Easy alternative to POVray for realistic LDD renderings?

[VintageCharlie]

Hi folks,

i installed POVray and LDD2POVray and am rendering a model i made. The process will probably take a very long time, especially parts where more than one transparent bricks are together take ages on each runthrough, which amasses a lot of time. I chose POVray, as it seemed to be the easiest alternative, as i do not have much experience wirh 3d software and i wold like this to be as simple of a process as possible. But the rendering time is enormous.

Are there any alternatives with equal results and simplicity, but faster rendering times?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

VintageCharlie

[Renderbricks]

LDD2POVRAY is indeed a simple for free method and every other method needs more steps and knowledge. LDD2POVRAY is the only tool what can render .lxf files directly with POV-RAY. Every other method needs more steps and knowledge. I am using MODO atm with really nice results. I am rendering with a 12 core DELL and 32 GR RAM and the rendertimes for HD pictures are under 10 minutes even with complex models like the Millennium Falcon UCS.

[VintageCharlie]

ok, thanks Virtualrepublic. I guess POVray it is then for me, as i just want to make some decent approximations of a more realistic model. Btw. your MODO renders really do look phenomenal. At the moment i am working on this:

Once it is finished, i would really love to be able to do a photo realistic render. I'm curious how the POV render will look.

[Renderbricks]

Nice one. If you like just send me the file and I show you my result on this *:-)

[matt_one]

I have also asked myself the same question a little time ago.

I want to start by saying that I'm absolutely not an expert in 3d graphics

Like you, I started to build my stuffs with LegoDigitalDesigner a few months ago and render them with POVray.

I'm satisfied with both programs, but POVray has very long rendering times and I was tired to wait 6 hours or more

for get my rendered pictures ( sometimes 10-12 hours for bigger models ).

virtualrepublic has already answered you in a comprehensive manner: LDD2POVray is the simplest and the only way

to render directly from LDD.

Other solutions requires more steps to do and, furthermore, to learn the use of a new software.

It is also true that, no matter how little it is, even LDDtoPOVray requires some learning.

I'm trying right now an interesting alternative, the only alternatIve I've found so far to come out from LDD.

I was reading another virtualrepublic's topic some days ago, in which another user, Alcom1, describes how to extract LDD geometries in a 3dxml file

with 3dviaprinter, a 3DS software, by simple pressing a key.

Alcom1 then converted 3dxml format with a Simlab's plugin for 3D StudioMAX.

I tried the conversion from LDD to 3dxml and it works very well, though geometries from LDD aren't so hi-res.

I've found out that Simlab has a software, Simlab Composer, that can read directly 3dxml and make good renderings.

There's a 15 days trial version on Simlab website, fully functional as regard rendering, only save options are disabled.

I'm trying it now and it's pretty simple to use, obviously it requires a minimum of practice but in few time I was able

to make good renderings ( i.e. a 3200x1800 picture in 20 minutes ).

You can easily get an idea of ​​the rendering's quality by visiting the gallery on Simlab website.

[VintageCharlie]

Nice one. If you like just send me the file and I show you my result on this *:-)

Virtualrepublic, thanks for the kind offer! In fact, that would be great, as the stuff i've seen from you is simply stunning. I don't know how much effort it takes from you to do a render with your method. If it involves a lot of work, then it would probably be best if i finish the model - at least the visible stuff, and then i'd be grateful for a render made using your method. If however it is not that time-consuming, it would be interesting to see preliminary results of the current version of the build, just to have an idea how it might really look and what i should change in the colors, etc.

Here is my first tiny attempt with POVray. It took 11 hours to render on my machine and the rendering quality was only on about 70%. What seems to have almost killed POVray were the headlights - they consist of 3 translucent elements, which probably interact in a complex way with each other - i think this alone doubled or tripled the rendering time. Also now i notice that i should have added some objects somewhere behind the camera in order for the chromed elements to reflect stuff. And i noticed some errors i made while choosing the color for some of the chrome elements in LDD as it is difficult to tell the colors apart. Also i notice some jitter/aliasing on the top of the car, especially between the two white stripes. Next time i'd go with 2 lights and softer shadows too. But at those rendering times, it takes a lot of time to learn from mistakes.

I am now rendering some chrome parts, just to see how to improve their looks, but the current result seems very pixaletad or grainy where the reflections should be and with the reflections it looks like it will be rendering for ~10 hours or more.

In case you would be OK to render an unfinished version, here's the file: http://www.filedropp...tomoddefrender.

Btw. i am very eager to know how this construction of headlights (and taillights) would emit light, when a LEGO led is placed behind them. I read instrucions in regard to this on the POVray thread here on the forum, but with these endless rendering times, it would take ages to understand how to do this best for POVray with my model. If you could simulate in your renderings realistic led lights behind the headlights and taillights, it would be fantastic.

Matt one, thanks for the tip! I might look into it. But actually i really want to build just this model - it will be a birthday present for my son. I'm not really a MOC builder and this might end up as being a one time thing.

Edited May 13, 2014 by VintageCharlie

[Renderbricks]

Here's a test. I spotted some problems with the export to LDR. Some parts are missing, some are wrong placed and some are rotated. I also tried the latest LDR.xml file. Usually the missing parts are listed in lDRView and I google for them and try to fix it by renaming in the LDR-file. Some parts have different numbers like 12345a.dat instead of 12345.dat. I didn't tested the capture method with 3dvia Printscreen yet. This should work but then I get low-res models and no studs with LEGO logo what isn't an issue here with the Technic parts.

Click on picture for 4K.

[VintageCharlie]

I know it's just a test and all and some parts are rotated, missing and messed up, but still, the render is simply breath-taking!

Thank you very much for the effort!

From what i can tell, only 2 parts are missing entirely - the 3x11 (#15458) flat panels. If all goes wrong, i could easily substitute these for 3x 11stud beams. The other one is what in ldd is called plate w bow 2x2x2 (#15068) - seen on the spoiler, those can be substituted with the half version of it. All 3x11 panels with bow (#62531) have been rotated and misplaced by about 2 studs. Also the small 2x5 panels (#11947), as well as the curved tubes (#71076). I thought the issue might be that some connection pins are missing on those parts, but seems like the effect is the same with parts that are properly connected in the LDD file and those that are somewhat loose. Wow, it would be great to if this would work, as the test, with all it's issues looks plain wonderful.

Edited May 13, 2014 by VintageCharlie

[Lyichir]

As a related question to the topic starter's, does anyone know a good rendering program that works on Mac? Neither POVray nor LDD2POVray work on my laptop, and I'd like to be able to polish some of my LDD models with custom decorations as well as higher-quality rendering. It's not an issue of power or rendering time for me; I just need something that works at all!

[legolijntje]

Well, there are a lot of rendering programs for mac (I saw a good one lately, but I forgot the name ), but the problem is that you want to render LDD models and the only way to use LDD models is to use LDD2POVray, and as the name says, that one uses POV-ray and is only for Windows...

You can of course export to LDraw, but the export isn't always verry good...

[Renderbricks]

As a related question to the topic starter's, does anyone know a good rendering program that works on Mac? Neither POVray nor LDD2POVray work on my laptop, and I'd like to be able to polish some of my LDD models with custom decorations as well as higher-quality rendering. It's not an issue of power or rendering time for me; I just need something that works at all!

MODO is also available for Mac.

[___]

wait a few days I am planning exactly the tutorial of HOW TO LDD WITH BLENDER USING CYCLES REALISTIC RENDERING...just a few days :)

[___]

Here's a test. I spotted some problems with the export to LDR. Some parts are missing, some are wrong placed and some are rotated. I also tried the latest LDR.xml file. Usually the missing parts are listed in lDRView and I google for them and try to fix it by renaming in the LDR-file. Some parts have different numbers like 12345a.dat instead of 12345.dat. I didn't tested the capture method with 3dvia Printscreen yet. This should work but then I get low-res models and no studs with LEGO logo what isn't an issue here with the Technic parts.

Click on picture for 4K.

Editing ldraw.xml file for missing parts is quite easy (except the flexes that needs to be done manually in Ldraw, ehm MLCAD, anyway) - if we talk about the one in LDD instal dir?

And as for your MODO renders: I like them a lot but they are more like overrealistic, or even surrealistic maybe...? :) I mean they are very nice and everything and I really do like them but if you ever build any real LEGO they are no way this perfect at all, they are micro unaligned, not that bright shiny etc., in other words much more ugglyness needs to be added but then as I said before your renders are very very beautiful indeed, just not realistic to me...

As for POVRay as renderer: I used it too before but the time needed for the render itself and final result compared to Blender using Cycles is like comparing Ferari to a BMW: both are great, both are fast, both are A class but how many time will you sit in Ferari comparing to BMW? Say it in another way: in Blender you achieve very identical renders to POVRay if not better but with a bit of the time needed for render in POVRay

As for 3dvia Printscreen: I tested it few days before and....useless,,it saves into 3dxml file format not compatible with anything I saw + it is so low res that it really has no sense to deal with it at all

BTW I will post some of my renders later cos now I am just finishing with my Blender LEGO addon script (I was talking about it elsewhere, here near the bottom: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=95358 ), so stay tuned, folks... ;)

Edited May 13, 2014 by bublible

[Renderbricks]

The MODO tests are basic atm. That means: I use the models, materials and a HDR. To make it more realistic I have to add slightly bumps onto the surfaces and give some random roughness to the edges. This will happen when I have finished my test and created a basic material library.

The random micro-unligment of the parts would be possible by a script but then the parts start to intersect. It would be very complicated to consider collisions to prevent intersections. Animalogic - the creators of the LEGO movie - did a great job with this. They added all the necessary detail to the bricks like specular maps to make them looking used, scratches, bumps etc. It's a huge amount of manual work and clever scripts, complicated setups and finally they developed their own renderer because the commercial ones failed to render the insane complexity. To me the LEGO look in the movie is using a bit too much subsurface scattering. But overall the whole movie is a visual blast what makes you think that everything is build in real and animated by stop motion.

3Dvia Printscreen just can catch what we see in LDD. The parts might be low-res but you can render them with very nice results. The 3dxml format can be read and converted with SimLab Composer. Unfortunately the textures will be lost and strangely some parts using the same colors are merged. I can't say if this is 3DVia Printscreen or the importer. I will contact the developer and ask if they can fix that in the next release. And there's one issue with the geometry. The geometry is tesselated what will cause wrong looking reflections in MODO. E.g. on a tube the reflections will follow the diagonal lines and they look slightly rotated. I tried to fix that by quadrangulating the models but the operator might destroy important parts.

CHECK OUT THESE TESTS WITH BIOLICLES.

Or this rough test with a more complex model. I deleted the diagonal edges and when you look at the shark you realize that the surface is damaged by this.

Click on picture for details in 8K.

And keep in mind that these picture render extremely fast. I tried LDD2POVRAY and dropped it because a picture like this in a not that good look would render hours in 8K. Here we talk about 30 minutes. But there's still a lot of grain. To compensate this the rendering would take double time easily. I have to check the stats at work again.

Edited May 14, 2014 by virtualrepublic

[The_Cook]

Also i notice some jitter/aliasing on the top of the car, especially between the two white stripes. Next time i'd go with 2 lights and softer shadows too. But at those rendering times, it takes a lot of time to learn from mistakes.

I recommend doing test renderings to check scene setup at a smaller resolution and without AA enabled. They'll render significantly quicker. Radiosity increases rendering times significantly as do transparent surfaces; turn these off whilst your working on scene setup tasks such as camera and light placement and only enable them as you're getting closer to final renderings. Once you're happy with the setup then you can enable all the extra bits and leave POV-Ray running overnight.

A lot of people don't actually understand what POV-Ray is doing and turn all the options on at once without realising the additional complexity (and hence increased render times) that they're incurring by doing so. It helps to read up a little bit about the ray-tracing process (even if you avoid the maths the concepts are simple enough to grasp) and understand why it's different from the polygon rendering that packages like MODO do. It's not that one is better than the other it's just that they're different techniques aimed at solving different rendering problems.

Edited May 14, 2014 by The_Cook

[___]

The MODO tests are basic atm. That means: I use the models, materials and a HDR. To make it more realistic I have to add slightly bumps onto the surfaces and give some random roughness to the edges. This will happen when I have finished my test and created a basic material library.

OK, understood...

The random micro-unligment of the parts would be possible by a script but then the parts start to intersect. It would be very complicated to consider collisions to prevent intersections.

Hm, I guess not quite true: when you SCALE DOWN just a micro size, like 0.995, there will be no intersect just from the principle alone as you are SHRINKING, not EXPANDING...and if you add random value to it for every brick (again just a micro like 0.002 to 0.006) you have your dynamic unaligment cos I saw that some bricks made in LDD and maybe in MLCAD also are in fact micro unaligned but you do not see it without any change to bricks, but once you microscale them you start to see it...I did exactly this in one section of my new upcoming Blender LEGO addon script (beside other stuff, of course)

3Dvia Printscreen just can catch what we see in LDD. The parts might be low-res but you can render them with very nice results. The 3dxml format can be read and converted with SimLab Composer. Unfortunately the textures will be lost and strangely some parts using the same colors are merged. I can't say if this is 3DVia Printscreen or the importer. I will contact the developer and ask if they can fix that in the next release. And there's one issue with the geometry. The geometry is tesselated what will cause wrong looking reflections in MODO. E.g. on a tube the reflections will follow the diagonal lines and they look slightly rotated. I tried to fix that by quadrangulating the models but the operator might destroy important parts.

Well, yea, exactly, but than what is it good for really? It looks like I was quite right about it at the end: so many problems with it that it becomes useless for serious rendering, as you yourself described above...so no, not at this stage of development of the sw, maybe - as you said - if they repair all those problems with it, but definitely not now

BTW: they won't repair it as they clearly stated on their website THIS SW IS DISCONTINUED...ehm, if you were talking about the Printscreen sw, right?

Edited May 14, 2014 by bublible

[Renderbricks]

Well, yea, exactly, but than what is it good for really? It looks like I was quite right about it at the end: so many problems with it that it becomes useless for serious rendering, as you yourself described above...so no, not at this stage of development of the sw, maybe - as you said - if they repair all those problems with it, but definitely not now

BTW: they won't repair it as they clearly stated on their website THIS SW IS DISCONTINUED...ehm, if you were talking about the Printscreen sw, right?

I have to disagree. It depends what you like to do. The capture of the ship model till import into MODO took a few minutes of work. Totally easy. If I had a material setup there I just import into my setup scene with an HDR and that's it. Finally the LDRAW parts have issues, too. Not everything is in hi-res and in LDD you catch exactly what you see. E.g. the Bionicles models can be rigged now and animated. Ofc it would be nice to have a better resolution but overall you can do very nice stuff with your LDD creations when using 3Dvia Printscreen, SimLab and MODO. The only problem I need to solve is the tesselation issue.

Here's a spin test of one LDD test.

https://vimeo.com/95264501

[VintageCharlie]

Of course you can see polygons in the original LDD geometry, but i have to agree - when the materials look as real as they do in this example, i would not say that it is that much of a difference. Of course, if you do really up-close renderings, then the LDD geometries limits can be seen soon. My interest in learning some of these more advanced techniques grew rapidly after seeing the results. It is true that they look much more perfect than actual lego parts, but it still serves the purpose of giving a good estimate of the real thing. Also, i'm sure that the real LEGO models would look much better in pictures if people would actually photograph them under good lighting conditions. At home this is not always possible and the proper equipment can cost a lot of cash. In a virtual world you can do perfect lighting setups. In my view, at least 50% of a good picture is good lighting.

[Renderbricks]

Of course you can see polygons in the original LDD geometry, but i have to agree - when the materials look as real as they do in this example, i would not say that it is that much of a difference. Of course, if you do really up-close renderings, then the LDD geometries limits can be seen soon. My interest in learning some of these more advanced techniques grew rapidly after seeing the results. It is true that they look much more perfect than actual lego parts, but it still serves the purpose of giving a good estimate of the real thing. Also, i'm sure that the real LEGO models would look much better in pictures if people would actually photograph them under good lighting conditions. At home this is not always possible and the proper equipment can cost a lot of cash. In a virtual world you can do perfect lighting setups. In my view, at least 50% of a good picture is good lighting.

Concerning photos of models. If you want to make beautiful shots of real models you need experience as a photographer and knowledge about lighting rigs and methods. In advertisement every packshot of a product is optimized, cleaned up and finally the client wants an idealized version of it what doesn't exist. LEGO might be different because when I watch pictures in a catalog it might be emotionally better to see real models to dream about to have exactly these ones. BUT for the box with the set it can be better to have a perfect visualiszation of the product. If you add some details like bumps, specular maps, random roughness on the edges etc. it can look amazing and a photo might look cheap compared to that. And finally: if you have setup a proper scene where you just load the models and materials and textures will be set automatically you just need to adjust some lighting setups and you can produce the pictures faster, more efficient and in a similar quality. And on the other side: if the 3d isn't really good it's always better you use a real not that good photographed model.

Edited May 14, 2014 by virtualrepublic

[___]

I do not know if this was answered somwhere but is SimLab converter and MODO freeware? And if so, then can you give as here some actual links to instalation files, please?

I have to disagree. It depends what you like to do. The capture of the ship model till import into MODO took a few minutes of work. Totally easy. If I had a material setup there I just import into my setup scene with an HDR and that's it. Finally the LDRAW parts have issues, too. Not everything is in hi-res and in LDD you catch exactly what you see. E.g. the Bionicles models can be rigged now and animated. Ofc it would be nice to have a better resolution but overall you can do very nice stuff with your LDD creations when using 3Dvia Printscreen, SimLab and MODO. The only problem I need to solve is the tesselation issue.

Here's a spin test of one LDD test.

https://vimeo.com/95264501

Yes, probably if you are talking about work in your MODO sw that I do not know at all so therefor I can't tell, but from every other perspective when all talk is about REALISTIC RENDERING and also from what I saw as a result of the Printscreen sw I have to disagree with your last disagreement... :D

[matt_one]

I do not know if this was answered somwhere but is SimLab converter and MODO freeware? And if so, then can you give as here some actual links to instalation files, please?

SimLab products are available for a 15 days trial ( at least SimLab Composer, that I'm trying right now ).

[Renderbricks]

Yes, probably if you are talking about work in your MODO sw that I do not know at all so therefor I can't tell, but from every other perspective when all talk is about REALISTIC RENDERING and also from what I saw as a result of the Printscreen sw I have to disagree with your last disagreement... :D

All I can say that the Printscreen method gives satisfying results. If you want 100% realism you would also fail with LDRAW or other parts because then you need some kind of NURBS models which are res-independent and everything should have the correct bevel scaling because LEGO parts use different bevel sizes. The LDRAW parts are nice but for close-ups they won't work either because you will recognize edges.

[___]

All I can say that the Printscreen method gives satisfying results. If you want 100% realism you would also fail with LDRAW or other parts because then you need some kind of NURBS models which are res-independent and everything should have the correct bevel scaling because LEGO parts use different bevel sizes. The LDRAW parts are nice but for close-ups they won't work either because you will recognize edges.

I was more like saying that what I saw as a result of Printscreen sw was not useful for my needs, but maybe if I had a way of import it to Blender I could have some use for it, but simply what I saw when I play the result in their 3dxml player it was so bad and ugly that I even did not look for a solution to it further

That said maybe there is a way to it but I do not see any for me

Edited May 14, 2014 by bublible

[Renderbricks]

I am looking forward to your renderings. You have some examples from an actual work in progress?

[___]

SimLab products are available for a 15 days trial ( at least SimLab Composer, that I'm trying right now ).

Oh, as I thought, so no way for me again...

I am looking forward to your renderings. You have some examples from an actual work in progress?

No, at this time I am working on finishing my Blender addon so renders will come later ;)

Anyway just to be more specific here to avoid any misunderstanding cos as you may see my englidh is...well, strange enough (as it is not my native language at all, heh) :) ...so:

I am not saying your renderings or someone else renderings are horrible, or much worse than mine, NO, actually in fact they are far superior but my intension is not in having superrealistic renders, instead it's more like having some a bit realistic render but SUITABLE FOR MY WORK NEEDS, that is video LEGO comics I am working on right now replacing all real stuff with CGI...so this was just the clarification "what am I looking here", therefor no fight or anything like that folks...I am just person that speaks if he does not agree with something that should be prety normal and quite common I guess ;)