The current LDR-Importer gives me a scene with separate bricks. Every bricks is merged with its studs and in my case the LEGO logos because I modifed LDRAW for that.
It's great to have each brick merged because this is important for some things like modifying models in my 3d software like I could do in MLCad, LeoCAD etc. for animation, hiding objects or other operations.
LDRAW would of course offer to create instances by the modular system. That means you could also do instances of the LEGO logo and the studs what would shrink the scene data extremely but then I will run into a problem when I use the important "rounded edge" shader. This shader will simulate small beveled edges to make the bricks looking more complex and real.
An exporter has to export each brick as a separate merged object with material. For a software like MODO the instances have to be grouped by geormetry and color.
If there's a option for maximum instancing then each model is a group of elements with their instances. Beside the issue with the rounded edges shader it could be that huge hierachies of models with instances are not really good for the scene performance. You might lose the benefit of instances in this case. When you have a model like the Millennium Falcon with over 5200 bricks it's better to have the instance master merged bricks + instances = 5200 bricks instead of 5200 model groups with single studs incl. instances of those studs. No. It's better to use merged meshes of each brick with studs and LEGO logos.
Optionally you should have an option to turn LEGO logos on or off for export.
What's also very important. Before I import my fbx-model from BLENDER I load a scene with the complete LDRAW material setup in MODO. I will delete the materials which were imported with the fbx-model and they will be replaced by my final materials. My scene is just made for the fbx-results. Another exporter would create different color tags. For MECABRICKS I use a different material scene because the COLLADA-result looks different to BLENDER.
It's great to have each brick merged because this is important for some things like modifying models in my 3d software like I could do in MLCad, LeoCAD etc. for animation, hiding objects or other operations.
LDRAW would of course offer to create instances by the modular system. That means you could also do instances of the LEGO logo and the studs what would shrink the scene data extremely but then I will run into a problem when I use the important "rounded edge" shader. This shader will simulate small beveled edges to make the bricks looking more complex and real.
An exporter has to export each brick as a separate merged object with material. For a software like MODO the instances have to be grouped by geormetry and color.
If there's a option for maximum instancing then each model is a group of elements with their instances. Beside the issue with the rounded edges shader it could be that huge hierachies of models with instances are not really good for the scene performance. You might lose the benefit of instances in this case. When you have a model like the Millennium Falcon with over 5200 bricks it's better to have the instance master merged bricks + instances = 5200 bricks instead of 5200 model groups with single studs incl. instances of those studs. No. It's better to use merged meshes of each brick with studs and LEGO logos.
Optionally you should have an option to turn LEGO logos on or off for export.
What's also very important. Before I import my fbx-model from BLENDER I load a scene with the complete LDRAW material setup in MODO. I will delete the materials which were imported with the fbx-model and they will be replaced by my final materials. My scene is just made for the fbx-results. Another exporter would create different color tags. For MECABRICKS I use a different material scene because the COLLADA-result looks different to BLENDER.
LEGO IS MORE