From Stud.io to Blender.

[keiththelegokid]

Soooo, I was trying to figure out if there was a quick way to copy over Stud.io models to Blender. Figured I'd ask first before I started tinkering around for a long while.

[Mylenium]

Most likely you might want to use one of those LDraw to Program X conversion tools or scripts. There used to be a Python script for Blender. No idea how up-to-date it is and obviously it would require the entire LDraw parts library to exist as converted files somewhere so it can be loaded. Other than that  the usual OBJ and 3DS exports will do, though you lose all hierarchical info, steps etc. and also need to fix textured elements. personally I never minded this part, as in my line of work as a professional 3D artist I'm used to reorganizing CAD data with millions of pieces, but it sure isn't for everyone. You can spend days doing this repetitive and tedious stuff.

Mylenium

[SylvainLS]

6 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

You can spend days doing this repetitive and tedious stuff.

Doing repetitive and tedious stuff is for machines, not humans 

Especially when all the necessary information should already be there.

[Mylenium]

12 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

Especially when all the necessary information should already be there.

To bad then that's just not how CAD to 3D conversion works...

Mylenium

Edited April 7, 2020 by Mylenium

[NathanR]

A relatively painless way to get these models into blender is to do the following:Use stud.io to export your model as an LDraw file. Upload the LDraw file to the mecabricks website (it doesn't use the LDraw parts library, so a very small number of bricks may go missing). Export as a .zmbx file. Use the mecabricks blender plugin (lite version available for free, paid for version is way more powerful) to import the .zmbx file. Light the scene and render!

The Mecabricks blender plugin gives fantastic results, @Scrubs has done truly amazing work in preparing the brick geometries and the materials.

[Winchester]

Decided to try building a double modular from an official set, and discovered that at some point in the recent past, Stud.io has added limits to the number of bricks you can use from a palette generated from an official set by default. I.e. if the official set only has one white 1x6 plate, then one white 1x6 plate is all you can pick from the palette and then it goes away. That, as far as I remember, didn't use to be the case last time I built an official set in Stud.io, and I'd very much like to revert to the old behavior of unlimited bricks, just from the limited selection. Anyone know how to do this?

 

Edit: How did this end up in *this* thread, I was looking at a more general stud.io thread...

Edited April 7, 2020 by Winchester

[SylvainLS]

Several solutions:

1. You can copy/paste the parts at will.

2. Try to transfer/copy the parts to another custom palette.

3. Palettes are plain text file, you can edit them.  They are in a “Local Settings/Application Data/Stud.io/Buckets/Folders” directory on Windows.
Just remove all the lines that start with “4 ” to remove quantities (“0 ” = dat file, “1 ” = name, “2 ” = colour code).

 

[keiththelegokid]

On 4/7/2020 at 6:15 AM, NathanR said:

A relatively painless way to get these models into blender is to do the following:Use stud.io to export your model as an LDraw file. Upload the LDraw file to the mecabricks website (it doesn't use the LDraw parts library, so a very small number of bricks may go missing). Export as a .zmbx file. Use the mecabricks blender plugin (lite version available for free, paid for version is way more powerful) to import the .zmbx file. Light the scene and render!

The Mecabricks blender plugin gives fantastic results, @Scrubs has done truly amazing work in preparing the brick geometries and the materials.

So I'm on the last step, and I'm struggling with getting the Blender render option to be able to pressed. I think I'm missing something...

[Scrubs]

6 hours ago, keiththelegokid said:

So I'm on the last step, and I'm struggling with getting the Blender render option to be able to pressed. I think I'm missing something...

I believe that you try to render using the online mode. You shall use the "render" button. The "Blender" button under is to upload and render a Blender file which requires credits.

What Nathan suggested is to export your model from Mecabricks using the zmbx format (file>export)  then using the add on I developed for Blender you can import the zmbx file in Blender with all the materials already set up for you.

[keiththelegokid]

14 hours ago, Scrubs said:

I believe that you try to render using the online mode. You shall use the "render" button. The "Blender" button under is to upload and render a Blender file which requires credits.

What Nathan suggested is to export your model from Mecabricks using the zmbx format (file>export)  then using the add on I developed for Blender you can import the zmbx file in Blender with all the materials already set up for you.

Oh I see the program, danke. Bit new to all this. Say it's ok to upload things to youtube if I get them animated right?

[Scrubs]

5 hours ago, keiththelegokid said:

Oh I see the program, danke. Bit new to all this. Say it's ok to upload things to youtube if I get them animated right?

No worries and yes of course.

[M2m]

Going to the original question, I guess you can export to LDraw format and then use this Blender importer https://github.com/TobyLobster/ImportLDraw/releases