Subject:
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Re: Mesh Enhancer
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad
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Date:
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Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:04:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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11163 times
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In lugnet.cad, Tom Beattie wrote:
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All this sounds interesting, however you may have to guide me some of the way
here.
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This all sounds very familiar. I only started rendering myself late last year,
and I also struggled through all of these questions. Hopefully I will be able
to answer most of them so you can get through it more quickly!
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I have always been interested in Anton’s Library but to be honest I never
worked out how to use it within the MLCad, L3PAO, LGEO, POV tool chain, or
when to consider it as an alternative to LGEO parts.
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OK, as you have already noticed, Anton’s library is in just one big file instead
of in individual part files like LGEO. So the simple answer to your question is
that the reason you can’t figure out how to use it within the tool chain is
because Anton didn’t design it to work within the tool chain. He uses his own
system. But there are ways to force it to work with a little creativity which
is, after all, what LEGO is all about.
I should firstly point out that there is nothing inherently better about LGEO
parts than Anton’s parts, or vice versa. Since I use the “POV tool chain” like
you do, I tend to only use one of Anton’s parts when it is not available in the
LGEO library. When this comes up, I manually add it to the tool chain as I
previously described.
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I currently model in MLCad, genreate a POV file from L3PAO (with LGEO part
substitution) and manually tweek the POV file to suit. But I am always
looking for improvements. So here goes.
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This is what I also do for the most part. Lately, I have been exporting
directly from LDView, which I highly recommend. It renders (no pun intended)
most of the rest of the questions moot since it takes care of almost everything.
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First Question.
I have downloaded Anton’s Latest parts library (535 library)and it contains
a ‘library.lib’ and ‘material.lib’ file - no sign of either ‘ar
library.inc’, or ‘ar material.inc’. I assume they are similar but do they
function/referenced in the same way?
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This one is easy but not intuitive. Just change the names of the files. That’s
it. You only need to the file names to be as Anton named them if you are using
his tools. Just rename them and you’re done.
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Second Question.
I assume your custom ‘ar 0553.inc’ file (as described above) lives in the NEW
LGEO release within the ‘ar’folder along with other ‘ar xxxx.inc’ files.
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That’s not a question. ;-) But you are correct. Actually it can live anywhere
which is in your search path for includes, but the directory you mentioned is
the most logical place.
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Third Question.
I am currently using the older version of LGEO because when I use L3PAO it
looks for the various ‘l2p xxx.tab’ files contained within the original LGEO
folder. The New LGEO has ‘lg colours.lst’, and ‘lg elements.lst’ files which
I can not get to play well with L3PAO. Is there a way around this? I
understand it works with the latest L3P release (1.4) but I really struggle
with command line stuff so I have stayed with L3PAO as the front end of L3P
1.3 (I haven’t checked if it works with L3P 1.4 to be honest as I was having
enough trouble with the new LGEO I gave up, and went back to my ‘old ways’.
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I also had this problem. The newer version of L3P works great with the new LGEO
library, so I figured out how to use the command line version. However, LDView
uses the new LGEO library just fine and is even easier anyway, so I now go this
route. Way to go Travis!! Note that although L3P technically supports Anton’s
parts, it currently only has a few of them built in and the part you asked for
is not one of them.
I’m pretty sure Travis is working on a way to automate the inclusion of Anton’s
parts within LDView, but it’s an uphill battle. If you come up with any
brilliant ideas, make sure to let him know.
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Fourth Question.
is the .lst file you mention ‘parts.lst’- the one generated by mklist.exe?
What is the reason to up date this?
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Sorry, I should have been more specific. I am not referring to the parts.lst
file. Don’t mess with that one. I’m referring to lg_elements.lst. This is
the file that L3P uses to determine which LGEO parts to substitute for which
LDRAW parts. It is just a text file and is very intuitive. The line you would
add looks like this:
The translation is that LDRAW part 553 will be replaced with part 0553.inc, and
the A means that it is an Anton Raves part. The rest of the magic is in the
ar_0553.inc file. It calls Anton’s library and puts in the actual part.
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Fifth Question.
Is exporting from LDVeiw to POV a comparable process to processing a .mpd
through L3PAO? And does it reference the New or Original LGEO part
libraries?. And going full circle how do you (if you can) integrate Anton’s
library into this workflow - or is this a manual thing within POV.
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Exporting through LDView is actually much easier (in my opinion). You first
open the MPD in LDView (easy enough). Then you rotate it to whatever angle and
view you like. Then you hit the “export” button. It will export the camera
angles and all the parts, including making LGEO substitutions. That’s it. You
can go into POV-Ray and render it with no modifications if you like. I usually
do a quick edit to use a different set of colors, but that’s it.
LDView does something similar to (but different from) L3P to substitute parts.
Instead of using the lg_elements.lst file, it uses a file called LGEO.xml which
is, clearly, an XML file. This is also just plain text. The format is pretty
obvious once you open it. The code I provided earlier is what you will place
inside this XML file to add support for the 2x2 dome. Once you do this, LDView
will process it correctly from now on.
Finally, let me point out a couple of things about the ar_0553.inc file itself.
The best way to incorporate one of these for a new part from Anton’s library is
to start with a copy of one of the existing ar.inc files. Start by changing the
file name (553) and part numbers inside the file to whatever the part number you
are replacing is. Leave the includes of the AR files alone. The only other
thing you may have to mess with is the transformation matrix. Anton’s parts are
not always rotated the same way that LGEO are, so you may have to adjust them
the first time. I do this by making a simple model with only a few parts and
then mess with the matrix and re-render until it looks right. You only have to
do this once, and I have already done it for this particular part. The first 3
lines control rotation and you should only have to change the signs. The last
line is translation.
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I think that’s it. Dig under the surface and it’s amazing how much of this
goes over my head. Oh well, I’ll concentrate on placing cameras and lights -
i’m getting better at that.
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I hope this all works for you. Let me know if you have more trouble. Feel free
to take a look at my assortment of renders
here and ask any other
questions you might have about how I accomplished various things. I’m still
learning myself and collaboration always makes things easier.
For reference, these are the other of Anton’s part I have incorporated so far.
I can send you the .inc files for any you are interested in.
- 44126, Slope, Curved 6 x 2
- 42022, Slope Brick Round 1 x 6
- 3842, Minifig Helmet
- 33008, Scala Flower Pot
- 30367, R2D2 Head (same as 553)
- 2536, Palm Segment
- 2489, Barrel
Here’s what they look like straight from L3P:
Here’s what they look like with Anton’s parts and my color substitutions:
And here’s what they look like with radiosity and a reflective floor:
Happy rendering!
Eric
Technicopedia
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Mesh Enhancer
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| Hello Eric. Wow!!! Talk about teaching a man to fish!! Well I followed all the instructions and presto... In my enjoyment, I put paid to another rendering bug bear, the 6 x 6 Inverted Dish. (URL) It's now a gloriously smooth (URL) The process of (...) (15 years ago, 20-Jun-09, to lugnet.cad, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Mesh Enhancer
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| (...) Thanks Eric. All this sounds interesting, however you may have to guide me some of the way here. I have always been interested in Anton's Library but to be honest I never worked out how to use it within the MLCad, L3PAO, LGEO, POV tool chain, (...) (15 years ago, 19-Jun-09, to lugnet.cad, FTX)
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