hrontos

Excelent, looking forward to see it. Looks like POV-Ray's antialiasing is not producing very good results with LEGO bricks even with AA 0.1 or 0.0. Transparent bricks have even more problems with that antialiasing. That's why I also decided to follow advices of some more experienced people rendering LEGO models and now rendering high-res without AA and resizing down to 25-50%.

There is no direct relation between render time and number of parts. The Tower Bridge has 4000+ parts and rendered much faster than the Winter Village Post Office with only 700+ parts. Transparent parts take much longer to render. The outlined helicopter is bigger model but it rendered faster (or the same time), because outlined models are not beveled. Outlines render faster than bevels. When rendering high-res (like 3000x2000) it does not make sense to use "only visible bevels", since on such resolution all bevels are visible. On such big picture all bevels and gaps between bricks are visible. Of course, if the model is large and some portions are far away from camera, their bevels are not visible. With "only visible bevels" they will be eliminated and those bricks will render faster than with all bevels added. But parsing will take longer. EDIT: I like that render. The top light should possibly have less intensity, but otherwise a nice image.

Well, it mainly depends on the number of lights and transparent parts. Other important factors are level of detail, types of used bricks, number of bevels and size of the model. And you get anything from few minutes to few days. It can be from few thousand pixels per second to few hundreds pixels per minute. Parsing is influenced by level of detail (LOD) and types of bricks. LOD containing all bevels parses faster, but requires more memory, LOD containing only visible bevels takes longer to parse (because for each brick it is necessary to calculate which bevels are visible), but requires less memory. But. When rendering at high resolution, it may happen that all bevels are considered to be visible so it is better to use LOD containing all bevels.

Yes, the antialiasing is almost obligatory to get rid of those jagged(aliased) edges. Another technique how to avoid antialiasing in POV-Ray and still get nice edges is to render without antialiasing but at higher resolution. For example, if your desired output image size is 800x600, render it at 1600x1200 or at 2400x1800 or at 3200x2400. Then use picture editor, that supports bicubic image resizing (like PixBuilder, which is free) and resize image down to desired size. From my experience it is not enough to resize down to 50%, it should be 33% or 25%, which means, you should render at least at 2400x1800 (when resized down to 33%, you get 800x600) or at 3200x2400 (when resized down to 25%, you get 800x600). If your desired resolution is not in the mentioned drop down bellow File and Edit menu, follow these steps: 1. From Tools menu in POV-Ray select "Edit resoultion ini file". Text editor opens with file containing one section for each defined resolution. 2. Add new section using square brackets, between brackets is the name of the section. Name can be anything, POV-Ray will not try to understand it, it will be just displayed in that drop down. For example: [3200x2400, No AA] or [My Best Favorite Resolution] 3. Bellow the section name should be definition of the parameters for that section. Common parameters are Width, Height, Antialias, and Antialias_Threshold. There are much more, but for this case those are enough. Define value for each of these parameters. For example, when you want to get image 3200x2400 without antialiasing you should define these lines in you new section: Width=3200 Height=2400 Antialias=Off So complete section will look like: [3200x2400, No AA] Width=3200 Height=2400 Antialias=Off When you want to enable very fine antialiasing, you should define: Antialias=On Antialias_Threshold=0.1 or Antialias=On Antialias_Threshold=0.0 So the complete section will look like: [3200x2400, AA 0.0] Width=3200 Height=2400 Antialias=On Antialias_Threshold=0.0 4. Save the file. 5. To make the new resolution appear in drop down, go to Render menu a select Edit Settings/Render. 6. POV-Ray render settings dialog will open, select your new section from the drop down and click on the Render button or Set but don't render (when you want to start rendering later). From this moment the new resolution will appear also in the drop down bellow File and Edit menu.

I am sorry for not replying earlier, your settings are correct, I just assume LDD2POVRay was not running when the rendering was started and POV-Ray needed to parse scene.

This line looks like you are using POV-Ray 3.6. You need POV-Ray 3.7, RC3, RC5 or RC6 from the POV-Ray's beta test page.

I am glad we found the source of your problems. Of course, it does not make sense to store converted models and includes in the same directory. Include directory may contain up to 2500+ files (one for each used type of brick) and to store models together with the includes is a mess. That's why you have an option to set the include path using the Settings button and select the last menu item - Setup Paths. Specify an Include Path, that is different from your desired model location. Includes will be generated into that directory. You will never need to access it manually open any file manually from there, so it can be anywhere on your disk, not necessarily in your My Documents (I personally created folder LDDInc as subfolder in the folder where db.lif is located). Model is by default converted to the same directory where the LXF file is located, so if you have some location where you store your model, do not set Include Path to that directory. After that you will have one directory for includes and some other directory where you store LXF files and where converted model POV files will be stored.

It looks like you rendered it with outlines enabled. Click on the settings button and select Reset to initial. After that you can convert it once again and render it. Sopwith Camel had one more difference in comparison to "initial settings" - it was rendered with lights set to 23% and not 40%. Outlines were added as a feature for building guide style images (or coloring pages, if you have small kids - I agree that it is a bit odd to use renderer to produce white coloring page, it was just easy to add as a feature. ). Otherwise I would say, this picture looks still very nice, even with outlines enabled. EDIT: The light settings on this rendering seems to be ok, so you can use the same, just remove outlines. It should be enough to delete these two declarations from your existing POV file: #declare ldd_outlines = 2; #declare ldd_white_outline_treshold = rgb <0/255,0/255,0/255>; // your values might be different

Yes, those are the flex parts. LDD2POVRay does not convert their flex data during conversion so they behave as standard parts. It is better to have them removed in LDD before conversion. Otherwise a nice render - I would say that this kind of view would deserve activated focal blur to make it look more realistic - focal point is on the brick that is selected in LDD as a center of camera rotation (the brick camera is looking at). The LDD2POVRay Converter must be running, because the virtual path \\.\LDDIncludes exists only while it is running. I think, in your case the problem is, that you stored you POV file in the same directory as you have specified as target directory for the POV-Ray includes (both are C:\Documents and Settings\SF\Skrivebord\LEGO\LDD Tools). This does not work, because when POV-Ray looks for the include files, it by default searches the directory where the POV scene file is stored. After that it searched Library Path. This means, that regardless of you Library Path it finds directly the binary includes. Please, store your POV files in different directory than the include files generated by LDD2POVRay. And please, remove the C:\Documents and Settings\SF\Skrivebord\LEGO\LDD Tools from Library Path it is not necessary there. Thank you.

This means, you are directly accessing the bin includes. Your Library Path in POV-Ray should contain Library_Path=\\.\LDDIncludes and not direct path to the includes folder. And of course LDD2POVRay must be running while POV-Ray parses the scene.

Actually I made some renderings when I tested the conversion and POV-Ray limits to find what is the maximum. Do you remmember this alienwar9's creation? 1366x768 This one was rendered at minimum level of detail, using original LDD palette (that's why the colors are so strange). About 50 minutes parsing, few minutes rendering. Of course, at least level of detail with bevels would be better. As you see, the flex parts are complete mess. I had similar problem, we have hot summer and I had problems with sudden shutdowns due to processor overheating, I had to reduce the maximum frequency to handle it. Just for motivation to turn on the heating "beast": 2732x1536,1803x1014,1366x768 10214 Tower bridge built by yellost. Rendered using the default settings, just level of detail set to maximum. Rendered at 5464x3072, No AA. Rendering time was about 18 hours using 4 threads on i3@2184MHz.

I am really glad you like it. Last two days it looked more like installation trouble maker than a useful tool. I like your rendering of the pinball machine. What resolution did you used for the rendering? AA or not? How long did it take?

Thank you very much. There is still long way to go to make it look more realistic, some bricks probably will need manual modelling since the LDD geometry when used by POV-Ray shows some errors which are not visible in LDD but we have at least a complete brick support which provides a good starting point. So now probably circle smoothing and flex parts are the next to be implemented. I have to say big thank you to Superkalle for his extensive work on colors, brick categorization, excelent idea with color and position variance to make the model more realistic and all his advices and suggestions. And of course to TLG for a permission to release this. Include files which could be left open source are open source so if anybody wants to make suggestion/improvement, all of them are welcome.

Your paths seems to be ok (values itself are not that important, it can be any valid path). 1. You start LDD2POVray and it starts without any error. 2. Status bar states that CBFS driver is installed and running. 3. You open some simple LXF model and convert it using convert button. 4. LDD2POVray generates POV file and necessary BIN include into selected include path (C:\Users\HPDV7-6135dx\AppData\Roaming\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer\LDDinc\). 5. You start the POV-Ray 3.7 RC3, RC5 or RC6, open the POV file and click render. LDD2POVRay must be still running. And POV-Ray fails. What output you get in message window of POV-Ray? Not only the error message itself, but also the informational messages before as produced by POV-Ray. Thank you.

OK. So now you have the LDD2POVray working without any errors? Driver installed, service running, no error during startup? If you changed the path for the includes, you have to convert the model once again, so that the includes are generated to new path. Could you, please, share the messages from POV-Ray when you start rendering? Mine looks like this (just scroll the relevant messages into view of message pane and select Copy Pane from Edit menu): - Preset INI file is 'C:\USERS\MARTIN\DOCUMENTS\POV-RAY\V3.7\INI\QUICKRES.INI', section is '[5464x3072, No AA]'. Preset source file is 'C:\Users\Martin\Documents\LEGO Creations\Models\platetest.pov'. Rendering with 4 threads. Parser Options Input file: C:\Users\Martin\Documents\LEGO Creations\Models\platetest.pov Remove bounds........On Split unions.........Off Library paths: \\.\LDDIncludes C:\Users\Martin\Documents\POV-Ray\v3.7\include C:\windows\Fonts Clock value: 0.000 (Animation off)

I found a reason for the error apearing when trying to setup the paths (Unable to add mounting point. Parameter is incorrect.). My mistake. It appears only when the path is initially entered or changed (after the dialog is confirmed). But the LDD2POVray should work after restarting the LDD2POVray. Error is fixed in the version uploaded recently (so no LDD2POVray restart will be necessary). It also contains the latest CBFS driver (3.2.110.277). If the error appears also when you start the LDD2POVray, we have to investigate further, since I could not repeat that.

The EB member "kamos" seems to have the same/similar problem. Are you also using Win7 64bit as him? What version? What antivirus or any other software which may monitor/restrict administrative tasks?

Yes, I have to say, Mr. Mayevski from the EldoS is really nice guy. When I asked him to support this non-commercial project with a non-commercial licence, he was very nice with the licence and the way he communicates even with a non-paying customer and helped me a lot with many advices. As a non-paying customer I did not expected any support, but he was really very nice, provided full support and answered all my questions.

Did you received any error message during installation? Are you able to start the application? If yes, what do you see in the status bar?

I am using Win 7 64bit, and tried 32bit version of LDD2POVray on WinXP installed on VMware virtual machine and it had no problem with that, so it should work also for you.

You do not have to pay for the Callback File System. Callback File System licence costs 4500 USD and EldoS was so kind and provided us a licence for free with only one single condition: we have to mention that we are using their driver. And we were happy to mention that, since it was really very nice from them. I think, this is related to POV-Ray's feature which helps to protect files, which may come from directories, which you did not intended to be used by POV-Ray. Go to Options menu in POV-Ray and see Script I/O Restrictions. Allow Read, restrict Write or No Restrictions should be sufficient.

Library path has to be \\.\LDDIncludes and not the real physical path. Problem with the mounting point means that LDD2POVRay is not able to create virtual drive. Did you restarted the machine after the installation? Did you have any other problems during the installation?

This error means that you forgot to modify POV-Ray's library path. You should modify your POVRAY.ini and add following line: Library_Path=\\.\LDDIncludes Easiest way to open POVRAY.ini is to use Tools menu directly in POV-Ray.

Missing possibility to save work in progress will limit the builds to small ones, but when they will add this feature it will be nice to see opera house really in Sydney or Eifel's tower in Paris later.

Specifing 0.0 or 0.1 instead of 0.3 can improve the edges of the bricks or other areas with high contrast where aliasing typically appears and should be removed. Sometimes 0.3 still leaves these edges a bit aliased. 0.0 is doing antialiasing on every pixel, so it can really make render long running and there is no direct ratio between AA level - 0.1 sometimes does not take only 3 times longer than 0.3. The transparent parts still look odd even with 0.0. Especially small parts with many edges close to each other like 1x1 round plate or other typical small transparent parts. It looks like POV-Ray makes some pixels much brighter then the neigbouring ones (probably due to many reflections within the part itself). I personally think, that some reflective rays hit the same pixel many times and it makes him brighter - this does not occur when rendering in higher resolution since the same group of rays hit the same area, but on high-res the same area consist of 4 or more pixels, so they are not so oddly bright and resizing averages them with others even a bit more. The resize approach seems to produce better result on these transparent parts. And one nice benefit is that you can select resized size according to quality of "antialiasing" produced by resizing. So if you are not satisfied with 50% reduced size, you can resize it to 33% without starting the render again from begining. Output will be of course smaller, but after a few hours of waiting it is still better than to start again due to a bad looking aliased picture.