[Software] Bluerender, a rendering engine for LDD

[msx80]

i just gave a quick look, i'm reading everything in detail as soon as i can dedicate some time to it. The screenshots looks great!

[Garry_rocks]

Looks awesome! Great model too!

Actually there are simplifications, for example it parses the LXF file only once, and load all bricks geometry only once. But those things are fast so you don't get a lot of speed up, all the time is taken by the actual renderer.

Thank you! Your rendering engine is really awesome, now more then ever before! I just can't stop making these animated images! But I actually see a model reassembled in that black window inbetween the sub-renders, isn't that the same thing called "parsing" happening there? For models with lots of parts this process is a huge problem as it can fail on my PC (apparently sometimes there's not enough heap space for Java). Anyway, thanks again for version 0005!

Here are some more animations!

[___]

i just gave a quick look, i'm reading everything in detail as soon as i can dedicate some time to it. The screenshots looks great!

Yea...and as you'll see I even added user option to .sc file that one can set his own color/blackness ratio if he finds it any useful (as different situations/models may require different amount of it), anyway I ended up with the default of 0.9f which seems to be the most universal.

Edited September 11, 2015 by bublible

[TheOneVeyronian]

Thanks for the Bluerender update! Glad to see things like resolution are changeable without having to resort to changing the .sc file all the time. I have a couple of questions though and they relate to all these animated spinnies everybody's making in BR, and I need a little help with it.

First off, is there a way to centre the pivot/rotation point in LDD or BR? My first try at the rotation caused my MOC to almost disappear off the render and I want to get the rotation to be as central as possible. How does one do that?

Also, how do I combine the resulting PNG renders to create the animation (presumably a GIF file)? Is that done using external software or does BR combine them together for you (I haven't let one run to the end yet I'll be honest)? Last time I made GIF animations was when I was doing GCSE's several years ago using Macromedia Flash, and I don't have access to that software anymore, so some tips would be welcome

EDIT: Okay, I figured out the first one, kind of (only by importing the model into a new file and making sure it's nearly dead centre there though), but I've been left with 30 separate renders of the same model and I don't know how everyone puts them into one animated spinnie. I'd really appreciate any help with it since I've never made one before and it's kinda necessary for presenting this very large project I'm doing with another builder.

Edited September 13, 2015 by TheOneVeyronian

[SylvainLS]

Also, how do I combine the resulting PNG renders to create the animation (presumably a GIF file)?

If you’re not afraid of the command line, look at ImageMagick: http://www.imagemagick.org/ It’s free and can do everything.

Else, a web-search for “create animated GIF” will lead you to a lot of websites that can do it for you or explain how to do it with your favorite image editor.

[TheOneVeyronian]

If you’re not afraid of the command line, look at ImageMagick: http://www.imagemagick.org/ It’s free and can do everything.

Else, a web-search for “create animated GIF” will lead you to a lot of websites that can do it for you or explain how to do it with your favorite image editor.

Thanks. I ended up Googling GIF makers and now I know how to make one. And here it is (note this isn't my MOC, it's part of a collab project I'm doing with a friend and I chose one of his models to test the animation creator):

Now to just figure out the ideal zoom in LDD to get the biggest view of the MOC, because cropping loads of pictures at once is boring

[msx80]

First off, is there a way to centre the pivot/rotation point in LDD or BR? My first try at the rotation caused my MOC to almost disappear off the render and I want to get the rotation to be as central as possible. How does one do that?

There's no automatic way.. I've prepared this little LXF file that has a perfectly centered round plate. You can use it as a reference for your rotation.

As for joining the images, there are plenty of tools to do that, even online one. Look at other answers, somebody already pointed out some solutions.

[raminator]

After a couple of more renders I noticed, that some metallic materials (using the über shader) don't render applied decorations. Is this wanted or a bug?

[___]

After a couple of more renders I noticed, that some metallic materials (using the über shader) don't render applied decorations. Is this wanted or a bug?

BUG...I was talking about it before, reason is the way decor is "blended" into brick color (I think it was mx80 code addition when he come with a solution how to finally have our decors there which at that time was OK of course - unfortunately not now anymore, but I may be wrong ) so when you combine more shaders according to ratio the decor is less and less visible until point it is basically unvisible (if such ratio/nr of shader used occures) - src should be rewriten/updated in away that decor is actually applied AS THE LAST BLOCK OF CODE, I guess, so then whatever nr of shaders and ratios used decor would always stay "at the top layer" therefore always perfectly visible...

Edited September 13, 2015 by bublible

[TheOneVeyronian]

There's no automatic way.. I've prepared this little LXF file that has a perfectly centered round plate. You can use it as a reference for your rotation.

As for joining the images, there are plenty of tools to do that, even online one. Look at other answers, somebody already pointed out some solutions.

Well, I figured out a way to get the model to centre itself via way of importing the model into a new LXF file that has a 2x2 plate in the centre, but that's not always practical I admit! I'll have to look at that LXF later, I'm not on a computer right now.

As for the other thing, I already figured it out in the post above yours ;)

[lipanz]

thanks for the update..testing it now..and love it

[anothergol]

Animation works perfectly! It's gonna change the way we show MOCs.

(I'm having troubles making a proper youtube vide but hey, nothing to do with the function that works perfectly)

[Darats]

You should add some frames and make it turn slower.

[Dornbi]

@msx80: Thanks for creating this tool, it already looks very good and has lots of potential. To me the biggest value is to have a tool that "just works" even for not so tech-savvy users, and I think Bluerender comes quite close to that already, which is great! The things I like:

- Image looks pretty good with the default settings.

- The rendering time is much more predictable than with POV-Ray.

- Does not need any setup, extra downloads. Cool!

- Unlike Ldd2PovRay, it works on my Mac :) Btw. I use Oracle java and works fine (java version "1.8.0_60" Java SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_60-b27), Java HotSpot 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.60-b23, mixed mode))

There are really only two things that I would like to have fixed:

1. Transparent parts should be brighter. This was mentioned on the thread and it sounds like there is already a fix, just not included in the latest release.

2. The default config should have some seams between the bricks. I think this would make it a lot more realistic.

I am looking forward to the animation features too.

Btw. does anyone know how to render an explosion effect like on this video?

Ah, I realized there is also version 0005 now by guessing the URL. The link in the very first in this thread still points to 0004, this is what confused me :)

The darkness issue is much better. I would say the trans clear bricks look pretty good. However the trans orange ones (turn indicator) are still a tad too dark, I am not sure why.

I still think adding seams by default would make it look better.

[___]

thanks for the update..testing it now..and love it

Glad to hear you like the newest update features.

Animation works perfectly! It's gonna change the way we show MOCs.

I don't think so: rotation works/has any sense only/mostly with smaller models, if you have some huge ones - for example like this one of mine here http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=113100 - to be still in somewhat reasonable size for watching it would be too small to see anything properly.

There are really only two things that I would like to have fixed:

1. Transparent parts should be brighter. This was mentioned on the thread and it sounds like there is already a fix, just not included in the latest release.

2. The default config should have some seams between the bricks. I think this would make it a lot more realistic.

The darkness issue is much better. I would say the trans clear bricks look pretty good. However the trans orange ones (turn indicator) are still a tad too dark, I am not sure why.

1. you are right: I have already solved it (I even added user option to .sc file to set up darkness/color shadow ratio!), it just is not implemented yet...

Latest BR v0.005

My MOD:

2. once .obj brick support is implemented this should be very possible too...it is in BR's "ToDo" list already, so just wait.

Ah, I realized there is also version 0005 now by guessing the URL. The link in the very first in this thread still points to 0004, this is what confused me :)

Yea, the reason is that msx80 wanted to see if there are some small bugs that can be repaired before official update to v0.005 - therefore the main link still points to v0.004

Edited September 14, 2015 by bublible

[msx80]

Animation works perfectly! It's gonna change the way we show MOCs.

(I'm having troubles making a proper youtube vide but hey, nothing to do with the function that works perfectly)

Cool render! i'd had it spinning much slower anyway, it makes me seasick at this speed :)

Ah, I realized there is also version 0005 now by guessing the URL. The link in the very first in this thread still points to 0004, this is what confused me :)

Yeah sorry i haven't found the time to update it yet.. i'm a little busy this days :)

[anothergol]

I don't think so: rotation works/has any sense only/mostly with smaller models, if you have some huge ones - for example like this one of mine here http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=113100 - to be still in somewhat reasonable size for watching it would be too small to see anything properly.

I don't think it has anything to do with size but yes, of course it doesn't make sense for things that don't have a "center" or aren't designed to be turned around.

But I'm pretty sure that more than half of MOCs out there (all vehicles, bots, towers maybe) are suitable for a rotation.

For your build, I'd more imagine a slow camera motion upwards (& thus not a loop).

Edited September 14, 2015 by anothergol

[___]

I don't think it has anything to do with size but yes, of course it doesn't make sense for things that don't have a "center" or aren't designed to be turned around.

But I'm pretty sure that more than half of MOCs out there (all vehicles, bots, towers maybe) are suitable for a rotation.

Yea, that is right and still it does not change anything form what I have said, that is that I do not think this will change the way we present our MOCs as it would apply only to some of them (although it may be to most of them) as it is not suitable for all MOCs (which it is really not), that is all.

Edited September 14, 2015 by bublible

[TheOneVeyronian]

I just noticed something not quite right with some of my recent renders with pearl colours in. Renders done with the latest version of BR now have this weird "speckly" surface on the pearl gold parts. For example, this.

Compare it to a render of the same model done in the previous version of BR here.

What is possibly causing this rather unsightly speckliness on the metallic parts (silver has the same problem, but not Titanium Metallic weirdly), and is there a way that I can fix them? I'm using the default .sc file, unaltered.

EDIT: Didn't realise the problem had already been brought up and apparently the graininess is unavoidable for metallic materials. I tried altering "samples" in the .sc file and it didn't make any difference... shame because I think the graininess is horrible, parts of the Titanium Metallic on the model I linked have picked up Warm Gold grains and ruins the look of the model somewhat... is there definitely no way of fixing this?

Edited September 15, 2015 by TheOneVeyronian

[___]

I just noticed something not quite right with some of my recent renders with pearl colours in. Renders done with the latest version of BR now have this weird "speckly" surface on the pearl gold parts. For example, this.

Compare it to a render of the same model done in the previous version of BR here.

What is possibly causing this rather unsightly speckliness on the metallic parts (silver has the same problem, but not Titanium Metallic weirdly), and is there a way that I can fix them? I'm using the default .sc file, unaltered.

EDIT: Didn't realise the problem had already been brought up and apparently the graininess is unavoidable for metallic materials. I tried altering "samples" in the .sc file and it didn't make any difference... shame because I think the graininess is horrible, parts of the Titanium Metallic on the model I linked have picked up Warm Gold grains and ruins the look of the model somewhat... is there definitely no way of fixing this?

Everything is right as it should be, most probably you have not rightly setup your lighting rig cos it looks like your AA is not 1 2 (as it should be for the final render) + as I see you are using only some default settings which are not meant as Holy Grail, it should be just kick off, kind of start up settings that one needs to tweak to get better/best results...

And as for your comparing of previous version render of the same model: it is not the same, in previous version it was not metallic, it was just pure shiny material as other plastic bricks, so...

Actually I am just preparing to post new topic here where I will explain some TIPS&TRICKS for users.

[___]

Actually I am just preparing to post new topic here where I will explain some TIPS&TRICKS for users.

OK, so for anyone interested here it is:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=114649

[TheOneVeyronian]

Everything is right as it should be, most probably you have not rightly setup your lighting rig cos it looks like your AA is not 1 2 (as it should be for the final render)

Of course, now it seems obvious that I needed to change the anti-aliasing settings, because they don't look so grainy in the tiny preview images my computer gives me, and the one thing that POV-Ray tutorials teached me was render at twice the resolution without AA (it looks grainy), then resize the file to the resolution you desired (then it looks less grainy). I'm clearly an idiot for forgetting that the same applies here too

I really should find out what all the abbreviations mean in the .sc file, then I'd be able to tweak them a bit better. I'm too used to POV-Ray with it's different way (and, to me anyway, slightly easier) of writing commands I guess

BTW, your BR tutorials look very interesting bublible, I'll try them out when I get an excuse to

[___]

Hey guys, you know what? I am so thrilled that I need to inform you immediately right before I go to sleep now:

!!! SIMPLE BRICK SEAMS ARE FINALLY ON THEIR WAY !!!

As it needs to be done basically for every type separately I will releasing it in some small sequences, so the first ones (most probably basic lane of brick 1x1 - 1x16) arrive probably today evening - they'll be posted on my own topic (if you did not noticed it then it;s here: http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=114649)

Edited September 16, 2015 by bublible

[___]

So, here it is guys: I am proudly presenting my latest BR MOD "Simple Brick seams" (click the image for full resolution so you can see them much better )

[SylvainLS]

!!

So, how did you do it?