Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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not sure if this is the right forum to post this... but how do you import a LeoCad lego model into blender?
After you made your model in leacad, you go to file and export as 3D studio and then save it to your desktop. Then open up blender and go to file and then click import and then chose what type of file you want to import and then locate it and click import.
i do that, then i go to blender and select import as in the picture: 
but then this always comes up 
anyone help me?
Get a full installation of Python 
Have you gone to the Python website and downloaded it? Python with the source?
Last edited by Blacitch (September 6, 2010 (10:55am))
nevermind- when i downloaded python, the left icon popped up (left) Then installed (middle) Then when i try opening my 3ds or whatever it is called, the same thing pops up 
Last edited by Mason (September 6, 2010 (11:08am))
Python has to be installed first, then Blender, I believe. You'll have to uninstall everything first and start over.
Alternatively to LeoCAD, try an ldraw importer plugin for Blender and save your models as ldr. Take advantage of Ldraw's duplicity inheritance in Blender.
umm... ok 
can someone please provide me with a link to get the full python software? I'm asking this because i'm not sure which website is the right one...
k- thanks
It works 
!!!!!!!! lol- i downloaded a different version of blender, too (2.53 beta) works wayyyyy better.
Keep in mind 2.53 is in beta form, so you may at some point run into some glitches or errors of some type. But so far 2.53 is much better than 2.49. But it annoys me that you can't open 2.53 files in 2.49 without having issues, and vise versa, so it's good (depending on how much pre made models and tutorial downloads) to have both 2.49 and 2.53 on your computer.
I'd suggest that you use the .obj format instead of .3ds. 3ds models can only handle three vertices for a face which this causes a lot of problems... the .obj format will build the models much better.
one other question- can you export LEGO Digital designer files and import them into Blender? i'm asking this because LEGO digital designer looks easier to use than LeoCAD- or is the another lego making program that can be imported into blender?
Yes, LDD Is much easier to use than LeoCad. But exporting is a little harder.
You need two programs, one converts the LDD file to a Ldraw file (sorry, i don't know the name I'll try to find out asap) Then, you need Ldraw. From Ldraw, you convert it to wavefront or 3ds, and import it into blender
I've never actually done this, but my friend, Lord Dargor ( http://bricksinmotion.com/forums/user/1333/ ) did it for me. Send him a message for details.
Yes. First make a model in LDD, and then export it as an Ldraw file. After that, you can open it in LeoCad, and re-export it. (be warned that LeoCad may not have certain bricks in its database, and they will be removed from the model.) I myself export my models (which I build entirely in LeoCad) as Wavefront Files (.obj). They appear as one, big object in Blender. Opening a model as a 3ds file makes each brick a sepparate object (resulting in laggy Blender). I hope that helped! 
Note: LeoCad studs appear as cylinders made up of many planes in Blender, so they look a little choppy.
FYI, you can manually update LeoCAD's parts to be consistent with MLCAD.
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