Great virtualrepublic!
I can't wait to see your comparisons between Blender and Modo!

Unfortunately I don't understand almost anything about nodes, settings and code otherwise I would have helped in some way 😁

I want to share with you guys this important goal for me: 3️⃣ 0️⃣ 0️⃣ followers on Flickr! 😄

Congrats!

I think this one is my best render yet! Full size: http://www.bricksafe.com/files/Umbra-Manis/renders/Starfury%20Vs.%20Asteroids%20-%20Final.png

Animation test #001

42 frames.
11 minutes per frame.
500x500 pixels.
500 samples.

Resistance Trooper - Tan Jacket, Moustache (75131) by Scrubs.
1️⃣ Video (I don't know why the link doesn't work... this is the URL - https://youtu.be/xkNCXiebTQ4)
[youtube]https://youtu.be/xkNCXiebTQ4[/youtube]

2️⃣ animated GIF

I have a rigged minifigure in blender if you wish to use it?

Really? Well, I could do some other tests 😛

It's the one I used to do the walk test. I'll send you my file in a couple of days (I am away for the weekend).

Very nice, Zanna.

@Srubs for the future it makes sense to be able to create hierachies by groups what will be exported via COLLADA if possible to get grouped objects into BLENDER and MODO. That means: I can create a simple rig in MECABRICKS just by grouping elements. If you add a NULL.-object it would be perfect.

To animate a Minifig doesn't really need a complex Rig what Animal Logic is of course doing for their LEGO movie. Just animating by rotations and translations within a group/hierachy of objects is good enough for a classic stop motion style as a first simple step.

It would be really fantastic! 😄

For this easy animation I exported 3 different collada files:
• its legs (the only element that don't move)
• the ammo (1x1 round piece)
• its body (moved by recoil)

So I had to create 4 different Blender files (one for each of these elements and one for the final scene), that is a quite long work 😛
But maybe there is something easier that I don't know...!

zanna, this is incredible. 😮

@zanna. Yes there is something way easier. Just create a simple bone structure and assigne parts to bones. Then when you move a bone, pieces attached just follow.

I made a first comparison test between MODO and BLENDER. I am not familar with BLENDER yet. I was even happy to manage to move the camera somewhere. The programm is totally different to my other 3d-apps I used to far. I have to do more tests later to figure out how to scale the objects to the same level of MODO because this might also affect the look comparison. Actually I import a BLENDER scene to MODO by Collada and due to the stupid switch of the Y and Z axis in BLENDER - what is absolutely nonsense (I work in the animation business for almost 30 year) - I also have to correct the rotation of the model in MODO. I used the same HDR map for both scenes but I did not test yet if they really match in rotation.

I had to set the Strength for the HDR in BLENDER to 0.3. In MODO it's called Intensity of 0.5 W/srm2.
You will notice that the materials behave generally different because of different settings of course. While the BLENDER white transparent bricks look more fresh because they let you see the blue bricks in MODO those bricks look more realistic compared to real white bricks I guess. I have to check this with real bricks. I think the BLENDER bricks are too much transparent while the MODO bricks look too less transparent. There should be more blue visible. It might be the specular color in this case.

The difference in render time depends also from different settings of samples. I will dive deeper into BLENDER and try to find a workflow to sync MODO and BLENDER for more precise tests and adjusting materials.

Click on the GIF to enlarge to HD.

The difference is just incredible... 😮

I found the issue of my glass material. I use the diffuse color for transparent color and I added a node to push the value up to 50%. I changed in the actual render the HDR Intensity to 1.0. I will also look again into the colors of my bricks. Still much work to do.

Click on the GIF to enlarge to HD.

Another more precise test. I have to scale the BLENDER import to 0,0008, export to COLLADA, import to MODO, fix the rotation and that's it. I just delete the BLENDER model and use my COLLADA import from MECABRICKS with my actual material setup. I use the same HDR what is now lighting and reflecting correctly due to the identical scaling in both scenes. Here's the result.

Click on the GIF to enlarge to HD.

Thank you so much Renderbricks,
these tests and comparitions are really useful to understand the power of our 3D softwares 😉
Your material settings is really awesome!

Now it's my turn 😛
As always, the final render is done in Blender, but the dinosaur (whoops, 😮 this is a spoiler!) was exported by LDD with 3Dvia Printscreen, then I imported it in SimlabComposer, so I've been able to export a .dae (collada) file.
This workflow it's quite complicated and the geometry is not perfect, but our guru Renderbricks found a way to have nice results (please, show your research 😄 )

It looks zanntastic as usual.

C4D Rendering Test

After I could resolve a couple of issues along the way, I'm posting the result of the first MB rendering test using C4D here. It could still use some tweaking, but overall: not too shabby!

Quad Bike by W. Lange, on Flickr

Are you using Octane?

No, this is the built-in standard renderer.