Rendering LDRAW Reloaded & MECABRICKS
2016-02-27, 13:06 (This post was last modified: 2016-03-12, 21:18 by Gerald Lasser.)
2016-02-27, 13:06 (This post was last modified: 2016-03-12, 21:18 by Gerald Lasser.)
Hello,
it's a while ago I posted on the forums. In 2014 I made an intense research how to get LDRAW geometry into SOFTIMAGE and later MODO. What looks easy due to several export formats like OBJ or 3DS it's not that easy to get proper and error free meshes. Well, I worked out a not simple workflow and got some promising results what made me sticking with it.
Not to mention that LEGO is the mother of all 3d and the best and most amazing toy on this planet. :-)
Due to the time consuming process to import bigger models I was looking for alternatives and found MECABRICKS. At this stage this amazing webiste of a one-man-army called Nicolas Jarraud was just made for building your models, save them online and show them. I got in touch with Nicolas 'SCRUBS' Jarraud because this great alternative to LDD and other editors was screaming for a render feature. I sent him a list of ideas for features like exporting in a format what supports instances to make bigger models easy to handle and that he should find a way to add LEGO logos onto all studs.
What should I say? This nice person implemented everything in record time and it was blast. While my former LDRAW Millennium Falcon UCE model took two days to export - import to BLENDER - export - import - cleanup - get ready to render ... the same model built in MECRBRICKS took finally 15 minutes ready to render when I had my material scene completey setup.
The fact that MECABRICKS is a gift with a huge potential - far more intuitive to use than LDD in my opinion - I passed all my research results at this time to SCRUBS to help him to create a nice BLENDER setup what you can download on the MECABRICKS forums with a tutorial. SCRUBS was inspired and added more ideas by himself. I helped him with the German translation and new people with talent showed up on the forums rendering nice pictures even without any 3d skills.
MECABRICKS is growing slowly because adding new parts need model skills and an understanding for perfectionism to follow the guidelines how to model parts correctly for MECABRICKS. A few months ago I told SCRUBS that a LDD-importer would be awesome. Well ... added ... still beta but works like a charm.
Yesterday I went back to LDRAW. I finished my material setup based on the actual state of my MECABRICKS development and did another test.
Feel free to take a look at my Artstation portfolio
it's a while ago I posted on the forums. In 2014 I made an intense research how to get LDRAW geometry into SOFTIMAGE and later MODO. What looks easy due to several export formats like OBJ or 3DS it's not that easy to get proper and error free meshes. Well, I worked out a not simple workflow and got some promising results what made me sticking with it.
Not to mention that LEGO is the mother of all 3d and the best and most amazing toy on this planet. :-)
Due to the time consuming process to import bigger models I was looking for alternatives and found MECABRICKS. At this stage this amazing webiste of a one-man-army called Nicolas Jarraud was just made for building your models, save them online and show them. I got in touch with Nicolas 'SCRUBS' Jarraud because this great alternative to LDD and other editors was screaming for a render feature. I sent him a list of ideas for features like exporting in a format what supports instances to make bigger models easy to handle and that he should find a way to add LEGO logos onto all studs.
What should I say? This nice person implemented everything in record time and it was blast. While my former LDRAW Millennium Falcon UCE model took two days to export - import to BLENDER - export - import - cleanup - get ready to render ... the same model built in MECRBRICKS took finally 15 minutes ready to render when I had my material scene completey setup.
The fact that MECABRICKS is a gift with a huge potential - far more intuitive to use than LDD in my opinion - I passed all my research results at this time to SCRUBS to help him to create a nice BLENDER setup what you can download on the MECABRICKS forums with a tutorial. SCRUBS was inspired and added more ideas by himself. I helped him with the German translation and new people with talent showed up on the forums rendering nice pictures even without any 3d skills.
MECABRICKS is growing slowly because adding new parts need model skills and an understanding for perfectionism to follow the guidelines how to model parts correctly for MECABRICKS. A few months ago I told SCRUBS that a LDD-importer would be awesome. Well ... added ... still beta but works like a charm.
Yesterday I went back to LDRAW. I finished my material setup based on the actual state of my MECABRICKS development and did another test.
Feel free to take a look at my Artstation portfolio
LEGO IS MORE