Kalta the Noble Mind

okay I got it working now. it doesnt just make an OBJ but it gets the relevant PNGs as well. but the textures don't show up in Maya and I still have that grouping problem.

maybe this is just a Maya issue but the OBJ objects seem to share faces so Maya has to merge them into one group. also, it comes with an mtl file but I see no PNGs that would be referenced in the shader.

that's it! i didnt put the file name in the output. i will try it now! nope i found the problem. i was originally told to write outpuobjt when i was supposed to be using exportobj.

no i did not do that. i just wrote the command as is with no directory. but i moved the script to the desktop if it makes a difference. i am betting this is a tall order but maybe a video tutorial would help me. i dont think i understand written direction.

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python: can't open file 'pyldd2obj.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory thats what i got when i did the command.

that must be it. i never made it an executable. does the actual .py script change after becoming executable? because i finally did the chmod without getting errors and i ran the script and still no OBJ.

i put both the test lxf and the python script in the same folder and ran it. no new files show up in the folder nor does the lxf become an OBJ, no noticeable change at all.

i would have thought so but i see no OBJ or a folder or anything. i ran the Test lxf and the only thing that was named "test" was that same lxf.

from the previous thread: that's what I got when I searched for db.lif. got the actual file path as well as the ones I extracted. and i realized what i was doing wrong. i never put in the "out_obj_file" command. i did it and it seemed to work. but now i have no idea where the OBJs exported to. they aren't in the same folder as the test lxf.

nope mac as well. it always tells me it cant find the directory no idea if i have to move stuff elsewhere to make it work. also where is the assets file located? i had to open up my LDD app to get at it.

I have tried it but for some reason, it didn't work. maybe I was using it wrong. i know took me 5 tries to realize I had to move the assets file to the same location as the extractor for it to work.

you think it's possible to make this a plugin for LDD? like you give LDD the ability to export OBJ by running the lxf through it so you get all its transforms applied to the .g models. you build in LDD and then work on the resulting model in another app. EDIT: and since you said this was made in Unity maybe this could help: FBX Exporter for Unity. dont just get geometry but the transforms intact and maybe whatever bones and rigs LDD uses as well as textures and groups.

wow! now Bionicle's cancellation makes even less sense because it seemed to hinge on it being a sacrifice. learning that the budgets that got slashed were events and TV spots G2 had all that and more so it had its full budget,if I make sense. ould have also explained the AFOL centric social media campaign as they had a guaranteed customer base in us grown up fans and nothing is cheaper than having employees shoot VLogs for facebook. do special promotional items such as themed jewelry count towards marketing? because folks have been saying Lego screwed themselves over by making 14 karat gold versions of every golden mask in 2015 which ate up hundreds of dollars of the budget. i am utterly confused now :(

wonder if Journy to One was affected by Lego sacrificing its marketing Budget to cover production costs due to their high demand sets. i remeber Dorek saying the decision to end G2 seemed to come about during the production of the netflix series and given how the show was more or less and advertizment for the toyline they had the comission budget cut and therefore could not aford the same writers or the time to get everything in order. it did basically condense what was supposed to be the 3rd year's plot and a super tight production schedule does not allow for continuity/plothole checking. i would want to say the differnces between the web animations and JtO charatcers was due to differnt studios tackling each production but they were both one by Volta so it cant be that. maybe this was a severe case of early installment weirdness where the story team fleshed the heck out of the charatcers once they learned they were getting 20+ minute episodes rather than just the 2 minute snippets. also who thinks joT would have been a full blown 13+ episode series rather than the 4 episode miniseries we got? i would figure it would have been bigger bt the aformentioned marketing budget cuts widdled the 13 episode comission to 4.

i second both suggestions! i could see the Cybots -esque plot lending itself to Slizer/Throwbot style "elements" by way of being built for specific tasks and enviroments and the Orbots combining could be used for making super special configurations for unique jobs and enviroments with enphesis on turning each robot's tool into a unique tool if i make sense. like i dunno some earth mover robot that has scoops combines with a fire robot with like a flamethrower and they combine to make a carving/shaping robot that uses its claws to hold maerial and the flamethrower to burn material off and therefor shape. i may even want an edutainment aspect where all these robot charatcers are essentially scifi-ied up versions of existing tools and jobs and the story slips in informtion on topics relating to those jobs. like my hypothetical earth mover robot is part of a Mining "tribe" that is a cross between fantasy dwarves and stereotypical construction workers and their job is to dig tunnels and infrastructure as well as mine for resources. a potential plot could be a rehash of hero factory's Invasion from Down below where the tribe disturbs an underground species and the drama can come from the real world issue of expanding human infrastructure and the danger of encroaching on animal habitats. the miner tribe could maybe save the day with i dunno a wildlife tribe that's a cross between elves and zoologists whose special tools are hightned sensors and the combiner is a strong but sensitive robot that can put in the infrastructure needed but with enough percision to make sure to underground species habitat is untouched. i am just thinking out loud here.

so Bionicle may have been sacrificed to aide the production of in demand themes? hasnt lego been making soem reinovations in response to their newfound popularity,such as expanding lego HQ and making the lego museum, and will all be complete around 2018? if so could there be a chance we could get a Bionicle G3 in 2020 or so after lego gets all settled? hopefully giving the love and care it deserved as being Lego's very first IP.

if we are getting Constraction nexo Knights $50 says we will be getting a new kind of shell that allows for easier integration of system elements,specifically a Shell accessory that is a studded plate meant for Nexo Power Sheilds. this may allow for truly custom brick built armor. going by the wonderful designs of the bad guys from the naga esque Whipperella and fire elemental Flama along with those brick built bigfigsthat come in bigger sets we will be getting more intricate and alien builds like folks were wanting in the future constraction threads. I can also imagine micro,figures using mixel ball joints for globlin esque familiars. I am also betting Axl will have whatever design they originally planned for Onua.

why would lego be filing? are sets not being baught enough nowadays? and if so i would think lego shot itself in the foot for nixing Bionicle G2 in general leto alone a year too early. if they went with the intial plan and waited a bit longer they could have made Bionicle their version of the MCU, a PG-13/family friendly franchise with expanded universe/spinoff potential. from what i seen of the advertizing and social media campeigns they have been targeting more or less the Millenial demogrpahic, young adults who are heavy into geek culture nowadays. it would be a long game but after gathering enough clout from the (guarrenteed)* successes of the Lego batman movie and possible the Lego Ninjago movie and Lego movie Sequel Lego could have made the theatrical Bionicle Movie they wanted to do throught g1's run which would have gotten the franchise into the mainstream,with the signal already boosted by us AFOLs. (* the Lego Movie has proven to be a runaway success and the batman spinoff would not only attract fans of the first movie but batman fans as well doubling the audience so they make make double what they did last of the movie.) but cutting that beloved franchise turned off a few of the already miniscule Constraction fanbase (judging by reactions i seen about the news) which would hurt that subsystem further as well as Lego's cult classic theme. if i make sense. maybe i am talking utter nonesense but i will be completley surprised if lego didnt recognize the current pop culture climate and how their original geek franchise can fit right in.

would it be possible for lego to release the MoUP as a digital 3d print file rather than a physical plastic element that would require thousands of dollars to manufacture? as far as i understand the only people buying the bionicle toys were the reletively miniscule demographic of AFOLs (even smaller for this specific subseries of Constraction) so the only people who would want this rare peice would be the ones who would have the means to fabricate their own either having the cash to pay for 3D print services if they dont have 3D printers themselves. hell in another topic someone modled their own MoUP to put on a 3D print service. and lego doesnt even have to put it out for free they can charge cash with no cost to them outside of a few cents to host on their own servers if they dont host it on a free service already. they can still make money off of it! only problem i could see would be a patent/industry secret sorta thing where the source model has the exact dimentions and tolerances baked in ripe for bootleggers to plunder. but then again you could extract tht production data from the end product itself anyway as so many fan blogs shown us so doubt that could be the problem.

this makes the most sense and I have no idea how to process this: that it is the very medium that is killing itself rather than some outside force. we are the old fogies desperately clinging onto an outmoded technology we claim that will last forever. it makes me wonder what made G1 so successful now: was it the killer buildable action figure aspect or the story that came with it? would have we been the Bionicle fans we are today if the theme was a brick built system series like the past? if say it was Ninjago that debuted in 2001 would have it lasted the 10 years Bionicle had if story is what mattered? because I think Exo-Force was a story based theme as well as Space police 3 and several other themes and they didn't last as long. was Bionicle G1 that rare lightning in a bottle that had the perfect mix of elements that appealed to an Aughties kid, with some refinement to the formula that created the lego juggernaut Ninjago became? does Bionicle deserve to die for good, not as a corpse of the unfit creature weeded out of the genepool but the rare fossil of the missing link that bridges the past to the present, if my analogy fits? i personally want Bionicle the storylien brught back for its expansive world and intricate lore and all the other intellectual meat that feeds a fantasy geek but would i want it back as another flop due to its medium? will i be comfortable with a system bionicle playset and battlepack than a bionicle figure and accessory pack? i think i might perosnally.

Bionicle was Lego's answer to hasbro's Transformers in terms of lore and transformers seemed to have a thriving adult fanbase. what gives?:(

oooh, what if they make a fan-generated story, using a service that combines lego ideas and rebrick? like, rebrick contests can be held to figure out what new set or story point gets made and like lego ideas, the contests winners get made into actual sets and made canon and such. promotes creative play and encourages creativity as well as "raise/farm" new creative talent for the company. and for sure it will generate a lot of publicity for the company as well as maybe reinvent how producer and Consumer interact. or something. it's basically all those BZPower story contests with real substantial prizes. Scratch all that! it's basically what G1 Bionicle pioneered in: Fan made expanded universe content! i remember for sure lego had at least 2 contests that help flesh out their world: Bionicle rahi and Bionicle Dark hunters which gave us 2 books full of new characters that factor into the story and i think several story contests entries that help flesh out the timeline of events and I believe one contest fundamentally changed the nature of the "magic system" (Toa Krakua's element of Sonics opened the door to Toa of extra elements outside of the main 6) it did a two punch dealie: not only did its expanse give regular fans ample room for our imaginations to grow but shown us that our ideas can be worth something if applied to the right venues. or something. also, I can see a whole new redesigned Lego Digital Designer that has premium features geared towards professional 3D designers be they for VFX Animation or CAD.

i just read Dorek's letter: [quote name=' BIONICLEsector01:An Open Letter to BIONICLE Fans '] They could not give us specifics of what led to that decision; people are still free to rage and debate on factors like reception, sales, cost of production, or what have you. It was implied that the decision was made during production of the Netflix series, and that rewrites altered the final outcome of the story. I think this may be worse than G1 because the decision was made smack in the middle of production! it wasn't like in the middle of the pitch prep when it was just written down ideas they had at least some designs and specialty elements manufactured (assuming Lego is as tight knit with the studios making their shows like they were with the lego movie to ensure product consistency) so that is like some expensive processes wasted. and it baffles me even further that they cut it from the final year when they could have made some returns on the molds and whatnot they already made. just give us a winter wave with some sort of ending and the complete collection of the3 legendary masks! they could have even gone the downright cheap route and just released a single protector sized Mask maker Makuta with the MoUP and let fans make the "original" by giving him the MoCo we already own from Umarak . what has happened that made them halt production so abruptly???

and now learning that the art books are now digital copies for BS01 now makes me more suspicious of the whole thing and making me think foul play. from the first unveiling at NYCC it felt like they were doing "grown-up" marketing and media by way of Behind-the-scenes content from showing production art in the presentation, designer videos focusing on the production rather than the characters, and now sold-in-stores artbooks only teens and adults who are interested in the technical aspects of their favorite series would buy. it was like they were pandering to the now-grown-up fans of G1 with us as the primary audience. maybe this was the reason for the abrupt cut: Lego didn't want adults as its audience least for a narrative them? lego already produces expert builds UCS and all manner of technic to satisfy AFOLs with the cash to pay for their 3 digit price tags but being such a kid friendly company they don't believe they can make a storyline that can satisfy adult tastes? I dunno I am just speculating. maybe lego has enough bricks-with-stories already with Ninjago filling in for the long-running narrative Bionicle once had, and Nexo Knights giving enough variety as far as narrative bricks go and the ever popular Star wars has the source material to satisfy the older fans and thus the lego group sees no reason to bring back Bionicle. all niches filled and whatnot. I would have loved it if lego treated Bionicle as their own Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, where the focus was world building and story and other intellectual meat older geeks crave. they could have even tapped into a new kind of creative market combining the crowdfunding aspect of lego ideas with the goal driven competition of rebrickable to have older fans help flesh out the world via rebricable type contests and have the winners make up the next wave of sets ala lego ideas. hope that can be for G3 :(

I may have missed that part. I stand corrected then. first time I heard of CCBS's development being a factor in G1's cancellation. from what I understand it got canceled merely for underperforming and the first year of hero factory was made to act as a placeholder system until CCBS was perfected. also that if G1 was still going on it would have become CCBS regardless since lego planned for that system to replace whatever ball and socket system they had been using. the only thing I can say for certain is that the abrupt cut in 2009 was to keep the franchise from being spoiled by fatigue if I make sense. cutting it in its prime and all that. got no clue if that is the same issue with G2. though even then G1 got the rinky-dink Stars line to give some sort of resolution rather than the flat out ceasing production like Lego planned. it's actually why it was so rinky-dink in the first place,due to being a last minute rush job. with G2 they had at least 3 years planned out so they could have easily done a condensed version of the final chapter if needed to since it was already written out but they just ceased production,even after showcasing new characters and props. it just baffles me:(