[Software] LDD2PovRay

[DLuders]

@ ZueriHB: What kind of hardware are you using when getting those white pixels? What are your POV-Ray resolution settings?

Edited January 5, 2013 by DLuders

[ZueriHB]

My Home PC, Win8 x64, Quad Core 2.4 GHz, 8GB RAM.

This image has been rendered at 640 x 480.

[DLuders]

I bet if you re-rendered it at a higher resolution, the white pixels would be gone....

[Calabar]

You shoud share the file with powray settings, so an experienced user could take a look at it.

[hrontos]

Could anybody explain why I get lots of white pixels in the rendered image?

I think, those white pixels are the highlights. Since the image resolution was quite low relative to model size and rendered without any antialiasing some of the pixels corresponding to the highlight points received "highlight" color (white or almost white) and are much brighter than the neighbouring ones. Resize it down to 33% (25%, 50%) or render with some antialiasing on.

[Masta' Blasta']

Could someone explain what my settings should be set to for best transparency results? My first attempt ended with normal-looking LDD transparency and the second made it solid. The renders were great, but the transparency was plain out awkward.

[vynsane]

My first attempt ended with normal-looking LDD transparency and the second made it solid.

I know some of the transparent materials aren't fully supported yet or some such - trans orange seems to come out opaque, not sure about others.

[kotaco]

These have all been rendered with this tool and turned out really awesome:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emergencybricks/sets/72157632435519721/

Edited January 7, 2013 by kotaco

[ZueriHB]

Thanks @all.

rendering in higher resolution fixed it for the most part.

If anyone is curios: Download XLF.

It's a 20'000 pieces XLF.

Free to use for non-commercial use. Please credit.

Edited January 10, 2013 by ZueriHB

[hrontos]

These have all been rendered with this tool and turned out really awesome:

Really nice rendered models.

[Smartiac]

Condor by Proudlove, on Flickr

Here's a render I did of one of my most recent creations.

[Superkalle]

Today I voted for Hrontos in the Technic challenge. Support him you too

@Hrontos: I can't help to notice how many of the entries are based on LDD and rendered in LDD2PovRay. Maybe you shouldn't have released LDD2PovRay at all, and kept it all to yourself. Just to increase the chance of winning the contest

[hrontos]

Condor by Proudlove, on Flickr

Here's a render I did of one of my most recent creations.

A very nice one.

Today I voted for Hrontos in the Technic challenge. Support him you too

Thank you a lot for your support.

@Hrontos: I can't help to notice how many of the entries are based on LDD and rendered in LDD2PovRay. Maybe you shouldn't have released LDD2PovRay at all, and kept it all to yourself. Just to increase the chance of winning the contest

It makes me feel proud that so many digital entries were chosen for the finals and used LDD2POVRay to get better looking images. This is the first contest where digital and real entries can compete as equals. It is no longer important how big brick collections people have, anybody can participate, creativity is the only fact that matters.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Superkalle

[Seluryar]

These have all been rendered with this tool and turned out really awesome:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emergencybricks/sets/72157632435519721/

Hello fellow NE Ohioan!

Great stuff!

[Phoxtane]

I've noticed that if I turn on the outlines, the model renders a lot faster and gains a cel-shaded look, much like the Borderlands art style. What is it about the outlines that makes it render faster?

[Nachapon Lego]

Thanks @all.

rendering in higher resolution fixed it for the most part.

If anyone is curios: Download XLF.

It's a 20'000 pieces XLF.

Thanks for sharing your great model. How may RAM and virtual memory did you use? (not sure it use VM or not)

My notebook ran out of 8 GB RAM (4 GB virtual memory) at max quality before complete the parsing @ 4096x 2304 noAA.

LDD by ZueriHB (20,000 pcs) by Nachapon S., on Flickr

Edited January 10, 2013 by bbqqq

[Phoxtane]

I love this tool

Edited January 10, 2013 by Phoxtane

[krispy]

I've noticed that if I turn on the outlines, the model renders a lot faster and gains a cel-shaded look, much like the Borderlands art style. What is it about the outlines that makes it render faster?

My guess is that when the outlines are turned on, the bricks are no longer bevelled (valid bevel count becomes 0). This means that raytracing around the edges becomes way simpler and thus faster.

[ZueriHB]

Thanks for sharing your great model. How may RAM and virtual memory did you use? (not sure it use VM or not)

My notebook ran out of 8 GB RAM (4 GB virtual memory) at max quality before complete the parsing @ 4096x 2304 noAA.

LDD by ZueriHB (20,000 pcs) by Nachapon S., on Flickr

Nice render you did there. The background image hides the incompleteness of it ^^

I have 8 GB installed, used over 4GBs of it, only about 200 paged.

how long did the render take? My last one only needed about 5 hours incl. parsing. All Bevels, low radiosity, only one light source.

[hrontos]

Image

I love this tool

This is a nice combination of rendering and outlines. This quality of images I have seen many times in custom BI.

Usually, when using outlines, it is enough to use lowest quality (on the last tab) and you will get flat colored image (just suitable for BI). Of course, to use raytracer for such flat images is a bit strange.

My guess is that when the outlines are turned on, the bricks are no longer bevelled (valid bevel count becomes 0). This means that raytracing around the edges becomes way simpler and thus faster.

Yes, outlines replace bevels and therefore rendering is much faster (beveling requires a difference operation, which is slow).

Edited January 10, 2013 by hrontos

[Nachapon Lego]

Nice render you did there. The background image hides the incompleteness of it ^^

I have 8 GB installed, used over 4GBs of it, only about 200 paged.

how long did the render take? My last one only needed about 5 hours incl. parsing. All Bevels, low radiosity, only one light source.

Thanks, It took about 3 hours, visible bevels for non-trans parts, normal radiosity, two light (one shadow).

[harton]

Hello guys, I got some questions for you,

Since I began to work with LDD and Povray I attempt to explore and push down the limits of the programs and by the side of my mother board card... I'm working in architecture (I'm actually a student in architecture) and in my spare times I'm actually do some LDD modeling for clients (because they found my apporach interesting and different) and of course for my own pleasure.

For the moment I did dome house and I was really happy of the results in Povray, I did multiple views, like we use to do for a presentation, and I was a bit suprise of the different lapse of time between each one. I'm use to do some long rendering with CAD programs and some of them took around 22 hours...

1) Does the rendering time depends on what I see, from the view I choose?

2) Then, is it preferable to cut what's behind my current view or it doesn't change anything?

I already read that the use and/or view of trans parts add times, which is quite normal by adding windows in my houses, cause it looks strange with many holes instead of windows. For information I'm using most of time the part 459486: Wall Element 1x4x3 (trans). I would really like to show you what I did, but for the moment I have to wait for the authorization of publishing from my client.

3) Have you any tips on how to reduce the time of the render and keep the trans part effect, because I want to continue house modelling?

Just image if I have to do a curtain wall, I can feel the pain of my computer! I hope to bee able to show you soon,

Thanx,

Harton

[hrontos]

1) Does the rendering time depends on what I see, from the view I choose?

2) Then, is it preferable to cut what's behind my current view or it doesn't change anything?

3) Have you any tips on how to reduce the time of the render and keep the trans part effect, because I want to continue house modelling?

1) Yes, of course it depends on what you see in your view. Portions of the scene which are out of view are not rendered and do not affect rendering time. Or to be more precise: they are rendered only as reflections (on reflective surface visible in the view) and when there are some reflections, they do affect rendering time.

2) If you cut it, you will not see shadows and reflections comming from these objects. But when the do not appear in reflections, they do not influence rendering time. When you have one large object in the front and thousand objects behind it and those thousand objects do not cast shadows visible in the view nor reflect on some surface visible in the view, they do not have any serious impact on the rendering time. They just consume memory.

This behaviour is due to fact, that POV-Ray uses bounding box for each object and when ray being traced do not hit that bounding box, object is ignored. This bounding box checking is done for each ray and each object, but is it considered as cheap operation comparing to tracing itself.

3) Until now there is no good tip how to speed-up rendering of transparent parts. In LDD2POVray, bevels slow down rendering a lot, so avoiding bevels on trans parts helps a lot. It also helps to use smaller parts. For example, when you have one 8x8 transparent plate, consider replacing it with 64 1x1 transparent plates. This is again due to bounding boxes - larger parts are hit more often and since large plate is more complex than small one, after bounding box is hit, it is being traced. With smaller parts, smaller parts are hit and traced.

[kotaco]

Hello fellow NE Ohioan!

Great stuff!

Hello :)

And thank you.

[Seluryar]

I was poking around in another topic and found this post:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=65876&st=250#entry1462322

I would like to know how to just add the mirrored texture to the base plane, and perhaps learn at a later time add ceilings