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In lugnet.cad, John O'Keefe wrote:
> Renderings like LEGO are within our capability. Have you seen the renders by
> Koyan here:
>
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=Koyan
>
> There are a few others that are also creating very nice renders. The secret
> seems to be figuring out the specific settings used to create very nice
> renderings like LEGO does. I don't think it is outside of our capability as
> seen by Koyan's and others renderings. It is just figuring out how to do it.
> I am in that pursuit right now. Once I figure it out I plan on writing a
> tutorial and letting others know so that they can create similar nice
> renders.
>
> There have been a couple threads recently in lugnet.cad.ray were we have
> been discussing Radiosity and HDRI techniques. A combination of Radiosity
> and HDRI seems to be the key to good renders. You can see some of my
> progress here while I was learning about radiosity:
>
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=159286
>
> This render here is just using Radiosity and it turned out pretty good:
>
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1542744
>
> I am currently trying to figure out HDRI techniques.
>
> - John
>
> "Dean Earley" <dean@earlsoft.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:Isqz2H.1I4L@lugnet.com...
> > Its not fair, Lego's renders are better than ours :(
> > http://cache.lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/LEGOAboutUs-ImageLibrary/images/2057/pic3988E24D-ED33-426A-B2A7-D4F294A24AF9.jpg
> > (beware, huge)
> >
> > --
> > Dean Earley, Dee (dean@earlsoft.co.uk)
> >
> > irc: irc://irc.blitzed.org/
> > web: http://personal.earlsoft.co.uk
> > phone: +44 (0)780 8369596
First, I would like to agree that there are quite a few nice renders out on
Brickshelf and the various personal sites.
Before I begin I do not want this to come across as criticism, but I have a few
questions/comments to make about some of the renders and tools.
Sometime back I bought the book 'Virtual LEGO' in hopes of having a
comprehensive resource for learning how to use the various Lego applications and
creating nice renders as seen on Brickshelf. Before this I had tried
downloading the individual programs and following the tutorials on ldraw.org to
create my own renders. This attempt ended in frustration, because nothing
seemed to work as described on ldraw.org. Anyway I hoped the book 'Virtual
Lego' would help, plus having a comprehensive install for all of the
applications. Again I was sorely disappointed because nothing seemed to work as
advertised. I sifted through the various posts on lugnet in order to find the
solution to the software problems I was experiencing. After a considerable
amount of time I was finally able to get everything to work, but the renders
were horrible, nothing like what I have seen posted by Koyan, Orion, or anyone
else. So I looked over the code snippets that would be posted and found this to
be futile because key include files would be missing so there was no way to
study the code. Finally, I gave up and started using Bryce to do my renders. In
many it is not efficient, but it works.
Now reading some of the posts I am wondering if I or anyone else would stand a
chance getting started with rendering. On another post someone had posted one
of Orion's images and was trying to reproduce the image. Orion helpfully
responded with the technique he used to create the image. The list of steps
barely resembled what is posted in the ldraw.org tutorials and nothing like what
is in the 'Virtual Lego' book.
Now that my rant is out of the way onto my questions regarding rendering:
1. Why does everyone strive for Lego renders that look the same? It is pretty
cool to photorealistic results whether it be by using HDRI and/or various
radiosity techniques, but where is the individual styles. When I look at some
of the renders on Brickshelf I have to look at the names to tell if the render
was done by.
2. One of things I enjoy about Lego is the level of creativity that can be
achieved. I have seen some incredibly imaginative uses for parts and really
awesome building techniques especially with some of the mecha. I was wondering
can this be said for Lego rendering. It seems that you build the model and then
drop code to generate the model into a predefined script and hit the 'Run'
button and wait for the render to finish? Other than the people who come up
with the various utilties where is the creativity with the renders?
In closing I will probably get flamed for remarks. My intention is not to be
mean just questioning. As a whole I have enjoyed the Lego community and the
software tools. Primarily I use DAT2DXF and LeoCAD to export parts into
something I can use in Bryce. So to the authors of those two programs thank you
very much and keep up the good work.
John.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Lego renders
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| Hi John, I'm sorry you've had so much trouble with ray tracing. I've tried to answer some points below. (...) The thing about rendering is that it is a combination of art and science. There are so many parameters to deal with and what looks good in (...) (18 years ago, 9-Jan-06, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
| | | Re: Lego renders
|
| John, that is my goal with asking a lot of questions about rendering and trying stuff myself. I like you have found it hard but I am hoping that once I learn how to create a nice render I can share the methods. Hopefully I can present it in such a (...) (18 years ago, 9-Jan-06, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.ray)
| | | Re: Lego renders
|
| (...) Sorry to hear that. There's a full world of time-wasting waiting for you :-) Maybe you should start 'in the other end', that's how I began rendering. Install the standard POVRay and play with that (no Lego, just plain POVRay) until you feel (...) (18 years ago, 10-Jan-06, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.ray)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Lego renders
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| Renderings like LEGO are within our capability. Have you seen the renders by Koyan here: (URL) are a few others that are also creating very nice renders. The secret seems to be figuring out the specific settings used to create very nice renderings (...) (18 years ago, 8-Jan-06, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.ray)
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