I recently discovered that Studio's Eyesight renderer is a repackaged version of Blender's Cycles renderer. Maybe we could have some enterprising LDrawer write a true converter so that we don't have to deal with Studio's idiosyncrasies? In the interim, there's also Mechabrick's free Blender plugin (that I also recently discovered).
Studio rendering
(2020-02-24, 15:26)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I recently discovered that Studio's Eyesight renderer is a repackaged version of Blender's Cycles renderer. Maybe we could have some enterprising LDrawer write a true converter so that we don't have to deal with Studio's idiosyncrasies? In the interim, there's also Mechabrick's free Blender plugin (that I also recently discovered).
From what I read in some of Nicolas' tweets, it is that BL did acquire his Blender add-on
https://twitter.com/Mecabricks/status/11...2709588992
(2020-02-24, 16:45)Gerald Lasser Wrote: From what I read in some of Nicolas' tweets, it is that BL did acquire his Blender add-on
https://twitter.com/Mecabricks/status/11...2709588992
Hmm. That makes me even less impressed with Studio (which was already low to begin with).
(2020-02-24, 15:26)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I recently discovered that Studio's Eyesight renderer is a repackaged version of Blender's Cycles renderer. Maybe we could have some enterprising LDrawer write a true converter so that we don't have to deal with Studio's idiosyncrasies? In the interim, there's also Mechabrick's free Blender plugin (that I also recently discovered).Studio does have idiosyncrasies, but direct use of Blender is not for the fainthearted either... See https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-22780.html
(2020-02-24, 17:09)Philippe Hurbain Wrote: Studio does have idiosyncrasies, but direct use of Blender is not for the fainthearted either... See https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-22780.html
Yes but Cycles is separable from Blender. One could have a more community inclusive program that is basically the render section of Studio.
(2020-02-24, 15:26)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I recently discovered that Studio's Eyesight renderer is a repackaged version of Blender's Cycles renderer. Maybe we could have some enterprising LDrawer write a true converter so that we don't have to deal with Studio's idiosyncrasies? In the interim, there's also Mechabrick's free Blender plugin (that I also recently discovered).
I might consider it for a future version of LDCad if it wasn't for the extreme lack of time I'm currently experiencing
What format is the export using? Or does it all work trough that plugin?
Blenders native files are very complex binary format ones, so that won't be easy to generate.
But I found some info about it supporting USD which is a plain text format, which should be relatively easy to generate as we only need a very small subset for the raw LDraw data itself.
A whole lot more effort would go into setting up all the additional material and lighting stuff. But on the plus side that would be mostly static data to be used in each rendering.
Blenders native files are very complex binary format ones, so that won't be easy to generate.
But I found some info about it supporting USD which is a plain text format, which should be relatively easy to generate as we only need a very small subset for the raw LDraw data itself.
A whole lot more effort would go into setting up all the additional material and lighting stuff. But on the plus side that would be mostly static data to be used in each rendering.
(2020-02-24, 19:54)Roland Melkert Wrote: What format is the export using? Or does it all work trough that plugin?
Blenders native files are very complex binary format ones, so that won't be easy to generate.
But I found some info about it supporting USD which is a plain text format, which should be relatively easy to generate as we only need a very small subset for the raw LDraw data itself.
A whole lot more effort would go into setting up all the additional material and lighting stuff. But on the plus side that would be mostly static data to be used in each rendering.
Without actually downloading and installing, I think you need to export as obj from Mecabricks and then import using Mecabrick's plugin. I can tinker a bit on my personal computer.
(2020-02-24, 15:26)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I recently discovered that Studio's Eyesight renderer is a repackaged version of Blender's Cycles renderer. Maybe we could have some enterprising LDrawer write a true converter so that we don't have to deal with Studio's idiosyncrasies? In the interim, there's also Mechabrick's free Blender plugin (that I also recently discovered).
An alternative to POV-Ray would be nice, if the format is also text-based and customizable/scriptable. POV-Ray is so slow.
(2020-02-24, 21:54)Michael Horvath Wrote: An alternative to POV-Ray would be nice, if the format is also text-based and customizable/scriptable. POV-Ray is so slow.
Well, the format is definitely not text based since Blender (and probably by extension Cycles) use a binary file format. Since this uses Mecabricks custom plugin, the customization would most likely be limited to those customizations allowed by the plugin.
(2020-02-24, 22:24)Orion Pobursky Wrote: Well, the format is definitely not text based since Blender (and probably by extension Cycles) use a binary file format. Since this uses Mecabricks custom plugin, the customization would most likely be limited to those customizations allowed by the plugin.
The only way I even consider support for blender in LDCad, would be by using a format Blender can import out-of-the-box.
USD (Universal Scene Description Language) seems to be that format at first glance.
It appears to be atleast as configurable as pov script.
I have to revisit blender first to get the feel of things again, as I haven't worked with it for some time.
Then save something simple as .usd to see how the format stores a basic mesh.
RE: Studio rendering
2020-02-24, 23:36 (This post was last modified: 2020-02-24, 23:48 by Michael Horvath.)
2020-02-24, 23:36 (This post was last modified: 2020-02-24, 23:48 by Michael Horvath.)
(2020-02-24, 22:47)Roland Melkert Wrote: The only way I even consider support for blender in LDCad, would be by using a format Blender can import out-of-the-box.
USD (Universal Scene Description Language) seems to be that format at first glance.
It appears to be atleast as configurable as pov script.
I have to revisit blender first to get the feel of things again, as I haven't worked with it for some time.
Then save something simple as .usd to see how the format stores a basic mesh.
Thanks! I can't wait to see what you discover! (I am curious which renderer will use the most RAM because I am limited to only 16GB.)
(2020-02-24, 23:52)Orion Pobursky Wrote: The nice thing about Cycles is that it can offload rendering to the GPU
Bit of a problem...
It seems blender can only export USD, import is a planned feature
Anyone else have a idea on what format to generate in order to make import in blender as simple as possible?
RE: Studio rendering
2020-02-27, 8:00 (This post was last modified: 2020-02-27, 8:06 by Michael Horvath.)
2020-02-27, 8:00 (This post was last modified: 2020-02-27, 8:06 by Michael Horvath.)
(2020-02-27, 1:00)Roland Melkert Wrote: Bit of a problem...
It seems blender can only export USD, import is a planned feature
Anyone else have a idea on what format to generate in order to make import in blender as simple as possible?
IIRC, Yafaray can be run standalone and has a text based scene format. But I could never find anyone to help me actually use it. (I think Yafaray is dead for several years too. It has been at least five years since I investigated it, and I got very little response.)
(2020-02-27, 2:39)Orion Pobursky Wrote: Prolly obj is the best.
This won't allow for materials and lights etc.
I'm thinking to still try to setup a USD export in LDCad as it an upcoming standard used by Maya (pixar), 3DStudio and a number of other tools.
Until blender gets the import going (which will sooner of later happen for sure) I'll just use some other program to test it on.
If I read correctly Unity (also free for personal use) supports the format, so I'm planning to take a look at that first this weekend.
(2020-02-27, 18:43)Roland Melkert Wrote: This won't allow for materials and lights etc.
I'm thinking to still try to setup a USD export in LDCad as it an upcoming standard used by Maya (pixar), 3DStudio and a number of other tools.
Until blender gets the import going (which will sooner of later happen for sure) I'll just use some other program to test it on.
If I read correctly Unity (also free for personal use) supports the format, so I'm planning to take a look at that first this weekend.
Good point. Prolly the default for Blender then: Collada.
(2020-02-28, 20:29)Roland Melkert Wrote: Based on a quick export it appears to be easy to understand plain text xml.
Did a very quick and dirty single part export test, which gave me this:
The export file only holds the raw OpenGL mesh, which I then imported into blender and played a bit with materials.
I would like to add default material to the export itself, but for that I have to understand it first.
If someone could get me some default realistic lego-like plastic material in some format blender understands I could probably export it to see how it looks in the Collada format.
(2020-02-28, 22:55)Roland Melkert Wrote: Did a very quick and dirty single part export test
Been playing around some more.
Also discovered you have to activity enable cycles when rendering.
So a (flat) model export now renders like this in blender.
Export is still very messy, works only on non recursive models and does nothing with colors or transparency.
You also need to scale and rotate it once inside blender as blender defaults to meters units wise (so a 2x4 brick is 80 meters long
)
)
RE: Studio rendering
2021-01-30, 9:30 (This post was last modified: 2021-01-30, 9:30 by Michael Horvath.)
2021-01-30, 9:30 (This post was last modified: 2021-01-30, 9:30 by Michael Horvath.)
RE: Studio rendering
2021-02-01, 8:50 (This post was last modified: 2021-02-01, 8:54 by Michael Horvath.)
2021-02-01, 8:50 (This post was last modified: 2021-02-01, 8:54 by Michael Horvath.)
(2021-01-30, 20:51)Roland Melkert Wrote: I've changed the new export to glTF2 format and it now scales
I also tried exporting your datsville, which worked but blender takes forever to load it and eventually hangs/crashes (at least on my aging pc).
What hangs and crashes? The exporter or Blender?
[ed]
Never mind. I got it.
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