[Software] LDD2PovRay

[Nachapon Lego]

37 min, 1024x768, AA, 2 lights, normal radiosity, phenom 9600.

Decals from photo and by paint.

view 23 min, same setting.

Edited July 12, 2012 by bbqqq

[hrontos]

37 min, 1024x768, AA, 2 lights, normal radiosity, phenom 9600.

Image

lego b-wing by nachapon 10-7-2012 by Nachapon S., on Flickr

23 min, same setting.

Image

lego b-wing bv by nachapon 10-7-2012 by Nachapon S., on Flickr

Wow, looks really good and in a reasonable time.

Did you used 2 of those 3 built-in lights or completely different light setup? Will you share it with us?

May I put the first one into LDD2POVRay gallery? Do you have also PNG version?

[Nachapon Lego]

Wow, looks really good and in a reasonable time.

Did you used 2 of those 3 built-in lights or completely different light setup? Will you share it with us?

May I put the first one into LDD2POVRay gallery? Do you have also PNG version?

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

Please feel free to use it, without your LDD2POVRay and EB's digi.. forum I can't create them.

I used left light 70% and top 40%.

Edited July 12, 2012 by bbqqq

[hrontos]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

Please feel free to use it, without your LDD2POVRay I can't create them.

I used left light 70% and top 40%.

Great, thanks. Is it possible to share the PNG version (without orange spot) on your Flickr account at least for a while?

I presume the top light was shadowless, since it does not seem to cast any shadow.

Edited July 10, 2012 by hrontos

[Superkalle]

I'd like to ask some feedback about colors. As Hrontos mentioned, I was involved in trying to create a good color palette. I made endless renditions to compare with official TLG product photos. In this work, I was lucky to find some un-photoshoped product photos floating around the internet, and the goal was that LDD2PovRay should generate as realistic colors as possible right out of the box. Even so, I know some of the colors could be improved. Blue for example I struggled with a lot, and also Light Bluish Grey and Dark Bluish Gray. So if you have some ideas for better RGB-values, please share them

Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to clearify some things about the Call-back virtual filesystem. Some of you may be wondering - why is it needed? Why not let PovRay read the geometrise directly? Well, it was decided quite early to run this project completely by the book, since LDD2PovRay would use the LDD geometries and it would violate the EULA to use them without permission. So I was asked to mediate some contacts with TLG which I gladly did. TLG said that as a first step, the geometries need to be fully protected. And the call-back system does just that - it allows only PovRay to access the geometries.

[Nachapon Lego]

Great, thanks. Is it possible to share the PNG version (without orange spot) on your Flickr account at least for a while?

I presume the top light was shadowless, since it does not seem to cast any shadow.

The PNG version (without orange spot) uploaded.

I'm not sure about shadow setting, will check it later.

May I aks you or someone who may know, is there a way to do different settings of draft renderings of a model without to parsing(load includes, assign bricks?) every time?

Parsing always take long time.

Edited July 10, 2012 by bbqqq

[Seluryar]

bbqqq, Do you use 'All bevels" or just "visible bevels"?

Here are 2 of my latest renders

and

Click for larger sized images

Edited July 10, 2012 by Seluryar

[Nachapon Lego]

I used the default "visible bevels". Next time I will try "All bevels", hi-res and without AA.

[C3POwen]

I'd like to ask some feedback about colors. As Hrontos mentioned, I was involved in trying to create a good color palette. I made endless renditions to compare with official TLG product photos. In this work, I was lucky to find some un-photoshoped product photos floating around the internet, and the goal was that LDD2PovRay should generate as realistic colors as possible right out of the box. Even so, I know some of the colors could be improved. Blue for example I struggled with a lot, and also Light Bluish Grey and Dark Bluish Gray. So if you have some ideas for better RGB-values, please share them

I know that in the colours that I've been using for my own LDraw to POV-Ray renderings, I've taken cues from a number of places:

- Peeron

- Isodomos

- Lugnet (the transparent neon colours here are pretty good)

A lot of the colours on these sites are missing, and they don't always use the same names, so it can be tricky to check that you're looking at the colour you want (see Lugnet's metallic iridescent and dull colours as an example).

[hrontos]

The PNG version (without orange spot) uploaded.

I'm not sure about shadow setting, will check it later.

May I aks you or someone who may know, is there a way to do different settings of draft renderings of a model without to parsing(load includes, assign bricks?) every time?

Parsing always take long time.

Thank you for the uploading. Is Flickr making JPG automatically? Because picture is still presented as JPG. I resized it down to 800x600 to reduce the moire caused by JPG.

May I aks you or someone who may know, is there a way to do different settings of draft renderings of a model without to parsing(load includes, assign bricks?) every time?

Parsing always take long time.

POV-Ray does not allow to modify scene without reparsing it completely. This means, you cannot move a light or camera without compiling also rest of the scene.

"Only visible bevels" is the slowliest for parsing. Usually technic bricks contain much more bevels than studded bricks so with studded it does not make big difference during rendering, but parsing is faster with "all bevels". Fastest is to parse with Level of detail set to "basic LDD geometry". It corresponds to #declare ldd_level_of_detail = 0;. For the final render it can be changed to #declare ldd_level_of_detail = 2; or #declare ldd_level_of_detail = 3;.

Generally, geometry includes are big so LDD2POVRay does not cache them during reading, because it may require a lot of memory. But I will check how POV-Ray accesses these files and try to cache at least those with POV-Ray scripts. Hopefully it will help to speed-up parsing.

[Lego Otaku]

Looks pretty good and would say in a reasonable time for such larger model.

I'd like to point out the rendering time can vary depending on the computer. Computers with more CPU or cores will do better. With dual XEON CPUs (both 6 cores + 6 hyperthread cores) I have up to 24 processes available. A run of the mill Walmart computer may take as much as half a day to do the same render.

I wonder how these SW models would look like when rendered without base plane, with transparent background and then placed on some background image with stars, space or Milky Way. I did not tried such photoshopping yet, since my artistic talent is very limited.

I'm itching to try that. 10179 Millennium Falcon maybe?

EDIT: loaded http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=41226&view=findpost&p=797007, removed parts, fixed the top a bit to be lower, removed the boat mast on the rear (can't be bent anyway and converter doesn't handle flexible data), and now working on 4000x3000 render, no AA. I also found a galaxy background to use if nothing goes wrong.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Lego Otaku

[hrontos]

I'd like to point out the rendering time can vary depending on the computer. Computers with more CPU or cores will do better. With dual XEON CPUs (both 6 cores + 6 hyperthread cores) I have up to 24 processes available. A run of the mill Walmart computer may take as much as half a day to do the same render.

I'm itching to try that. 10179 Millennium Falcon maybe?

Yes, of course, that's why we support mainly POV-Ray 3.7 - the older versions does not support parallel processing, so it was more complicated. With 24 parallel threads rendering a model you have really a mighty machine.

I am rendering the 10179 right now, but you will have it faster, since I have only 4 parallel threads.

Impressive on this model is the number of bevels 553 623 and number of objects the scene consist of - 796 874. Together consuming 2956 MB of memory.

If you really want to heat-up a bit your CPU, try some of the alienwar9's models.

[Smartiac]

So I've got everything up and running and I gotta say, it's awesome, thanks. I'm wondering about something though, why do some of the colours of slopes look so odd? The dark bluish grey will look different from one piece to the next.

[hrontos]

So I've got everything up and running and I gotta say, it's awesome, thanks. I'm wondering about something though, why do some of the colours of slopes look so odd? The dark bluish grey will look different from one piece to the next.

I am glad you like it.

Do you have some example of that mentioned odd colours of slopes? Could you please, post some test image? Materials and colors of the materials are not defined on per brick basis so two bricks with the same colour and material should look the same.

[Lego Otaku]

Yes, of course, that's why we support mainly POV-Ray 3.7 - the older versions does not support parallel processing, so it was more complicated. With 24 parallel threads rendering a model you have really a mighty machine.

I am rendering the 10179 right now, but you will have it faster, since I have only 4 parallel threads.

Hee hee done in a couple hours, initial image at 4000x3000 with no AA, all bevel (not just visible), and no background.

Impressive on this model is the number of bevels 553 623 and number of objects the scene consist of - 796 874. Together consuming 2956 MB of memory.

If you really want to heat-up a bit your CPU, try some of the alienwar9's models.

I'll have to look at them. One of my moc with about 1,000 pieces took almost 8 hours to do on my main. transparency can reduce even the best machine to a crawl and one of my moc had a lot.

Anyway here's MF with galaxy in the background: 1420x1140 image Looks kind of close to end of Ep5 when Lando and Chewie left to look for Jabba so they could rescue Hans.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Lego Otaku

[Nachapon Lego]

Thank you for the uploading. Is Flickr making JPG automatically? Because picture is still presented as JPG. I resized it down to 800x600 to reduce the moire caused by JPG.

I didn't noticed that, but the 1024x768 shoud be in "all size" in Flickr.

Please try to download PNG from my brickshelf gallery or page 6

Edited July 10, 2012 by bbqqq

[Seluryar]

Is it me or does this converter put in random spaces between parts that make each render look hand-built?

example below:

[copperwonder]

Having Trouble with render after I click run I get the following error... (I seem to be close to resolution per others with similar issues)

Here is my message:

Preset INI file is 'C:\Users\Wonder\Documents\POV-Ray\v3.7\ini\quickres.ini', section is '[512x384, No AA]'.

Preset source file is 'C:\Users\Wonder\Desktop\5ShopALL.pov'.

Rendering with 4 threads.

Parser Options

Input file: C:\Users\Wonder\Desktop\5ShopALL.pov

Remove bounds........On

Split unions.........Off

Library paths:

\\.\LDDIncludes

C:\Users\Wonder\Documents\POV-Ray\v3.7\include

C:\Windows\Fonts

Clock value: 0.000 (Animation off)

Image Output Options

Image resolution.....512 by 384 (rows 1 to 384, columns 1 to 512).

Output file..........C:\Users\Wonder\Desktop\5ShopALL.png, 24 bpp PNG

Dithering............Off

Graphic display......On (gamma: sRGB)

Mosaic preview.......Off

Continued trace......Off

Information Output Options

All Streams to console..........On

Debug Stream to console.........On

Fatal Stream to console.........On

Render Stream to console........On

Statistics Stream to console....On

Warning Stream to console.......On

Possible Parse Error: Cannot find file 'ldd_colors_declarations.bin', even after trying to append file type

extension.

-

"\\.\LDDIncludes\ldd_default_colors.inc" line 20: Parse Error: Cannot open include file

ldd_colors_declarations.bin.

Render failed

-

CPU time used: kernel 0.03 seconds, user 0.00 seconds, total 0.03 seconds.

Elapsed time 0.41 seconds.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

LDD to POV Converter is running in background. I've tried moving the POV file to the desktop etc but nothing. The error seems simple but can't figure it out. BTW this is an awesome looking tool!

Thanks for your help.

[Nachapon Lego]

Is it me or does this converter put in random spaces between parts that make each render look hand-built?

Because you checked "Use part position variances"?

Edited July 11, 2012 by bbqqq

[hrontos]

Hee hee done in a couple hours, initial image at 4000x3000 with no AA, all bevel (not just visible), and no background.

I'll have to look at them. One of my moc with about 1,000 pieces took almost 8 hours to do on my main. transparency can reduce even the best machine to a crawl and one of my moc had a lot.

Anyway here's MF with galaxy in the background: 1420x1140 image Looks kind of close to end of Ep5 when Lando and Chewie left to look for Jabba so they could rescue Hans.

That was really fast, no chance to be that fast with only 4 cores. So I will have to wait a "bit" more for mine.

[hrontos]

Having Trouble with render after I click run I get the following error... (I seem to be close to resolution per others with similar issues)

LDD to POV Converter is running in background. I've tried moving the POV file to the desktop etc but nothing. The error seems simple but can't figure it out. BTW this is an awesome looking tool!

Thanks for your help.

Which version of POV-Ray 3.7 are you exactly using (RC3, RC5, RC6, 32bit, 64bit)? And which OS are you using? Note: 32bit version of LDD2POVRay does not work with 64bit version of POV-Ray.

[copperwonder]

Which version of POV-Ray 3.7 are you exactly using (RC3, RC5, RC6, 32bit, 64bit)? And which OS are you using? Note: 32bit version of LDD2POVRay does not work with 64bit version of POV-Ray.

THAT'S IT! I was using the 32 Bit version of LDD to POV with the 64 Bit Version of POV-Ray!

I uninstalled the 32 bit LDD to POV ray and selected the 64 BIT from your website. I restarted, tried again and it works! It is beautiful. Wow, I am so impressed. Great Job! and thank you!

(add to Troubleshooting)

[kamos]

After 14 and half hours of rendering on 1920x1080 0.3AA (Intel I5 760), the result is awesome. But I have a question:

"Titanium metallic" color on my render seems to be somehow..."oiled" (the rainbow spectrum happening if is water combined with oil) instead of solid gloss color.

Is this supposed to happen?

[hrontos]

After 14 and half hours of rendering on 1920x1080 0.3AA (Intel I5 760), the result is awesome. But I have a question:

"Titanium metallic" color on my render seems to be somehow..."oiled" (the rainbow spectrum happening if is water combined with oil) instead of solid gloss color.

Is this supposed to happen?

Unfortunatelly the metallic, pearl and translucent materials are quite difficult to define. Mainly because their final appearance strongly depeneds on the lighting. So the current definitions of those materials are not very good, only some of them produce good results and sometimes only when not looking too closely. :-)

As Superkalle mentioned, if anybody has some proposals or better custom materials or color definitions, please, share them with us. More people can make more tests so we can have better materials sooner.

Thank you.

[Calabar]

Discussion about bbqqq rendering and relative contest moved in a separate topic.