Lego rendering

[matt_one]

my last attempt to get some better result:

Edited May 9, 2014 by matt_one

[Renderbricks]

Nice one. What software are you using?

[JunkstyleGio]

Blender I guess..

[matt_one]

Nice one. What software are you using?

Thank you!

These results were possible by reading your posts, finally I can leave POVray

( good, but too much rendering time ).

Thus, thank you again!

Software :

1) Lego Digital Designer - modelling

2) 3dviaprintscreen - converting model to 3dxml

3) Lightwave and some converter plugin fo rendering ( my brother, an advanced Lightwave user, done this rendering, not me ).

I've seen your renderings, they are super-cool and way more realistic!

Blender I guess..

Newtek Lightwave!

[JM1971]

Neat results there,

Good old lightwave which started out on the amiga in the early 90's and was used to make the special effects of babylon 5 which was one of the first if not first tv series to use CGI and was also made in widescreen 16:9.

[DanFraser]

Neat results there,

Good old lightwave which started out on the amiga in the early 90's and was used to make the special effects of babylon 5 which was one of the first if not first tv series to use CGI and was also made in widescreen 16:9.

But weirdly the CGI was done in 4:3 and the actor group shots were as well so there's lots of empty space at the sides...!

[Renderbricks]

Try MODO. Seriously *:-)

Thank you!

These results were possible by reading your posts, finally I can leave POVray

( good, but too much rendering time ).

Thus, thank you again!

Software :

1) Lego Digital Designer - modelling

2) 3dviaprintscreen - converting model to 3dxml

3) Lightwave and some converter plugin fo rendering ( my brother, an advanced Lightwave user, done this rendering, not me ).

I've seen your renderings, they are super-cool and way more realistic!

Newtek Lightwave!

This is nice. The only problem is that you get low-res models (finally the models what LDD show) and studs without the LEGO Logo.

What I do:

- LDD export to LDR

- fixing the LDR files by editing when parts are missing by wrong names (I just google for the part numbers to get the info)

- using my own modified parts for the studs with LEGO logo

- importing into BLENDER with an LDR python script

- exporting as FBX or COLLADA

- importing into MODO and do some cleanups and special setups

I saw some nice POV-RAY renderings with much better models. But POV-RAY is using the LGEO models for this.

Edited May 9, 2014 by virtualrepublic

[Renderbricks]

Wihere do you open the 3DXML file?

[matt_one]

Wihere do you open the 3DXML file?

My brother Max has done it, opened 3dxml file with a trial version of Simlab PDF 3d and converted it to

fbx and obj.

My rendering attempts was done with Povray only ( I've posted another picture in "Lego renderings - POVRay" topic ).

I was happy with the results, but rendering time is so long!

I will check that Modo software, as you suggested me.

[Renderbricks]

Hi matt_one,

thanks for the info. Awesome. I managed to import a LDD model into MODO and it looks really great. Sad that the meshes in LDD are not hi-res and that there's no easy way to add the LEGO logo onto the studs. But this is a great method to transfer everything from the LDD library. Now I have more research tasks.

[Palathadric]

Such great renders!

Nice work, matt_one (or your brother) and virtualrepublic!

[matt_one]

Hi matt_one,

thanks for the info. Awesome. I managed to import a LDD model into MODO and it looks really great. Sad that the meshes in LDD are not hi-res and that there's no easy way to add the LEGO logo onto the studs. But this is a great method to transfer everything from the LDD library. Now I have more research tasks.

Hi virtualrepublic!

No hi-res geometry from LLD, unfortunately.

My brother has done some enhancements in Lightwave, but no bevels and no studs.

It all depends on what you want to achieve.

Personally I don't care about logo on studs : as a matter of fact I try as much as possible to hide them.

I'm focused only on mech's digital design and their look is all I care.

But if you want Lego bricks photorealism, you need good geometries, bevels and logos.

Such great renders!

Nice work, matt_one (or your brother) and virtualrepublic!

Thanks Palathadric!

My brother does some recent renderings, but I've made a lot by myself with Povray.

Check out my Flickr albums!

[Renderbricks]

Hi matt_one,

a way to add nice bevels is using a shader what keeps the original geometry. Your brother should check out if Lightwave has some kind of rounding edge shader what fakes bevels by a normal map. I am using this in MODO and it works pretty nice. My picture took 9 minutes in 3840 x 2150 on a 12 core DELL with 32 GB RAM. I scaled down the picture to 1920 x 1080.

[matt_one]

Hi matt_one,

a way to add nice bevels is using a shader what keeps the original geometry. Your brother should check out if Lightwave has some kind of rounding edge shader what fakes bevels by a normal map. I am using this in MODO and it works pretty nice. My picture took 9 minutes in 3840 x 2150 on a 12 core DELL with 32 GB RAM. I scaled down the picture to 1920 x 1080.

I'm sure my brother knows how to get better geometries and fake bevels in Lightwave.

The problem, as he said me, is working on a large imported model.

He told me about some scripting in order to get all bevels on all parts.

He made some optimizations on one of my models to increase the resolution of geometry

( only on the head you see below, about 50 bricks ) but geometries are still a bit jagged.

I must, however, correct what I said about the software used.

My brother's experiments between 3DXML and Lightwave were limited to the head below.

About my recent pictures posted, due to my misunderstanding and to not having read one of his email,

I said that they were made with Lightwave. Wrong!

My brother made them with Simlab Composer and I'm going to download now the trial version.

For my needs, the results achieved with this software are very nice.

The interoperability between Simlab and 3dxml is good, as I have seen on my models rendering.

Apparently it seems we do not miss anything, all geometries are there, bright and shining!

And, first of all, I get my models out from Ldd simply pressing a keyborad's key, no further steps needed!

I'm sorry to have said something wrong, but I'm new with all this stuffs.

I've started using Ldd last September only.