iceleftd

My color resources say 336 is "Silver Ink" which is one of several similar colors. 331 - Lacquer 332 - Fluorescent Red Ink 333 - Fluorescent Green Ink 334 - Copper Ink 335 - Gold Ink 336 - Silver Ink 337 - Titanium Ink Sadly, I do not know any more details (RGB values, texture, etc.)

FYI - I gave my seminar on Blueprint and Bluerender at the BrickFair VA LEGO Convention yesterday. It went very well and was well attended! I didn't like not being able to use Blueprint live on my laptop (due to older OpenGL support), but my narrated video went off about as well as it could.

I give the seminar on Thursday afternoon. I will let you know how it goes.

You could create a section on the wiki for "mods" and publish it there...

Agreed (sadly). My solution was to do a video of me demonstrating Blueprint. I will play the video and narrate it live.

Yes, I misspoke - I meant the ZIP file, not the JAR. The first problem turns out to be that I was running a 32-bit version of the JVM and it failed to load the 64-bit lwjgl library. After fixing that, I get this error: C:\Blueprint0016>java -version java version "1.8.0_51" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_51-b16) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.51-b03, mixed mode) C:\Blueprint0016>blueprint.bat Operating system detected: Windows Starting Blueprint v0.0.1.6beta.. Good luck! Current folder: C:\Blueprint0016 java.lang.IllegalStateException: GLFW error [0x10007]: WGL: Failed to create OpenGL context at org.lwjgl.glfw.Callbacks$2.invoke(Callbacks.java:160) at org.lwjgl.glfw.GLFWErrorCallback.callback(GLFWErrorCallback.java:42) at org.lwjgl.glfw.GLFW.nglfwCreateWindow(Native Method) at org.lwjgl.glfw.GLFW.glfwCreateWindow(GLFW.java:1022) at blueprint.f.a.c(Unknown Source) at blueprint.f.a.<init>(Unknown Source) at blueprint.f.d.<init>(Unknown Source) at blueprint.f.b.<init>(Unknown Source) at blueprint.b.b.a.a(Unknown Source) at blueprint.Blueprint.b(Unknown Source) at blueprint.Blueprint.initApp(Unknown Source) at b.a.start(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.lambda$launchApplication1$159(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl$$Lambda$52/835358058.run(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$runAndWait$172(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl$$Lambda$48/286505802.run(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$null$170(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl$$Lambda$50/1107728337.run(Unknown Source) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$runLater$171(Unknown Source) at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl$$Lambda$49/1645379807.run(Unknown Source) at com.sun.glass.ui.InvokeLaterDispatcher$Future.run(Unknown Source) at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication._runLoop(Native Method) at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication.lambda$null$145(Unknown Source) at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication$$Lambda$38/1119008810.run(Unknown Source) at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) Jul 27, 2015 9:56:22 PM com.sun.javafx.css.StyleManager getCachedImage WARNING: Error loading image: rsrc:dialog-error.png Then a dialog pops up with the message "Something unexpected and ugly happened :(" followed by "GLFW error [0x10007]: WGL: Failed to create OpenGL context" Update: Installing the latest video drivers did not help :(

@msx80 - I was getting ready to teach a seminar on your tools at the massive BrickFair LEGO convention next weekend when I ran into a problem. I was going to use an older laptop (running Windows 7 64 bit) for demonstrations and it worked fine for Bluerender (although about 1/3 the speed of my nice desktop). But when I went to run Blueprint everything went bad. There are apparently problems with the native code and the hardware? What's more odd is that your JAR doesn't even look like it contains an OpenGL DLL, but it contains OpenAL! Very strange. I confess I don't know what is going on here. I'm wishing this was pure Java like Bluerender.

Animation now? I think we all need to chip in for some coffee and pizza for poor msx80, considering all the work we're piling on him!

There has been some talk about lookaside objects (e.g., finding a decoration or object definition in a folder/jar/whatever that overrides the one in the LDD geometry), although that has been at least somewhat in the context of "can I supply my own object definition, maybe from LDraw?". If it is real work to modify existing bricks in LDD every time, there is no real impediment to making a lazily-instantiated look-aside object structure where you apply bevels and logos and just save it in an alternate location. Objects then only need to be modified once, and only if they are used. You could save additional data to associate the modified object with the original object version. That would allow you to clear a cache entry if LDD's object definition changes. The bigger question seems to be whether you can apply heuristics to make an algorithm that can correctly bevel and logo-ize arbitrary bricks on the fly. ldd2povray states "POV-Ray™ include files contain enhanced versions of brick geometries used by LDD." That would be worth looking into, I suppose. I do notice that ldd2povray allows you to vary the bevel size so presumably that's being done on the fly. Speed is something we can fix, I think. Getting the right geometries is a different matter.

Just curious - regarding extra polygons for seams and logo, is the concern the rendering time, the cost of modifying the parts at runtime, or both?

Very promising! What approach are you taking and how much does it cost in time? Also, I've never thought of it before but there would have to be some rules for the orientation of the logo in order to be accurate (e.g., in all three examples above, the logo is off by 90 degrees!). I'm guessing LDDToPOV-Ray has a way of figuring that out.

Yeah, that part was kind of a response to JopieK's comment.

Actually, Java is not particularly wasteful of memory but it can appear so because it uses garbage collection for memory management. With C, you explicitly return every chunk of storage to the storage pool when you are done (and woe to you if you forget!), so your memory-in-use stays at a minimum. By default, Java tends to be very lazy with GC and will allow unused blocks of memory to accumulate until you either run out of memory or some other event occurs that triggers GC and it reclaims the storage. That often means the working set size of the process stays fairly large. Choosing a more aggressive GC algorithm would help keep that from happening. As in most languages, knowing how memory works and using good algorithms is more important than exactly how the language manages memory. For example, only keeping one page of graphics in memory at once versus the entire instruction book. Signed, Java defender ;)

The blue color you are seeing isn't the "background" color, it's the color of the plane underneath the model. I've started a Wiki for this utility and, although there isn't much there yet, it turns out that your question is already addressed there: http://blueimaging.wikia.com/

Yes, PM works. The first time you PM-ed me, you PM-ed again saying that you figured it out before I could respond.

It returns the actual shader in use by the state. I can't tell you more without seeing your modifications to ShadingState and Shader. You might need to debug to see if ShadingState.setShader() is being called elsewhere. There are a lot of ways this could go wrong.

See post #162 (pg 7), and post #203 (pg 9) of this forum. Also Notable differences: Bluerender does not offer bevels (joints between bricks) or the LEGO logo on the studs, both of which are available on higher settings on POV-Ray. But Bluerender is MUCH faster and looks more natural (in my opinion). For example, in that Flickr image link I supplied, the white tables look gray in POV-Ray and the overall look is sort of hyper-real. Bluerender seems to look more like a well-lit photograph to me.

Awesome!!! Waiting to see the resolution!

I posted it before, but here it is again: http://blueimaging.wikia.com

Looking forward to this! Please add it to the wiki and then get to work on the transparent shadow problem! I am a professional Java programmer but know very little about image processing. I would be willing to help, however, if I could be of use.

Since I made the suggestion, I created and started a wiki for Blueprint and Bluerender - http://blueimaging.wikia.com. I hope this will prove useful to all down the road. Right now it only has a few, very basic articles. @bublible - please record your tutorial information there if you would be so kind.

Yes, THAT's what I'm looking for! Looking forward to seeing how that works. I can do image editing too (I use paint.net) but in-image is better.

A masterful job, then! Especially with the contours of the door and going behind the streetlamp glass. And yes, I am disappointed . I want to place a sticker on a flat wall made of multiple bricks (not as complicated as what you did with those doors). I need to figure out a good way to do this.

@bublible @msx80 bublble mentioned a tutorial, but I suggest a Bluerender wiki so more people can contribute. I know the goal is that Bluerender can be used without modification 95% of the time, but a lot of people want to tinker and they (like me) do not have the rendering background that you guys have. This forum is great but searching it for useful tips and instructions is difficult. A tutorial is very static and generally edited by only one person. Some topics that could be in the wiki: Known current limitations (no LEGO on studs, no bevels/seams, etc.) and why they are there Suggestions for features Links to reference documentation (like Sunflow doc) How-to articles like the mesh one mentioned above, how to lower the shinyness of the bricks, etc. Insights into Sunflow behavior (like sunsky and shadows) Shader examples (using LXF input as opposed to the Sunflow spheres Just a thought.

Very impressive! Okay, I'm going to betray my ignorance here... How did you manage the lettering? I've read some tricks on how to apply custom decorations to parts in POV-Ray, etc. (although I could never get the "##CHANGEDECOR" thing to work in Bluerender), but it looks like you've applied a decal to a series of parts ("Union Pacific" stretching across the body of the train and two doors). That is exactly what I need to do for one of my models! Please describe your approach.