[Software] LDD2PovRay

[roland]

Have you tried playing with the radiosity settings (recursion limit etc)? 

Or try use the default settings:
 

#include "rad_def.inc"
global_settings {
 radiosity { Rad_Settings(Radiosity_OutdoorLQ, off, off) }
}

 

Edited July 10, 2017 by roland

[Oky]

On 7/10/2017 at 10:10 AM, roland said:

Have you tried playing with the radiosity settings (recursion limit etc)? 

Or try use the default settings:
 

#include "rad_def.inc"
global_settings {
 radiosity { Rad_Settings(Radiosity_OutdoorLQ, off, off) }
}

 

Thanks, that helped! It still takes longer than builds without translucent colors, but better than before.

[Jason C. Hand]

Is LDD2PovRay getting updated soon?

[Cosmonaut King]

Hi Guys! I am trying to install LDD2POVRAY again on Linux using Wine and PlayonLinux. From what I understand, the "Callback File System, virtual file system SDK for Windows provided by the EldoS Corporation" is not available any longer. The versions provided in the Callback company website (even the old ones) apparently are not compatible. As they have many different products now, it gets even more confusing. 

Is there a solution to sort this I couldn't find yet? Is the old path available somewhere? 

(Since I am here, let me leave something I rendered using POVRAY/LDD2POV/Linux years ago. It still has the best quality).

[BrokenEye]

Hello all, I'm having a bit of trouble running LDD to POV-Ray converter on a build that uses Stephan's Custom LDD Bricks and Fixes for the first time ever. I got an error message saying "Unable to generate necessary includes. Part ID 69729 is not supported by the current brickset version" (sometimes it says a different part ID, though). Does anyone know anything about that?

[M2m]

Unfortunately LDD to Povray hadn’t been updated for ages and I don’t think it’ll work with the new parts (I think it reads from the LIF file and not from the extracted folders). You may try to repack the LIF file with a tool called LIFCreator:

 

alternatively you can try  https://github.com/sttng/LegoToR

It converts LDD files to Pixar RenderMan files. It’s open source and written in python. Should work under Linux as well. 

[BrokenEye]

7 hours ago, M2m said:

Unfortunately LDD to Povray hadn’t been updated for ages and I don’t think it’ll work with the new parts (I think it reads from the LIF file and not from the extracted folders). You may try to repack the LIF file with a tool called LIFCreator:

 

alternatively you can try  https://github.com/sttng/LegoToR

It converts LDD files to Pixar RenderMan files. It’s open source and written in python. Should work under Linux as well. 

Tried repacking the LIF already. Surprisingly it doesn't seem to have effected LDD to POV-Ray at all. Any idea what would cause that?

[M2m]

5 hours ago, BrokenEye said:

Tried repacking the LIF already. Surprisingly it doesn't seem to have effected LDD to POV-Ray at all. Any idea what would cause that?

Could be a fixed list of parts internally. Could be it can’t read the lif file for any reason.  Not sure really without reverse engineering or source code. 

[BrokenEye]

11 hours ago, M2m said:

Could be a fixed list of parts internally. Could be it can’t read the lif file for any reason.  Not sure really without reverse engineering or source code. 

Alright, I'll give that other program a shot, then.

[The Mugbearer]

17 minutes ago, BrokenEye said:

Alright, I'll give that other program a shot, then.

As a final precaution check if the .lif file is read-only and if it is, uncheck it.

Also, remove the db folder if you have it in the folder.

Also, isn't LDD 2 POV-Ray needs a LDraw library to properly function?

 

In any case, @BrokenEye you can still build in LDD and import LDD files into Stud.Io and use its internal renderer for high-quality images. That's how I do it at least.

[BrokenEye]

4 hours ago, The Mugbearer said:

Also, isn't LDD 2 POV-Ray needs a LDraw library to properly function?

Either it doesn't need it, or I've already got it, because I've never had any issues before. I'll be sure to try those other things you said, though.

EDIT: Whelp, deleting the db folder and making the db.lif file writable didn't work. Time to try RenderMan, I guess.

Edited June 23, 2021 by BrokenEye

[The Mugbearer]

19 minutes ago, BrokenEye said:

Either it doesn't need it, or I've already got it, because I've never had any issues before.

If it does need LDraw library, no wonder it gives you an error; since the custom parts are not included. 

[BrokenEye]

3 hours ago, The Mugbearer said:

If it does need LDraw library, no wonder it gives you an error; since the custom parts are not included. 

Oh... that's a good point. How would I check that?

[SylvainLS]

LDD2PovRay uses LDD’s geometries.  It doesn’t need LDraw.

It’s because it uses LDD’s geometries that LDD2PovRay uses a virtual filesystem to temporarily write the geometries in POV-Ray’s textual format without anyone but POV-Ray having access to them.

[BrokenEye]

13 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

LDD2PovRay uses LDD’s geometries.  It doesn’t need LDraw.

It’s because it uses LDD’s geometries that LDD2PovRay uses a virtual filesystem to temporarily write the geometries in POV-Ray’s textual format without anyone but POV-Ray having access to them.

Well, that's a relief, even if it does mean I'm not back to having absolutely no idea what the problem might be.

And I just found out that RenderMan costs a lot of money, and a lot of money isn't really something I have, so that solution's back off the table for the foreseeable future.

[The Mugbearer]

2 minutes ago, BrokenEye said:

And I just found out that RenderMan costs a lot of money, and a lot of money isn't really something I have, so that solution's back off the table for the foreseeable future.

Why not use Stud.Io? It's free.

[BrokenEye]

27 minutes ago, The Mugbearer said:

Why not use Stud.Io? It's free.

It also doesn't work 90% of the time. Every time I try to import something into Stud.io, pieces get moved around and rotated in spatially impossible ways, things turn into question mark blocks, whole sections of the model change color or turn invisible, strings and other flexible blocks lose all their posing, and all of the decals are erased. And custom bricks still don't work.

Edited June 24, 2021 by BrokenEye

[M2m]

Stud.Io doesn’t work with the new, user-created parts. 
I was thinking to upgrade my RenderMan based script to output POVRay files, but I found the POVRay format description confusing and ultimately didn’t bother. 
 

Sad that it seems the original creator disappeared 

[The Mugbearer]

17 minutes ago, M2m said:

Stud.Io doesn’t work with the new, user-created parts. 

It has an entire tool dedicated to user-created parts. How does it not work with those?

[Calabar]

@The Mugbearer

I suppose because he is talking about custom parts created for LDD and not for stud.io.
This situation presents two issues: the part could be available in LDD but not in stud.io and even if the part exists in stud.io the software could not be able to convert it in the corresponding internal part.

Note that the converter inside stud.io, as far as I remember, is based on an old version of SylvainLS's ldraw.xml file. Maybe using SylvainLS's lxf2ldr with his last ldraw.xml file and than import the LDRAW model into stud.io could grant better chance of success.

[The Mugbearer]

@Calabar

Yeah makes sense! Well, I've been using @jamesster's G to OBJ converter to export the LDD parts that are not in Stud.Io into studio. It works with any part that is in the db.

[Calabar]

@The Mugbearer

Good solution to import parts, but does it solve the problem of the direct conversion importing the model?
I mean: you can add the missing brick in stud.io but when you convert a model containing that brick, how does the converter behave?

[The Mugbearer]

4 minutes ago, Calabar said:

I mean: you can add the missing brick in stud.io but when you convert a model containing that brick, how does the converter behave?

The converter works directly with LDD's DB outputting a list of OBJ files. You still need to manually import the missing OBJ via Part Designer (and adding connectivity data) and replace those that become question boxes in Stud.Io, so it's not the perfect solution, but it's a robust workaround.

Edited June 24, 2021 by The Mugbearer

[BrokenEye]

This is getting really complicated.

[The Mugbearer]

34 minutes ago, BrokenEye said:

This is getting really complicated.

 You either learn to deal with it, or you do not.