from bricksmith to 3d rendering question in os x

[conchology]

Hi all,

I'm back to Lego building, last time I made something was at least 12 years ago. Now that my son starts playing with duplo, the lego bug came back to me. This is my first post on this great forum that I've been following for a while now.

I would like to save my lego creation for my son when he is big enough to build them as well. I'm currently doing this in Bricksmith for OS X 10.6.8 and I create simple plans with LPUB.

After a few models, my idea is to make photo realistic images from the ldr files in povray... unfortunately the povray 3.6 does not work on my intel...

After googling a while, I could not find a working solution to get the ldr files converted to anything that a 3d rendering program can understand on OS X 10.6. Most of my results where from 2008-2009, that is long time ago in software age terms. There is a command line program L3P, that I tried, but I cannot figure it out on how to use it.

Is there anybody here on the forum who has experience with rendering his ldraw creations into nice photo realistic 3d images that would be willing to help me out with some hints and tips.

thx

Philippe

[Calabar]

Now that my son starts playing with duplo, the lego bug came back to me. This is my first post on this great forum that I've been following for a while now.

Welcome in the "bugged" club!

You can introduce yourself to the community here.

About 3D software for hight quality rendering on MacOS I can't help you.

But if you content of "not so much hight" quality, you can use LDD, that has a 3D interface, and take screenshots from it (but you have to recreate your models in lxf format).

Otherwise, you could install windows with bootcamp, or try powray with a wine-like application.

[Brickdoctor]

Yeah, unfortunately, the easiest way to convert from LDR to 3DS requires LeoCAD, a Windows program. If you don't have a virtual machine running Windows, you could send the file online to someone who is using a PC to convert to 3DS. (actually, I could do it, if you wish, but I'm not even close to an expert in the program. I do most of my 3D building in LDD)

Edited August 21, 2011 by Brickdoctor

[conchology]

Thank you for the update Brickdoctor.

I've been playing the whole weekend in a windows virtual machine to get to nowhere with it :-(

Here are my conclusions:

- on Mac: bricksmith is a real good app to create your models with, it is well integrated and fast to use. It has a small learning curve. It features all the bricks available in LDraw.

- on Mac: LDD is a very up to date and nicely Internet integrated app, for me the biggest downside is that not all bricks are available for model building.

My winner is bricksmith.

On emulated PC: many apps didn't install well and gave plenty errors, probably because DirectX 3D cannot be used in VirtualBox. I didn't feel like trying to install bootcamp as I needed to make a backup of my HD and time was limited.

LeoCad installed well, but had some issues displaying menus of the program correctly. I was able to open a bricksmith created .ldr file :-) The resulted model was ugly :-( many of the bricks where out of place and some didn't even show up. I tried to fix the model, but it took to long to do. I could export the leoCAD exploded model into Blender, an opensource 3D app. But the final problem was that non of the colors showed up :-( So I completely gave up on the idea of creating high resolution rendered images of my models.

I'll just create my models in real bricks and take nice pictures of them, use bricksmith/lpub to keep the building instructions of my created models for later years.

[Brickdoctor]

Yeah, the graphics might be the problem. I'm running it on VMWare Fusion. Can you not add the colors back in in Blender, though? Even with all the steps you have to take to get the model from one program to the other, it should still be faster than modeling it from scratch. (unless you're really good at that)

Though either way, with the bricks missing, it would still be a pain.

I'm still trying to get POV-Ray to work. The Mac version hates me and the PC version outputs awful looking stuff through the virtual machine.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Brickdoctor

[Fallenangel]

I never liked POV-Ray anyway. Keep it simple and make your instructions using screenshots.

[Brickdoctor]

I never liked POV-Ray anyway. Keep it simple and make your instructions using screenshots.

Well for instructions, LDR program screenshots are better. Between parts outlines and simplified coloring, they're easier to view.

But if you know how to use it, this was built in SR-3D and rendered in POV-ray. I mean, unless you know exactly where to look, it looks just like real LEGO.

[conchology]

yep - its a pain... I'm hoping one day a good lego loving programmer might come along and make an easy working solution for all of us to use :-)

Well for instructions, LDR program screenshots are better. Between parts outlines and simplified coloring, they're easier to view.

But if you know how to use it, this was built in SR-3D and rendered in POV-ray. I mean, unless you know exactly where to look, it looks just like real LEGO.

Fully agree on the LDR screenshots, Lpub is easy and simple to use for that purpose.

Amazing rendering example - that is exactly what I would like to try to achieve on mac...

[conchology]

Amazing rendering example - that is exactly what I would like to try to achieve on mac...

I contacted suparMacho in Flickr and he send me the following message:

Thanks, I'm glad you like them! I have been building with Lego by hand a lot lately, but I really should make some more digital models, they were a lot of a fun to figure out.

It is definitely tricky getting the exact settings that make a particular model look just right. It requires a lot of tinkering I find. But there was a particular tutorial that got me a really good starting point. You can find it here: www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=163897

I use windows natively, so it might be a bit harder for you if you are using a mac (I assume you are from the forum posts). If you are using a windows VM though, everything in that tutorial should work fine. I assume bricksmith uses the standard .dat ldraw save format. If that is the case you can always build with bricksmith and then transfer the dat file (or equivalent) to the VM to render it with the windows tools.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Feel free to repost this in the forums if it is at all helpful.

[conchology]

It took me a while to sort things out. But finally I was able to render my first images. Here is quick list of what you need:

- bricksmith to create your MOC

- latest LDraw files for an up to date part list

- LGeo files placed in the LDraw directory

- LDView to setup your POVRay scene - lights, studs, camera position, etc... - this program allows you to export a POV file (a little tricky - you need in the save options link to the LGeo elements list in the LDraw directory)

- megaPOV to render your image

All works on Mac OS X 10.6.8 but not on 10.7

Currently I'm thinking of setting up a website for this topic.

Here is my first created image - it is not yet perfect, based on the bricks from the first MBA set - but I'm happy with this first result. Next I want to get the shadows correct and more realistic plastic :-)

[Brickdoctor]

Very nice. If you ever decide to create a tutorial, I look forward to it.