[Software] Bluerender, a rendering engine for LDD

[Jey_Bee]

Or you could simply remove the plane altogether. There's a scene.sc file in Bluerender directory which allows you to modify rendering options much more than the program itself. If you want to hide the plane, just change

n 0 1 0

to

n 0 0 0

in section commented # Here we define our plane. This way the ground plane won't be visible and the whole background will be uniform.

Edit: as a side effect, there won't be any shadow under your build.

Default plane:

Mirror:

What you use for configuration to have more then 1 Light-Source? (1st picture)

And what configuration use the Mirror? :D (3rd picture)

The parameter:

# Here we define our plane.

object {

shader PlaneMaterial

type mirror

p 0 %LOWESTPOINT% 0

n 0 1 0

}

do not work! :/

Edited June 13, 2016 by Jey_Bee

[KamalMYafi]

what configuration use the Mirror? :D (3rd picture)

This is the parameter that i found:

# Here we define our plane.

object {

shader Mirror

type plane

p 0 %LOWESTPOINT% 0

n 0 1 0

}

---

Please don't quote images!

Edited June 13, 2016 by KamalMYafi

[inkpanther]

What you use for configuration to have more then 1 Light-Source? (1st picture)

And what configuration use the Mirror? :D (3rd picture)

Sorry for not mentioning how to change to mirror plane!

Here are all the light types I know:

Sunsky -- default, I've tried to change the parameters, but I've never found any satisfactory results, I feel it makes rendering longer and it never gives a pure white light:

light {
type sunsky
up 0 1 0
east 1 0 0
sundir 1 1 1
turbidity 7
samples 8
}

Directional -- it gives light that propagates in only one direction, as a result it gives shadows with clearly visible edges, seems to make rendering faster:

light {
type directional
source 100 100 100
target 0 0 0
radius 1000
emit 1 1 1
intensity 1.5
}

Spherical -- creates a sphere radiating light in all directions, it gives smooth transitions from well light to shadows:

light {
type spherical
color 1 1 1
radiance 10
center -100 100 0
radius 20
samples 4
#noball
}

The noball was available in bublible's mod, causing the sphere not to be visible in reflections.

Point -- similar to spherical, but the light propagates from a single point, I find it useful mainly to light small areas:

light {
type point
color 1 1 1
power 10000
p -20 4 0
}

A bit about parameters:

Let's start with a reference point in 3D space. It's always the center of your ldd file. When you create a new ldd file you are presented with an empty square grid, the middle of it is your 0 0 0 point. And no matter where you start placing bricks, it always remains the same (screenshot). The coordinates for any point look like X Z Y, where X and Y are for horizontal directions and Z for vertical. I usually mix X with Y so forgive me if I made a mistake here, but Z is always in the middle. Values are real numbers (can be decimal, positive and negative). I have no idea how does one unit of distance correspond to one stud of length. ;)

-- I hope that meaning of things like center, source, p, target should be self explanatory in a context of a given light type. They're are points using x z y coordinates.

-- Color and emit work exactly the same: they define colour of light. They require three real numbers between 0 and 1 which correspond to red, green and blue colours. Basically, it's an RGB with decimal values.

-- Intensity, radiance, power define how strong the light/light source should be.

-- Samples !important thing to know! Number of samples directly affect quality and time of rendering. The higher the number the less noise you will see on a picture but it will take significantly more time to render. Usually I find 16 to be satisfactory for spherical lights.

I can't really suggest anything for sunsky light parameters, I don't like it and I never use it.

As a general suggestion: you should temporarily crank things down if you're just setting things up (setting preferred view on a build, setting zoom, all the lights, etc). Decrease number of samples, decrease/disable antialiasing, lower render resolution. You'll probably render the same thing multiple times to see how it looks and what you want to improve, so lowering settings will save you lots of time.

Edited June 13, 2016 by inkpanther

[Jey_Bee]

Realy Guys....

Nothing work to get e result like the screenshots. :(

This is the parameter that i found:

Do not work.. i get a black background with no mirroring on ground. :(

Sorry for not mentioning how to change to mirror plane!

Says... thats NOT your screenshots? :(

[inkpanther]

Realy Guys....

Nothing work to get e result like the screenshots. :(

Do not work.. i get a black background with no mirroring on ground. :(

Says... thats NOT your screenshots? :(

You probably did something wrong. Things like too weak lighting, "camera" inside spherical light, the plane angled in such a way that you see it from below...

These are my screenshots, I just neglected to write how to set mirror plane.

Here's my scene file (I cut out everything below "materials" for the sake of brevity) for this build if you'd like to see it: http://pastebin.com/tU9Sj4Pv

It's a bit messy, especially at lights part.

[Jey_Bee]

Here's my scene file (I cut out everything below "materials" for the sake of brevity) for this build if you'd like to see it: http://pastebin.com/tU9Sj4Pv

Ahh... thats much more useable! Very thanx.

[CM4Sci]

Recently I've been noticing that the decals on the faces specifically are getting all "crispy" they're not as smooth anymore. Is this some sort of update? They looked fine before but now they're not as round and smooth.

[JM1971]

Very nice app indeed, very pleased with results.

[Dragon_Master_48]

I've been using Bluerender for a little while now, and I haven't encountered any problems with it whatsoever until yesterday. While the Wireframe/Preview option works fine, and renders really quickly (as it should), it appears as if the program is, for some reason, incapable of completing an actual render, as the image displayed in the "Rendering Progress" window consistently stops at about 20% through the render- today's attempt is my third- and the rendering process itself has been going on for a few hours now (on this computer, which tends to be a little slow, renders usually take about 20-60 minutes depending on the size of the model; the one I'm currently trying to do is a little over 500 pieces). I'm wondering if this is a glitch, or if I'm possibly doing something wrong, even though I haven't really messed around with any of the settings.

[badchriss]

Well,i`m kinda confuzzled on how to edit the scene.sc File for another baseplane Color.

I`m using bublible`s Mod and so far i know that i have to use materials/shaders from the bublible-materials.sc File to edit the Color and Material of the Baseplane.

The Thing that confuses me is how i need to write it into the textfile.

The Area that describes the Baseplane looks currently like this:

% BASEPLANE (aka "BACKGROUND")

object

{

shader plocha

type plane

p 0 %LOWESTPOINT% 0

n 0 1 0

}

Now if i want to change the type into glass or plastic then bluerender crashes.

Also,how do i apply the Textlines for the baseplane to give it the appearance of this material:

% LIGHT GRAY

shader

{

name mat2

type plastic

color { "sRGB nonlinear" 0.5411765 0.57254905 0.5529412 }

Or to be precise,how exactly do i need to change the baseplane line so the baseplane has another Color and Material.

[Equilibrium]

You have to change shader name only:

% BASEPLANE (aka "BACKGROUND")
object
{
shader mat2
type plane
p 0 %LOWESTPOINT% 0
n 0 1 0
}

This will give you colour and material type of Light grey (mat2). Since baseplane material in this case will be plastic, you will get mirror-like reflection on the ground of any object placed in the scene. To get rid of it you will have to create another material (I did it in bublible_special.sc) or edit existing one (not recommended).

# BASEPLANE LIGHT GREY
shader
{
name lightgrey
type diffuse
diff { "sRGB nonlinear" 0.5411765 0.57254905 0.5529412 }
}

Edited July 8, 2016 by Equilibrium

[badchriss]

@Equilibrium:Oh wow thanks,it worked!!!

I`m not surprised that others got it to work but that i got it to work how it should.

I think i will go and spend the Time before Bedtime with experimenting on the scene.sc File....

[Equilibrium]

No problem :)

It seems I didn't copy whole line. New plane colour should be like this:

diff { "sRGB nonlinear" 0.5411765 0.57254905 0.5529412 }

Otherwise you get different colour :P

I'll update my previous post.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Equilibrium

[JM1971]

Has anyone experimented with lights?

First I thought maybe its possible to make a shader to do this to turn a whole object into a light but there is no such thing lol, then I tried adding point lights and sphere lights from coordinates in the lfx files, not very good results as I'm pretty new to bluerender.

Edited July 9, 2016 by JM1971

[badchriss]

Sometimes i have a weird Thing that happens to me from Time to Time is that the Rendering is finished within milliseconds but you see nothing than a deep black Picture.Nothing to see in it and no error Message.

Is there a Reason for this?I know that if you see the Model from below through that Grid Lining the rendered Image will be black but i just tried to render it from an angeled Sideview.

It worked two Times and the third Time i got the black Void.What went wrong?

[SylvainLS]

Picture or it didn’t happen!

Can you give us the .lxf, or a screenshot of LDD with the faulty camera placement?

[inkpanther]

What went wrong?

Judging from your previous post, you're using Bublible's mod. I've noticed that setting fov at 20-ish or higher tends to end with black render. Assuming that everything is all right with lighting and plane, maybe you could try setting fov to something below 20.

Small edit:

I kind of struggle for inspiration, but here's little something with non-modded BR.

Edited July 9, 2016 by inkpanther

[badchriss]

Judging from your previous post, you're using Bublible's mod. I've noticed that setting fov at 20-ish or higher tends to end with black render. Assuming that everything is all right with lighting and plane, maybe you could try setting fov to something below 20.

Small edit:

I kind of struggle for inspiration, but here's little something with non-modded BR.

Hm,just tried editing the fov Value and now i`m looking how far i can go.Turning fov to 18 didn`t do the Trick,setting it down to 10 works but results in a very close up.The rendered Object (a tiny 4x6 Caravan doesn`t even fit entirely into the Image.Will enlarging the Image Resolution do the Trick or do i have to fiddle around with the fov Value a little more?

Okay,rendering finished,it`s now partly black

This is the View in LDD

And this is how it looks in Bluerender with fov 10

[inkpanther]

Hm,just tried editing the fov Value and now i`m looking how far i can go.Turning fov to 18 didn`t do the Trick,setting it down to 10 works but results in a very close up.The rendered Object (a tiny 4x6 Caravan doesn`t even fit entirely into the Image.Will enlarging the Image Resolution do the Trick or do i have to fiddle around with the fov Value a little more?

Okay,rendering finished,it`s now partly black

You'll have to zoom out in LDD and save new view. Low zoom in LDD should compensate high zoom in modded BR. It's a weird quirk of the mod, but it's manageable. (LDD doesn't register changing zoom level or camera view as a build changing actions, so you'll have to move a brick and put it back or hide it and unhide to be able to save.)

And as for partly black render, I don't know how to help you. You probably have to report it to Bublible. I have actually written about something very similar on his webpage a couple of days ago, but so far my comment haven't even been approved...

It's a nice looking little caravan, BTW. :)

Edited July 10, 2016 by inkpanther

[Equilibrium]

I think I have found a workaround... Rendered with 25 fov:

[badchriss]

I think i found the Culprit:It was the evil Combination of a bad fov Value and my own Stupidity.I must have messed up the Baseplane positioning Values somwhow so on certain Angles and Distances it positioned itself halfway in front of the Camera View.

Also changed the fov to 22 and now look what we have here:

inkpanther: That`s a nice silouette Picture of a Minifig holding two Guns.Looks epic.How did you do that?My guess would be the Cameraview is "inside" a brickbuild Room where the only Light comes from a large Doorway right across the Camera,right?

[inkpanther]

I think i found the Culprit:It was the evil Combination of a bad fov Value and my own Stupidity.I must have messed up the Baseplane positioning Values somwhow so on certain Angles and Distances it positioned itself halfway in front of the Camera View.

Also changed the fov to 22 and now look what we have here:

Neat details despite really small scale.

inkpanther: That`s a nice silouette Picture of a Minifig holding two Guns.Looks epic.How did you do that?My guess would be the Cameraview is "inside" a brickbuild Room where the only Light comes from a large Doorway right across the Camera,right?

Exactly. I also used different camera with depth of field effect. The minifig is hardly distinguishable from dark parts of a background, so this aspect may need some improvements... ;)

[JM1971]

Is there a good guide to sunflow commands with good working examples?

Google is not finding much because half the results are sunflow electric heaters.

[inkpanther]

Is there a good guide to sunflow commands with good working examples?

Google is not finding much because half the results are sunflow electric heaters.

I'm not sure if it falls into "good" category, but there's 300 pages long pdf of sunflow wiki linked by Msx in the first post. Pdf is really helpful but arm yourself with patience and be ready for some trial and error.

Edit: I forgot that the link is dead. Here's another one and it seems to belong to the same website: https://geneomic.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/sfwiki.pdf

Edited July 11, 2016 by inkpanther

[Agusti Padros]

I've startd using it, as I was really tired and extremely annoyed of the POV rendering tool. It's much quicker, although I definitely think the image doesn't look as cool as with the older one