Trying to figure out workflow: LDRAW -> Blender -> Pixie

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Howdy folks. I’ve spent the better part of today driving around Google trying to iron things out with a project idea in my head.

I’m trained in 3D Studio Max, and have put togeather some smallish graphics in Blender… enough to figure out that I like it, and I was looking for another project to work on.

I then discovered LDRAW (the 3D lego drawing toolkit) and the Star Wars Lego Game for gamecube at about the same time, and thought that I’d want to put togeather a few bits of 3D graphics.

A friend of mine got his hands on LDRAW and is cranking out 3D models for me to animate, that’s all fine and dandy.

At the same time, I also want to put togeather a small Pixie Renderman Renderfarm, having just seen Cars (and being easily suggestable), I decided that I wanted to put togeather a bit of an animation and work on my own renderfarm. Again, I’ve got the computers, and I’m going to play with DrQueue, but I need a project.

SO!

I thought to myself, Why don’t I put togeather some LDRAW models and render them on my Pixie renderfarm? It keeps my friend and I busy for a while. So I dove into research with Google.

Here’s where I get stuck. I found a great LDRAW to Renderman RIB converter (http://www.levork.org/l2rib.html). It produces some slick output. I especially like the little "LEGO"s on the studs of the bricks. However, it doesn’t have any animation capability. And it’s lighting seems a bit ad-hoc.

I wanted to use Blender to animate the pieces and make the special effects (blaster shots, shields, engine glow, explosions, etc). How can I get these models into Blender? Does Blender have RIB inport? Or do I go another format conversion route? Blender seems to have quite a few scripts for Renderman output (I’ve seen Blenderman and BlendertoRenderman and many others, in various states of development)… which has the best results so far? Anybody use 'em?

I want to get the highest quality output that I can and I want to hit my 'farm quite well (baptism by fire kind of thing). I’m planning to start at the “rotating brick” stage and build up from that. But instead of blindly poking at the internet to see what there be, I thought that I might drop a question here about workflow. What programs to use to get the best output, etc. The requirements for the project (to sum up) are to use LDRAW to model, Blender to animate/texture/shade/light, and Pixie to render (on a DrQueue farm).

All suggestions would be welcome as the project hasn’t started yet.

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if you do some search in this forum, you can find several scripts that can import data file for LDraw into blender directly. for example
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=22507&highlight=ldraw
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=29061&highlight=ldraw
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=26434&highlight=ldraw

however, these scripts are all too old and I don’t know whether they run in the current blender.
3DRe said "
you can also open LDraw files in Leocad, and then export them to OBJ. I’ve got great results this way." maybe that is useful for you.

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Next Render Man literate ;). Try to live without Borland C++ Builder and MS Visual C++. I.v tried trought last years all RM interfaces with all existing OS’s and C compilators in our galaxy. Acctualy i’m also playing with pixie because of it’s speed. Look for Korean sites and artists, f.e. Madcrew from Seol. They mastered Pixie. Some solutions i can give you:
If you’re under windows:
1.
K3D [comes with all programing interfaces you need to play with RM, fanthastic Rib geometry support, also Python 2.4.3 inside] 0.51 version is just total. I agree it’s all in one for RenderMan.
Djgpp environment with gcc 3.1
Pixie
Blender with Render Man [set you %PYTHONHOME% environment variable to thew path with python 2.3 or 2.2.3,blender 2.33 - higher versions have serious problems with High Level models]
2.
Cygwin with gcc
Pixie.src.tar packages
K3D or MOPS source tarballs
GTK++ 2.2.x and up
3.
Microsoft Server Edition 2003 SE [Free Tryout]
Microsoft Visual C++ [Free Trial]
Borland C++ Builder 6 [you can upload for free their BCC32]
Animal Logic Maya Man or free Liquid 1.6
Maya 4.5, 5 or 6
Entropy or BMRT by Exluna or AIR
Prman by Pixar with RAT /than you 'll find all C++ environments usefull/
Ok. It was for windows
4.
Next f.e.:
Linux, BSD, AIX, Irix, HP UX, Solaris, OSX, BE
GCC 2.9.53 and up [don’t even touch 4.xx] with libc
K3D
MOPS[AYAM]
AQSIS
Pixie
BMRT
QT by Trolltech
GTK 2.2x
To put your frames together good choice is Cinelerra editor [than you need openquicktime]. Animation 70fps/2

Sun Java Runtime 1.3 and BORG RenderMan Server for Farming [f.e. BMRT in frankenrender mode rendering at once layered frames with different enfines multipass e.t.c. than]
Java man - great java built Render Man implementation
Anjuta - as flexible C/C#/C++ editor with debuggers e.t.c.

Most important. To keep all scene elements under controll take care for full log output. It’s no place for -quiet programing work. Always configure your environments to show you full proces cout.

Emacs - to put your scene scripts and code elements together.
Anyway. Have a nice time :slight_smile: with watching Pixar’s Luxo and think what you can do with today’s computers power. Just amazing.

I think that Pixie is the best choice for today. B.T.W. if you need shader sources i can help you with *.sl listings a little.

GOd. I forgot. SL Builder is next great editor for your shading language with visual support /includes sample *.rib files/, what more. Export your geometry from Blender - don’t touch anything - no materials, no textures.
Take care about your object’s names. One bezier curve can make a lot of troubles with exporting geometry from blender so keep your scene as clean as you can.
Just do your modeling job export element by element to separate *.rib’s and escape from Blender as far as you can to your code editor:). Remember about light models. Blender’s basic cube is for Pixar a model of f.e. house.

All you need is at http://www.hoghend3d.com in RnderMan section [scripts, gius, uis, ribs,sls]

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Also for more f.e. java based tools that supports RM look at sourceforge.net and freshmeat.net Keywords: Renderman, Renderman Java Tools, or something like that.

To make yourself easier way to get what you want to see put for light source vectors single verticles - one for light source, second at target position, than you can easy get coordinates in output.rib for your f.e. spotlight.

Forget DR Queue when there is BORG