with “unlimited visibility”, where you can start viewing the planet as a whole and then zoom in and see details of entire hundreds of kilometers of lands, landforms and so on, up to tiny blades of grass. In other words, you can explore every inch of virtual Middle-earth. There’s not much to see, but that’s what imagination is for eh?

If you’re a Middle-earth tourist like me, check out these two annotated images by Redditor coomb. Here are some of the important locations in Middle-earth:

And here’s Frodo’s journey, as told in The Fellowship of the Ring.

That’s one long journey. Even if it wasn’t dangerous I can see why Gwaihir and his homies didn’t join the trek.

Before Tolkien fans get upset, MED-EM knows that their model isn’t perfect. For instance, Redditors and MED-EM members Redrobes and monkschain pointed out that Mordor is a desert and even has a little snow, but that error stems from limitations on Outerra’s biome options.

Monkschain also said that they used several real world locations as inspiration for some of the areas they made: “Parts of NZ were used for the White Mts. The Alps for Misty Mts. Carpathians for Mordor. Chalk Downs of England for parts of the Shire, Africa for Far Harad. Finland and Norway, etc for the far north.” 

There’s a banana for scale in there somewhere.

MED-EM is only focused on building the planet, not populating it.

Hence you’ll find no structures, elves, hobbits or monsters.

Here’s a video of the world that monkschain made last year:

Grab your browser and your axe and download the Outerra demo and MED-EM’s dataset.

[via Reddit]

Few things in all of geekdom hold as much promise and wonder as a geek with lots of time and lots of LEGO bricks. A couple LEGO builders named Alice Finch and David Frank teamed up to create a massive LEGO recreation of Rivendell from the Tolkien universe of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The creation is massive and uses over 200,000 bricks in its design.

The builders performed research by carefully watching The Fellowship of the Ring in an attempt to put the entire city of Rivendell together. They say that research was required because it was hard to tell what scenes in the film happened where.

The massive finished model is intricate and beautiful with structures that sprout out of the rocks and lush greenery. Its builders say that one of the most challenging parts was getting the buildings into the landscape. They did the landscape first and added the buildings later.

The finished product is an awesome sight, and you can check out many more detailed images on their project’s Flickr page.

[via Brothers Brick]

If you are a fan of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, or if you are just like bearded wizards and staffs, have I got a product for you. ThinkGeek has unveiled a new full-size replica staff just like the one Gandalf uses in the latest film.

The staff is a licensed replica from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The staff weighs in at a hefty six pounds and measures 73-inches tall. It’s 1.5-inches in diameter where you grip it and 3.5-inches in diameter at the top. At its tip, it has a glowing “stone” set in knurled faux wood.

The staff ships in three pieces that have to be assembled, though it does include wood grained screw hole covers to keep the real wood look going. It’s made from a polyresin material and has LED lights, powered by three AAA batteries. The staff is available now for $159.99(USD).

It would be perfect for a teacher. They could stand at the front of their classroom, smack the staff on the ground and yell “You Shall Not Pass!”

It’s a quiet book. One that will start your kids’ love for The Lord of the Rings early. The earlier you introduce them to the classic, the sooner they can be geeks in their own right.

This Lord of the Rings quiet book is a perfect starting place for their growing geekiness. This book tells the story quietly, hence the name, with little felt figures, felt pages and even lets your kids dress up Aragorn for adventure. How cool is that? Tolkien’s book was never this interactive.

If you want to make one for your geek in training, you can download the pattern for $10(USD) and make one yourself.

[via The Mary Sue]

I’m not a big fan of Tarot cards, but these Lord of the Rings tarot cards might just make me interested in a reading. They come from Deviant Artist Sceith Ailm who is working on a Major Arcana for her tarot series.

As of now she has 16 cards and we hope she completes more. If I saw a deck of these for sale I would definitely buy them and I know that other LOTR fans would as well.

The artwork is really top notch. I have no idea how to read tarot cards, but these would be fun just to have in your hand and look at on a daily basis. Head on over DeviantArt for more of SceithAilm’s awesome images.

[Tumblr via The Mary Sue]