Thread:LOTRMod/@comment-26254192-20151229031022/@comment-27723099-20151229102452

The only advantages of 3D models I can see is that they are fast and easy to make and require no programming knowledge. All structures in the mod so far were coded, so why should the large structures be different? Your suggestion of creating a new 3D schematic format would have the additional advantage of reduced file sizes, if it is done right. Geometric shapes of blocks are alone not sufficient; quite often there is a pattern that is repeated a number of times. To get the same compression as in code, iterative patterns would have to be possible in the file format too. And after all, if the tool used to create these files is not able to recognise the patterns just from a built structure itself, then it would still be almost the same work as hand-coding the structure in Java, defeating the advantage of simple usage.