I tried this conversion today:

LDraw/LeoCAD -> .3DS -> .ASE -> my custom format -> OpenGL

But I noticed the windings are not quite right for all faces in LeoCAD which creates 'holes' in my final rendering.

Can anyone recommend some software to convert LDraw into .ASE or .3DS or even better a simple ASCII format? but simpler than LDraw

Or even some Java code the reads LDraw and exports some really simple ASCII format. I tried parsing it myself but ended up in a mess with the scaling and rotation matrices

Peter

3DWin. Check our Encyclopedia on 3D animation using Ldraw and Anim8r. There's a link to some conversion softwares.

I think this is caused due to the fact that the LDraw parts library is not totally compliant for back face culling (the winding of the faces is mixed between clock wise and counter clock wise in the same geometry). The method how ldraw handles primitive inclusion introduces a lot of artifacts of this kind. During a matrix transformation inside faces can be turned outside and visa versa. The LDraw guys are aware of this and there is a BFC extension to the original format but not all parts esp. unofficial ones are compliant to this.

But things get better
Carsten

Thanks for the tip! Is there a list somewhere of parts that are BFC complient, or is it a case of scanning all the files, and includes?

Cheers

Peter

Not that i know of.But maybe the LDraw standard group has such a list.

- Spirou

I ended up just flipping the 'faulty' triangles by hand. It wasn't so bad since it also gave me a chance to reduce the face count. I hadn't realised they we soo detailed. Maybe I have to reduce the detail further. But I'm quite pleased with the current result

I'd appreciate any feedback/testing. Also the animation is very basic technique for walking, but I hope to get away with it for now

Thanks

Peter

What I do is export it as a .obj file from LeoCAD, and then import that to 3ds Max and while some of the faces are facing the wrong way it can be fixed by either making them two-sided or just using the Normal modifier and switching it to Unify which makes all of the faces face the same direction. Remember also to apply the Smooth modifier and set it to auto smooth to get rid of hard edges. From 3ds Max you can convert it to any other format. Or you could also try using Deep Exploration to cover stuff.