Scrubs

Ok, I don't think there is any point discussing with you, so before I stop, here are a few stats for what you think is destined to fail: - 17,000 accounts (currently 1,000 new ones every month) - 50 Million pieces in 80,000 models - 12,000 renders made in 2 months All of this done in my spare time for the benefit of the LEGO community. By the way, do you know that this topic was about rendering and not a place to make a detailed list of why you dislike Mecabricks or don't believe in what I am proposing?

I will try to make a short screencast to show you how quick it is to build - Actually quicker in complex situations where LDD autosnap is lost and can not find the right connection. I don't intend to convert you, as we definitely don't share the same approach for 3D, but at least show you that it can be powerful as long as you make the effort to dig into it.

And for what it is worth, I think that you don't understand anything to the 3D world (not just rendering)... It doesn't matter, lots of other people do PS: I'd be happy to show you how to easily build with Mecabricks. That is super easy and it is used in schools around the world as a fun introduction to 3D and CAD for young kids. A few examples:

I added a new function in Mecabricks so that you can render your own Blender files using the render farm, not just the one automatically generated in the workshop. This is great when you want to add none LEGO elements in the scene but still enjoy the power of distributed rendering. It took less than 9 minutes for the 4K version of this image. Racing Yacht by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

Another image from the Mecabricks render mode with a bit of all the options available - DoF, compositor, high resolution minifig, scratches, fingerprints, part randomization, background image, shadow catcher, etc. Took 12 minutes with 4 of the 6 nodes to render the 4K version. The Justice League Anniversary Party by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

Probably not. This is the case for pretty much all 3d software and not just free ones for LEGO building. If 2 faces are exactly at the same location the 3D engine doesn't know which one to draw first as by definition they are at the same distance from the camera, hence this glitch.

Hello, Depending on your model, you can try to import it into Mecabricks to easily export and render it in Blender or even use the one click online rendering function.

Hello, You actually also used Mecabricks and the Mecabricks add-on for Blender from what I can see on your Blender screenshot. So geometry and some decorations are not coming from LDD ;-) Good work on the animation this a very time consuming task.

I added a good amount of new options since I released the service a couple of weeks ago. Among others, it is now possible to use the HD minifigure parts I made last year. They are perfectly accurate and include molding marks. The image below is raw from Mecabricks. No post-processing. High Definition Minifigs by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

Hello, After 3 months of hard work, I finally released this rendering service fully integrated to Mecabricks. I already introduced at bit of it in this post during development and some of you may have already tried it during beta phase. The rendering mode available directly in the workshop offers a range of settings to easily customise your render - Lighting, background, depth of field, compositing, etc. I will regularly add more options. It is possible to render for free with some limitations and using some credits will unlock all the options. I made a page with a table to show what you can and cannot do. The idea behind this credit system is that I can maintain the free version. I designed and invested some money in a small rendering farm and I also have to pay for bandwidth and power. That said, it is more than affordable and price is calculated based on render time and node power. A HD image may cost about $0.25 and a 4K image about $1.00 depending on complexity. Small test images will be less than 1cent. This is also way faster to render than on your home computer. A 4K image that takes 3 hours on my iMac is easily done in 5 or 6 minutes. it is generally less than 1 minute for an HD image with all options activated. Image below is a screenshot of the rendering mode interface in Mecabricks and the second picture has been set up in just a couple of minutes. For indication, rendering time was 1 minute 21 seconds (1800x1080 @200 samples) and calculated cost was $0.196

You can import LDD models directly in mecabricks (however it ignores flexible parts and decorations) or even better build directly in MB. This is Blender Cycles in the background. Test period is over now and I switched it off until proper release of the service sometimes in January.

I didn't define yet all the ins ant outs and it may even evolve over time, but however it works I need to get some money somehow to pay for power and hardware. That said there are some good ideas in your post. Thanks.

The LDraw import tool would be painful to make but a basic version (e.g. no flexible parts) like what I made for LDD may happen at some stage. If you are the only one in the queue, all 71 threads (I keep one free on the master machine for webserver and network rendering) and all 5 graphic cards are working on it. Then if multiple people are queuing, algorithm is a bit smarter, but it remains mainly true. If you are in the queue, you will know it - Yellow dot next to project name and position in the queue. These Ryzen are really good especially for the price. Quite impress by AMD on this one.

Percentage field is used to make some testing from a base resolution. You generally want to try a quick version at low res to make sure it is al good before. Instead of calculating the new resolution you just change the percentage. Same if you want to go to 4k, you simply change to 200%. Resolution is limited for now as this is for testing only. Don't want to block the farm for 10minutes for 1 person. I am also the one currently paying the power for everybody. High resolutions will be available later as well as a lot more advanced settings but obviously not for free. I don't intend to pay myself hundreds of dollars every month. I am nice but not that much ;-) Rig includes 72 threads from 6x AMD Ryzen 1600 CPUs and 5x GTX1050TI GPUs all working together controlled by my custom software.

I opened it to everybody for a few hours if you are keen to give it a shot. You just need a verified Mecabricks account https://www.mecabricks.com/en/workshop

Hello, I have been working for the past 2 months on designing a custom solution based on Blender to make photorealistic rendering directly in Mecabricks. I built a small render farm and created the network rendering software to control it as well as the interface to plug it to Mecabricks. It means that you can even render on an iPad as everything is computed on my render nodes. This is also way faster than doing it on your home computer. Normal images are rendered in seconds while a high resolution 4K image would take about 7 minutes.This is still early stage and real life testing has just started. Stay tuned for 2018! Here is a photo a the render nodes in development:

The new Millennium Falcon 75192 is on Mecabricks. There are still a couple of parts and decorations to make but 99.9% is there. Millenium Falcon by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

They are definitely not the easiest to model and I don't own any of the elves set myself. However, you can already find parts of the Green ninja Mech Dragon on Mecabricks (nose 24232, jaw 25380 and whiskers 28870).

We worked hard on the past few weeks to add the new LEGO Ninjago Movie pieces in Mecabricks. We already completed the collectable minifigs as well as most sets. There is still a bit of work to get everything done, but it is coming. Hope to see some great MOCs. LEGO Ninjago Minifigs by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

15712 in LDD is way off. Centre of hook is about 0.25mm lower than where it shall be.

Be careful with LDraw dimensions. They are not accurate to real parts due to LDU. LDD is way more correct even if some parts are a bit off. Both systems are not 100% compatible.

Thanks! I could mention heaps of things that would make me say that this is a render but I am bias as I made it. I know everything that is not quite right :-p Pearl material is a pain. The issue is that it cannot really be automated. This is not a uniform material and It is really dependent on part design. Thus it would need to be tweaked manually for every single type of part to increase realism. Here, the rendering setup has been made with the advanced add-on in a few clicks with pretty much no manual operations. 8 cores will be perfect. With Blender 2.79, a 4K render on 4 cores only takes an hour so with a good 8 cores CPU, you can do something nice in HD in 30min.

The new LEGO Ninjago movie parts are slowly making their way to Mecabricks. Here is a rendering of the dragon from set 70612. Mech Dragon by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr

Mecabricks is an online 3D builder (It works in any browsers) that uses its own part library (different from LDD and from LDraw). You can find it here: www.mecabricks.com You can export to multiple formats (or sketchfab) that can be opened in most 3D software. However integration is the most advanced with Blender as I provide add-ons. For Bionicle parts, you won't really find too many. Hopefully they can be added in the future but I don't really own any other than the odd ones found in System/Technic sets and therefore I cannot model them.

I think you didn't look into it enough... The Mecabricks Advanced add-on for Blender includes all those things - Scratches, Dirt, Fingerprints, etc. that can be adjusted. 2 examples I made where it is really visible: Faraday Future FF91 by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr Mecabricks Minifig by Nicolas Jarraud, on Flickr