(2022-04-01, 18:46)Violet Barrett Wrote:
- I'll have a look at that! Part of the issue is that Bionicle parts, being as they are, are not exactly friendly to the types of processes designed to make bricks.
- That's definitely going to be tricky to get people on board with, but I may be able to start bothering people about it! I'll definitely look into that, and see if I can start learning something about this.
- Keep in mind that the average Bionicle digital MOCist is not the average Lego or Technic MOCist - there's a high need for easy building, posing, and rendering, which LDCad is not necessarily designed for. The usual user who does the kind of stuff that the Biopack is made for is not likely to use other LDraw programs, and if they do, it's more of a means to an end than anything else.
If you are looking to get into authoring, there are quite a few Constraction/Bionicle parts on digital-bricks.de that haven't been processed for the library. Note that these pulls from LDD are quite rough and may require extensive editing to get to Library standards. You are right in that Constraction/Bionicle are are not easy to model, hence the conspicuous absences of these parts from the library.
(2022-04-01, 18:46)Violet Barrett Wrote:
- Is it possible to add new primitives without extending the LDraw spec? A number of Bionicle parts have a consistent attachment point - the stud for mask connections in the first few years - that differs from the usual stud connection. Could a primitive be added to a LDraw program that's not a part of the official spec and read properly, even if only in that program?
- Are there any tools or recommendations to optimize .dat filesize in the meantime, without introducing primitives?
For primitives, if you can make a case for a need, pretty much anything goes.
For optimization tools, have a look at DATHeader. It's the tool most of us use to combine triangles into quads.