LDConfig Confusion

[Tore Eriksson]

I just downloaded the latest LDConfig.ldr from http://www.ldraw.org/library/official/LDConfig.ldr
Its header reads:
0 !LDRAW_ORG Configuration UPDATE 2011-06-03

But I already have a copy of LDConfig.ldr, and its header reads:
0 !LDRAW_ORG Configuration UPDATE 2010-06-19

This is supposed to be newer, but in the currently official but older(?), there are four more colours compared to the one I already have on my hard drive.

83 Metallic_Black VALUE #1A2831 EDGE #000000 METAL
87 Metallic_Dark_Gray VALUE #6D6E5C EDGE #5D5B53 METAL
321 Dark_Azure VALUE #078BC9 EDGE #088DCD
323 Light_Aqua VALUE #ADC3C0 EDGE #AFC9C2

What is this file dated 2011-06-19? I don't know where it comes from.
And are those four colours official standard? (I guess so since they are there in the ufficial version.)

/Tore

[Tim Gould]

Hi Tore,

I'm not exactly sure what you mean with the newer/older discussion. The one you link to has a newer date by just under a year (2011-06-03) than the date you state for your current copy (2010-06-19).

Tim

[Tore Eriksson]

Time to go to bed. 2010 != 2011.
Thanks.

[Tore Eriksson]

But me being over-tired or not,

Colours 21, 66, and 67
21 Glow_In_Dark_Opaque VALUE #E0FFB0 EDGE #A4C374 ALPHA 250 LUMINANCE 15
66 Rubber_Trans_Yellow VALUE #CAB000 EDGE #8E7400 ALPHA 128 RUBBER
67 Rubber_Trans_Clear VALUE #FFFFFF EDGE #C3C3C3 ALPHA 128 RUBBER
generate the same POV error after being run through L3P v1.4 Beta:

#declare L3Texture21 = L3TextureOtherRGBFAL(224,255,176,0,250,15)
Parse Error: Cannot assign uninitialized identifier.

#declare L3Texture66 = L3TextureOtherRGBFAL(202,176,0,3,128,-1)
Parse Error: Cannot assign uninitialized identifier.

#declare L3Texture67 = L3TextureOtherRGBFAL(255,255,255,3,128,-1)
Parse Error: Cannot assign uninitialized identifier.

Seems like this L3TextureOtherRGBFAL thingie is never being defined?

/Tore

[Scott Wardlaw]

L3 is out...LDView export to POV-Ray is in

[Tore Eriksson]

User friendliness is out... Hours of tweaking and searching for and installing include files is in

Parse Error: Cannot open include file lg_defs.inc.
Parse Error: Cannot open include file lg_color.inc.
and so on...

Question 1 (of probably many): If I ever eventually find all include files and extra files requested, can I then make batch conversions running LDView from command line? Like this, but with LDView instead of L3P

: L3P Batch File
L3P.exe @An02000.ldr -cc1740,-105,3410 -cla1860,-85,3430 -l -b0.25,0.75,1 -o -q2 -ildatsville.inc -ibhills.pov
L3P.exe @An02001.ldr -cc1740,-105,3390 -cla1860,-85,3410 -l -b0.25,0.75,1 -o -q2 -ildatsville.inc -ibhills.pov
L3P.exe @An02002.ldr -cc1740,-105,3370 -cla1860,-85,3390 -l -b0.25,0.75,1 -o -q2 -ildatsville.inc -ibhills.pov
L3P.exe @An02003.ldr -cc1740,-105,3350 -cla1860,-85,3370 -l -b0.25,0.75,1 -o -q2 -ildatsville.inc -ibhills.pov
L3P.exe @An02004.ldr -cc1740,-105,3330 -cla1860,-85,3350 -l -b0.25,0.75,1 -o -q2 -ildatsville.inc -ibhills.pov
L3P.exe @An02005.ldr -cc1740,-105,3310 -cla1860,-85,3330 -l -b0.25,0.75,1 -o -q2 -ildatsville.inc -ibhills.pov

Question 2: If yes, will LDView make a silent conversion, or will it render every frame before exporting to POV?

[Orion Pobursky]

The errors you're getting are for the LGEO library which I believe is turned on by default (by user request I might add) when doing an export. I'll look up how to turn this off once I'm near a computer.

[Travis Cobbs]

Correct. In the Save dialog that comes up when you do an export, click the Options... button next to the file type combo box and uncheck the "Use XML mapping file" option. Then hit OK on the options dialog, then save the file as usual. For future exports, you don't have to do this, since it remembers your selected options.

[Tore Eriksson]

That made the trick.

I saw that option, but as I was looking for something like "Use LGEO Library", it was a too long shot for me.

I don't expect LDView to support camera.dat and look_at.dat, but is there some way to tell LDView where to place the POV camera and look_at-point from outside the program, like command line options, an include or an ini file, or some other kind of META statement?

Thanks,
/Tore

[Travis Cobbs]

There isn't full camera placement ability from the command line, but LDView does recognize and support L3P's camera globe command line options. (See LDView's in-depth help file if you don't already know the L3P syntax.) The look-at point can be set with LDView's -ModelCenter=X,Y,Z command line option (also in the help).

[Tore Eriksson]

Well, I guess that's a little step backwards to the need of post-processing the output POV file. I'll be very happy to be proven wrong though!

The two variables (or are they constants? Doesn't matter.) LDXCameraLoc and LDXCameraLookAt are clearly defined without any confusing if-statments. I like that!

This is getting interesting.

[Tim Gould]

Hi Tore,

When I used l3p (the older version) I had to hand-edit every single POV file it generated to make it use my own various includes and other alterations to make nice renders. I also had to add details, extract information by eye etc.

With LDView export I do all this in an include, using all the parameters that LDView spits out (no more numbers to be dealt with!), and automate just about everything I like to do to POV. For this reason alone I simply love LDView output.

It takes some time to set up, but once you set LDView output to your taste it is incredibly excellent.

Tim

PS. Although as a caveat I did give a lot of feedback during its development so it may be tweaked somewhat to my personal desires

[Tore Eriksson]

Now it was my turn to look a word up: "caveat". Never seen it before.

And, I'm sorry, I don't understand at all the whole paragraph "With LDView export I do all this in an include, using all the parameters that LDView spits out (no more numbers to be dealt with!), and automate just about everything I like to do to POV. For this reason alone I simply love LDView output."

How can you do that when even include files aren't supported in the command line, as far as I can see?

The only way I see is that inline POV still is supported by LDView (but strongly discouraged by the LDraw Elite, so for how long...?) so I can still add

0 L3P IFPOV
0 #include "hills.pov"
0 L3P ENDPOV

into the LDraw file - at least in the current version of LDView.

[Orion Pobursky]

The only way I see is that inline POV still is supported by LDView (but strongly discouraged by the LDraw Elite, so for how long...?)

Only in Official Library files. You own personal stuff is perfectly fine.

[Travis Cobbs]

In the POV Export options in LDView, there is a "Top include filename" and "Bottom include filename". If you enter any text in those fields, LDView will add #include statements at the top and/or bottom of the file to include the given file(s). The top include happens after all the LDX #declare statements, so you can redefine any of them you want inside your include. And all my color declarations are inclosed in #ifndef, so if you want to have your own custom color declarations, just use the same names LDView generates (for example, LDXColor1 for color number 1). The bottom one is the last line of the file. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it's good for, but I think Tim probably requested it.

As a side note, many of the export settings have tooltip help associated with them. So, for example, if you hover the mouse over the top include filename text field, it will describe what the field is used for.

[Tim Gould]

Hi Tore,

LDview allows you to specify two global include files in the export options. One called early (to define eg. colours) and one called right at the end of the file (to eg. override the camera, include backgrounds etc.),

So most of your customisations can be included in generic include files. I've attached my default one with custom lighting and floors (defined via a second file).

Tim

[Tim Gould]

> The bottom one is the last line of the file.
> To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it's good
> for, but I think Tim probably requested it.

I did

Most importanly, by having it at the end of the file you can override the camera (since you can only ever have one camera) if you wish. This is especially important if you want to make animations.

It also allows you to make simple hand or automated edits just before the include file (eg. to define parameters for a given file that are passed to a generic include file). I think there's some other operations that should also be defined last if present though I can't think of them off-hand.

Tim

[Tore Eriksson]

Sorry for being such a pain, but how exactly can I override the camera? If I redeclare LDXCameraLoc and LDXCameraLookAt at the end of the POV file, that wouldn't change the camera settings since those varibles are already used in the camera block. That would be a new camera block I guess? (if Pov-ray accepts such re-declarations, I'm not sure.)

[Tim Gould]

You simply redeclare the camera in the include file called last and that will override all previous cameras.

So yes, a completely new camera block is all you need, provided it is called in the last include file.

Tim

[Tore Eriksson]

Thank you very much, Tim. Now I have something to play with this night, too...

/Tore

[Tore Eriksson]

Orion Pobursky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>

> The only way I see is that inline POV still is
> supported by LDView (but strongly discouraged by
> the LDraw Elite, so for how long...?)
>

>
> Only in Official Library files. You own personal
> stuff is perfectly fine.


That's not the impression I get when I read all these Warnings generated by L3P about IFPOV etc statements being... I don't remember the exact word but kind of a synonym to discontinued or obsolete, implying that they soon no longer will be supported. This I believe was also confirmed when I protested at LUGnet.

But if this is the current policy, I am happy and relieved. Please don't change your minds again!

/Tore

[Orion Pobursky]

Trust me. It was never the intent to "ban" these commands outright. In fact it's kind of impossible for us to do that. However, I would like to say that a community built POV library would be awesome. My small effort on this front (the LPov project) never really caught on.

[Michael Horvath]

But me being over-tired or not,

Colours 21, 66, and 67
21 Glow_In_Dark_Opaque VALUE #E0FFB0 EDGE #A4C374 ALPHA 250 LUMINANCE 15
66 Rubber_Trans_Yellow VALUE #CAB000 EDGE #8E7400 ALPHA 128 RUBBER
67 Rubber_Trans_Clear VALUE #FFFFFF EDGE #C3C3C3 ALPHA 128 RUBBER
generate the same POV error after being run through L3P v1.4 Beta:

#declare L3Texture21 = L3TextureOtherRGBFAL(224,255,176,0,250,15)
Parse Error: Cannot assign uninitialized identifier.

#declare L3Texture66 = L3TextureOtherRGBFAL(202,176,0,3,128,-1)
Parse Error: Cannot assign uninitialized identifier.

#declare L3Texture67 = L3TextureOtherRGBFAL(255,255,255,3,128,-1)
Parse Error: Cannot assign uninitialized identifier.

Seems like this L3TextureOtherRGBFAL thingie is never being defined?

/Tore

I just encountered this same issue, LOL. This thread is the only Google result when searching by the macro's name.