"I can import parts or 3d models for other origin (no mecabricks) and it works? for example pieces of lego digital designer or ldraw for especific pieces for projects an after scale"

You can import Digital Designer (LXF) to Mecabricks but this means it will place the existing Mecabricks parts by ID, color and transform information from the LDD file. No decorations! This works really good but there might be some position errors. If so you should report this to SCRUBS to help him to fix and optimize the importer.

An LDRAW importer does not exist. You need to import LDRAW to LDD first. But this can be limited because there's a special file in the LDD folder: ldraw.xml. This contains conversation information the same way like the Mecabricks LDD import works. The file is incomplete and does not support all type of bricks. I have a workflow to identify the parts and then I edit this file on my own to get missing LDRAW information imported.

Ok thanks

I recently found out that it's not a good idea (unless you have a really good computer) to use the template(s) with a model that has a lot of decorated parts. I had imported all the Nexo Knights Battle Suits to do a render of them all together. Then Blender kept freezing and crashing, so I went to go delete it and try again, at which point I noticed the .blend file size was a whopping 1.22 GB! I think this is due to the data already inside the template file, then adding a lot of pieces and image textures to it.

After many tries (and a bit of frustration :P), eventually I realized that it wasn't going to work if I used the template, so I just opened a regular startup file and utilized super hand add-on import function, which made the file size about 950 MB smaller...

Apologies, just coming back to working with this blender advanced after a while. Redownloaded latest blender 2.78, redownloaded blender advanced, redownloaded the x-wing model. Followed the manual to install the preferences, but when I import the collada it is super tiny, and materials not applied, but now I can't see the run script button. What are the next steps after importing a .dae? What have a I missed? Total noob here too so sorry!

Hello, the latest Advanced is no script anymore but an addon. You need to install the addon. Check the PDF with the Advanced addon. In the addon preferences you can choose the type of conversation and then you'll have a Mecabricks importer added to the other formats. The Collada exporter has been changed in Mecabricks for this. You can't use old .dae files anymore. In the importer settings you'll have some options for Bevels and a method of instancing.

@Renderbricks Thanks! My mistake I read the PDF saying .dae and thought it was the same importing selection as before, not realising its now mecabricks.dae. Works and is great!

I'm hoping to make animations with this, so I import the model, rig it, then save it as a .blend. Then in my animation scene I append it, but it's huge in the scene. I have to scale it down, but then the effects don't look right on the ship in render. Could anyone suggest anything? Essentially I want to have models rigged and ready to be dropped in a scene for animating. Any advice would be much appreciated!

You can't simply scale down the models. The problem is mainly the SSS (SubSurfaceScattering). SCRUBS needs to revise the Addon for the future that every import has an Empty Axis named by the imported model and the scaling values have to be linked to the SSS value.

Actually you need to add an Empty model and use Parent to group all parts to it. Then you scale down to your prefered size and you have to change the SSS value towards this new scaling.

To use models in your main animation scene I recommend to use the Link feature of Blender. But this is complex. When I have time I will do a tutorial for my Youtube Channel Renderbricks to explain.

Thanks! It's pretty technical and not sure if I'll ever be able to understand these details, but will follow any steps or tutorials to try and get a realistic lego animation done. Thanks again!

I will get in touch with Nicolas to add some useful features especially for the scaling of the models. The only way then for you is to keep them at the imported scale and work with that. The problem otherwise will be the SSS shading which kills the look of your model when you scale it down.

I too am experiencing terrible trouble working with large models. Even splitting them up into layers and decimating them can cause Blender to hang even when just changing layers.

I am working with the latest nightly build 2017-07-19 and Mecabricks Advanced states 1.1and I have advanced and use principled BSDF ticked.

Is it right that when I set up the colour management that it now says 'sRGB' and not 'sRGB / BT.709' as in some of your previous comments.

Also that under Render view it now says 'Filmic' and not 'Filmic Log Encoding Base'

And sequencer colour base is sRGB and not sRGB EOFT. (it does have Filmic Log as an option but have not tried it)

I was happy with the free version, but seeing how I am enjoying using Mecabricks so much thought it only correct to support you by buying the Advanced version.

Since my previous post and spending all day on trying to get somewhere (I realise you guys are probably all in different time zones) I have found one problem that was causing a hang up in that after importing the model from Mecabricks into Blender I need to make it a single user and make it Local otherwise as soon as I try to modify (such as join bricks in order to decimate them) blender freaks out and tries to multiply the parts and stick them where it feels it wants to.

If you look at my latest model that I have posted, the "Antonov' you will see it is MASSIVE! Am I being un-realistic? I mean, its 14,8 million faces, 6,634 objects, 21,4 Million Vertices, uses 834 Megs memory. I cannot even see all of it in the viewer without adjusting the view settings.

My system is a PC running Windows 7 - 64bit, 12G Ram, Intel I7-2600 @ 3.40Ghz Crucial 500G SSD and a Nvidia Geforce GTX1060 with 3GB of ram.

While loading a large model, which can take an hour, or 2 minutes or not load at all, (seems hit and miss), the CPU is running at 28% and memory at 37%, but when you try to do anything, Blender says its not responding although it does sort itself out after quite some time. When trying to manipulate the model, Memory goes to 100% and also the hard faults/sec go up into the hundreds even thousands where it sits and blender is not responding again, until, sometimes later, sometimes (not always, sometimes have to restart blender and start again) it will load. No Rhyme or reason.

I have eventually managed to load the Antonov after a few attempts, 1 plus hours to load and then broken it down into pieces and done planer decimation on each layer then reassembled which has improved it somewhat, but still hit and miss at getting it to load. I had to back up after each decimation in case I needed to reboot when it would hang at the next operation. After decimation and joining etc I have it down to 5,7 million Vertices, 2,2 million faces 3029 Megs memory and just 24 pieces. So it loads, but I cannot use it in a scene without getting blender bogged down. The Hanger it needs to come out of is also massive.

I would appreciate any feedback to how I should be approaching this if I need to change my tactics, or change setting in the Mecabrick advanced plug in, or if I have totally missed the plot and doing it all wrong. Should I rather use the older free plug in again or change the setting on the new one?

Thanks

Have tried to do a test render and I am getting CUDA error: out of memory in cuLaunch Kernel (cuShder, x blocks, 1, 1, threads_per_block 1,1,0,0 args, 0) line 1489

Scene has 3,4 million faces and 4375 m memory. Tried to reduce tile size but that did not help.

What do I need to change to get a render? Obviously not going to be able to use all the nice bends and scratchs in the plug in but that is not so important on such a massive model.

Hi Markal,

here's Michael from Renderbricks. SCRUBS is actually on holiday. So please be patient. I've sent im an e-mail on Friday with ideas to improve the Advanced Addon.

There's actually an issue with complexity when loading larger models. I will try to test the Antonov now.

You should be aware that Cycles GPU rendering actually is just supporting VRAM only. From what I know they plan to add RAM support what is called out-of-core rendering. When you have a massive model with lots of instances you need to activate "Link Materials to Meshes". This will create real instances but might take much longer. With that you might have a chance to use GPU rendering with larger scenes. You should use Window>Turn System Console and check "Debug" in the Mecabricks Importer to see what the importer is doing and how long things take.

I will be back with a report concerning the Antonov.

Cheers
Michael

Thank you Michael. Thank you for taking the time to give me some feedback.

I have got things rendering on CPU for now but at 2 hours a frame, its going to take ages to do a 2 second or 50 frame scene. Also the CPU is running at 100% so expecting a loud bang and electrons and transistors to come flying out of the tower case at some stage 😃

Once it has finished I will try the "link Materials to Meshes and see if it helps at all.

6634 parts took here 980.64s on my Alienware 17. I have a GTX 880M and the scene will be rendered on GPU. Check personal message.

Hi, whenever I try to render a model the white parts appear grainy, how can I change that ?

Have been trying to use the models at the imported scale, but there seems to be a draw distance in blender, where if you move an object past a certain point it gets cut off? And the one xwing model seems to take up most of this space. Does anyone know the parameters of this or if it's something that can be adjusted?

I've managed to create a space background with search result advice using noise nodes, and create a planet from a tutorial, and I'm just looking to animate them together with two x-wings rigged and flying around. Any help at all will be truly appreciated!

For viewport, you can adjust the Start and End Clipping points (Right Tool bar in View options).
For rendering camera, you can adjust the same settings (Camera properties > Lens options).

Thanks Scrubs! Will try that now!

Just throwing this out there, check out this shot from freemaker adventures. This is exactly what I'm looking to make. The dirt on the bricks there is awesome, how do they do that?