Having done a fair amount of cg modeling and animating I've extracted a few lego pieces for use in programs I'm more familiar with. These things have some of the most insane meshes I've ever seen and the details on them (faces, words, printed designs etc...) are actual models, floating off the main model instead of being a simple texture.
Why??? wouldn't it be easier to have them be a texture with a black and white transparency map that tells the computer which parts to not re-color when you select a new color?
Obviously it all works, Ldraw is an amazing program and its part authors are damn hard workers but I want to understand why this route was taken.
Why??? wouldn't it be easier to have them be a texture with a black and white transparency map that tells the computer which parts to not re-color when you select a new color?
Obviously it all works, Ldraw is an amazing program and its part authors are damn hard workers but I want to understand why this route was taken.