<p>(In case someone encounters similar issue)</p>

<p>I end-up in Way 1, and it seems the standard way in academia.</p>

<p>Once I am familar with Blender, the scene creation becomes less challenging; still, it takes some time to create a simple scene. Fortunately for academic papers the number of scenes are a few (&lt; 10).</p>

<p>Unfortunately the old Mitsuba parser does not work for the latest Blender version. So I wrote a custom 2.8x Blender add-on for Mitsuba, as well as creating new, custom material nodes for my own renderer.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-12T01:11:21.533Z
2020-01-12T01:11:21.533Z
WDC
<p>I am a newbie in computer graphics and just started working on physically based rendering engines such as Mitsuba.</p>

<p>I found it difficult to create my own scenes, that are xml files. To create one, there are three ways as I know so far:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Build a scene in <a href="https://www.blender.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Blender</a> and export it to a xml file using prasers, e.g. <a href="https://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/plugins.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/plugins.html</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Download free xml scenes, e.g. from <a href="https://benedikt-bitterli.me/resources/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://benedikt-bitterli.me/resources/</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Hand-write an xml scene with Python from scratch, e.g. this example <a href="http://www.djmannion.net/psych_programming/vision/mitsuba/mitsuba.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.djmannion.net/psych_programming/vision/mitsuba/mitsuba.html</a>. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>However, I am suffering from following issues:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>It takes long time for me to create a scene via 1 and 3, yet not customizable via 2.</p></li>
<li><p>I do not know where to get free meshes (and license issues?)</p></li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Questions</strong></p>

<ul>
<li><p>Are there any better ways to create an xml scene?</p></li>
<li><p>What is the canonical way to create delicate scenes, e.g. the ones in SIGGRAPH papers?</p></li>
</ul>

<pbr><scene-description>
Standard ways to create xml scenes for research purposes
WDC
# Standard ways to create xml scenes for research purposes

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-01-03)

I am a newbie in computer graphics and just started working on physically based rendering engines such as Mitsuba.

I found it difficult to create my own scenes, that are xml files. To create one, there are three ways as I know so far:

1. Build a scene in [Blender](https://www.blender.org/) and export it to a xml file using prasers, e.g. <https://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/plugins.html>.
2. Download free xml scenes, e.g. from <https://benedikt-bitterli.me/resources/>.
3. Hand-write an xml scene with Python from scratch, e.g. this example <http://www.djmannion.net/psych_programming/vision/mitsuba/mitsuba.html>.

However, I am suffering from following issues:

* It takes long time for me to create a scene via 1 and 3, yet not customizable via 2.
* I do not know where to get free meshes (and license issues?)

**Questions**

* Are there any better ways to create an xml scene?
* What is the canonical way to create delicate scenes, e.g. the ones in SIGGRAPH papers?

**Tags:** pbr, scene-description


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2020-01-12. Score: 0 | Accepted answer

(In case someone encounters similar issue)

I end-up in Way 1, and it seems the standard way in academia.

Once I am familar with Blender, the scene creation becomes less challenging; still, it takes some time to create a simple scene. Fortunately for academic papers the number of scenes are a few (< 10).

Unfortunately the old Mitsuba parser does not work for the latest Blender version. So I wrote a custom 2.8x Blender add-on for Mitsuba, as well as creating new, custom material nodes for my own renderer.


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