17 replies to this topic

[Superkalle]

About
This post contains some info on the color availability in LDD Universe Mode and instructions how to get access to an extended palette including Lime, Old Gray, Sand Red, Maersk Blue etc.

Backgrounder
LDD actually supports all Lego colors, also the OLD that are no longer in production, such as Old Brown, Old Grey etc. It’s just that you won’t find them in the Color Palette Tool – but they are there, under the hood.

In LDD are also several NEW/UNKNOWN colors that are not in production but can be found in the Color Palette Tool. These have Lego Color ID’s ranging from 321 to 326. If these colors are Lego internal colors intended for LU designers working with Digital Media, or are hints of new colors for upcoming sets, I don’t know. For us LDD users they are pretty useless for now as there are no physical bricks in those colors.

And finally, LDD also supports CURRENT colors even if they are missing in the color Palette Tool. Examples of this include Lime. The workaround to get access to these colors has been discussed here at the forum before, but instructions are below as well..

What it adds up to
So, what does all this mean, and how can I access and use all the colors? To simplify your life, read the instructions and download the attachment below.



How to use the LXF-reference file:
1. Download the file below
2. Open the Color reference LXF-file.
3. Copy one or more bricks with the colors you want to use.
4. Open the LXF you want to work on (or create a new one).
5. Paste the brick and then use Color Picker Tool to copy the colors.

For quick access to colors, you can also use this cool tip

Q&A
Q: Why should I care about exactly what color I apply. If I want a Light Blue color, can’t I just use any of the light blue colors that look right?
A: Well, you could. But if you ever want to order the physical bricks and build your model, than you need to be more precise. And I guess also it’s just good practice to use the right color

The download
The attached zip-file contains:
1) Color Chart LXF-file with all colors, from which you can copy them as described above.
2) An excel sheet with the LDD colors names and corresponding BrickLink colors. Sorted in the order of the bricks in the reference LXF-file.

NOTE: Please, as usual DON’T republish that information on the web, instead link to this post so others can download from here.

Attached Files

•  LDDColors.zip   9.89K   190 downloads

Edited by Superkalle, 06 August 2010 - 03:03 PM.

[Aanchir]

Thanks! I'm not sure how often I'll use this-- LDD so far has had most of the colors I've needed, although certain rare and out-of-date colors are neither on the main palette nor on the color chart you provided-- for example, LEGO color #200 Lemon Metallic or color #145 Sand Blue Metallic (both colors used in BIONICLE, Technic, and Knights' Kingdom), or color #189 (a color used in BIONICLE and Knights Kingdom, which may be called Reddish Gold or Gold Metallic-- I've had trouble finding out about this color). Needless to say, while cool-looking these colors aren't really stuff you'd use often in real-life System MOCing, so I don't see why I'd need them digitally.

Another problem which the new color chart does not solve-- the color #148 Dark Grey Metallic, despite being on the standard LEGO Universe color palette, does not render accurately. It appears slightly lighter than Silver, but it's supposed to represent a much darker silver color. Do you have any knowledge why this might happen?

Lastly, your Excel chart is nice, but I can help you out with one minor improvement. Color #311 is called Transparent Bright Green, and was revealed to Eurobricks by LEGO along with the other colors appearing in 2010 sets. It's the new transparent green color which appears in Atlantis sets. Bricklink calls it Transparent Bright Green as well, and the Bricklink color ID for it is 108.

[alienwar9]

Thanks for this! Not sure if I'm going to use it as for the most part I have a hard time picking between the colors I already have.

I do have one question though. For some reason my black looks way too much light a dark dark blue, and I was wondering if this is a problem in general or something wrong with my LDD. I am pretty sure it's not my screen or settings as all other blacks on my pc look very black.

[Superkalle]

Aanchir, on Apr 21 2010, 02:12 AM, said:

Thanks! I'm not sure how often I'll use this-- LDD so far has had most of the colors I've Lastly, your Excel chart is nice, but I can help you out with one minor improvement. Color #311 is called Transparent Bright Green, and was revealed to Eurobricks by LEGO along with the other colors appearing in 2010 sets.

Excellent! Thanks for that. I'll make sure to add it.

And regarding other colors (Bionicle etc), they are easy to add. Just open any LXF in winzip and open and edit IMAGE100.LXFML and put any Lego Color ID you want.

Edited by superkalle, 21 April 2010 - 05:58 AM.

[legoped]

Hi Superkalle,

The download link is not working.

Thanks

[Aanchir]

superkalle, on Apr 21 2010, 01:55 AM, said:

Excellent! Thanks for that. I'll make sure to add it.

And regarding other colors (Bionicle etc), they are easy to add. Just open any LXF in winzip and open and edit IMAGE100.LXFML and put any Lego Color ID you want.

Thanks for the tip! However, when I tried it, it rendered them all as a basic silver color-- the same one Dark Grey Metallic erroneously renders as. So I think there's something missing in the LDD code to allow those unusual metallic colors. I'll test with some other obscure colors and see if there's any differences.

EDIT: Although I couldn't get Sand Blue Metallic or Lemon Metallic to work, one color I just tried does work: color #189, which may be called Reddish Gold or Gold Metallic (I've seen both terms used in official LEGO material, so I'm not sure which is official and which is a "layman's term"). Color #189 is a slightly orangish-gold metallic color which sites like Bricklink and Peeron never cease to misidentify as either Copper or Warm Gold (a side-by-side comparison reveals it is neither of these). It was used in several Knights' Kingdom sets, as well as a couple BIONICLE sets.

EDIT 2: Three more colors that work:

• Color #176 Red Flip/Flop
  
• Color #178 Yellow Flip/Flop
  
• Color #179 Silver Flip/Flop

Red Flip/Flop is another color Bricklink misidentifies as copper, and here they are justified, since I don't believe any of these three colors appeared besides as the colors for copper, gold, and silver BIONICLE masks in the years 2001-2002. All three colors appear metallic, but are translucent when backlit. They are rendered as transparent.

EDIT 3: Here's three more colors

• Color #6, Light Green, a color from Belville, Paradisa, and some Duplo sets targeted at girls. Its Bricklink color ID is 38
  
• Color #157, Transparent Fluorescent Yellow, a trans. yellow color from BIONICLE. Its Bricklink color name is Trans. Neon Yellow and its Bricklink color ID is 121.
  
• Color #158, Transparent Fluorescent Red, a trans. red color from BIONICLE. Bricklink misidentifies it as Trans. Dark Pink.

Not sure if you want to add these colors to the chart, but I'd recommend adding at least Light Green, but also color #189, since several of the Knights' Kingdom sets it appeared in were standard System sets. #189 appeared primarily as the color of minifig swords in those sets, and in the larger figures it likewise appeared as the color for various swords and shields. Hope this helps.

Edited by Aanchir, 21 April 2010 - 05:08 PM.

[Shroud]

Yea if you right click and select save as it downloads as 0 bytes

[Superkalle]

Hi all

Well, I guess I messed up with the download. Fixed now.

And about mietallic colors going all white - I noticed that too. I guess they haven't mapped ALL colors then

Cheers

Edited by superkalle, 22 April 2010 - 06:12 AM.

[legoped]

Thanks  

[The Cobra]

Thanks again!

[Aanchir]

Since I'm getting really handy with uploading LDD stuff to Brickshelf, I thought I'd publicize my expansion of this list. I don't expect it to be of much use-- the colors I've added are mainly obscure colors from BIONICLE or various "girls' themes" (I for one enjoyed Paradisa, regardless of that fact).

The three main exceptions:

• #107 Bright Bluish Green (Dark Turquoise on Bricklink) appeared in BIONICLE, but you're more likely to know it from the Rock Raiders theme where it appeared prominently.
  
• 189 Reddish Gold/Gold Metallic (not sure which is the real name) appeared only once in BIONICLE, but it featured on many swords in the Knights' Kingdoms sets of 2004 and 2005.
  
• 217 Brown (Dark Flesh on most sites) is the color used for dark-skinned minifigs in most licensed themes since 2003. For BIONICLE fans, it's more familiar as the color of "brown sets" from 2004 to early 2006.

Here's the Updated color chart and updated Excel reference sheet, for those interested. On the excel sheet I highlighted my own additions in blue.

[Randal]

Re: Silver going white.

I thought that too until I started adding effects to them, If you look at some of my comics where I used silver, (Except, ironically, the silver surfer one, which I think had more to do with the computer I was using), you will see they tend to look ait more silvery. Another good chrome example would be the chrome bits on legs of the Mech I posted in the "Post your creations" thread. Also, it seems the more polys the piece has, the more chromed it looks.

[Zblj]

Where is chrome sliver for exhausts and grills?

[Aanchir]

Zblj, on Jun 7 2010, 10:30 AM, said:

Where is chrome sliver for exhausts and grills?

No helping you there. Neither Peeron nor Isodomos identifies the LEGO ID# for any type of chrome. If we could get ahold of the ID#, I could add it to my own version of the color chart, but without that ID# there's no easy way of identifying it.

Of course, even if I did know the ID#, chances are it would be like a great number of metallic colors, and would fail to render properly. Most metallic colors I've encountered render as this bland light silver color (even dark silver, or dark grey metallic, renders this way, and it's on the default palette!). Similarly, many colors which LDD cannot identify render simply as a white silhouette, without shading.

My advice is just to use the silver already available on the color palette, since it's close enough, and if you plan to order the parts to an LDD MOC off Bricklink you can just substitute the chrome color you want for the silver color that's available on LDD.

[Randal]

I should have used this when doing the Atlantis sets. I notice one of the colors in the 1x1 brick section of colors not in the universe palate is "Atlantis Green"

I used the closest alternative, which I believe might be the glow-in-the-dark green that is used for glow in the dark bricks (like the ghost sheet that goes on the minifigures)

Speaking of glow in the dark, the real Buzz Lightyear (according to the movies) has glow in the dark parts... do the Lego Buzz's glow in the dark?

[Aanchir]

Randal, on Jun 7 2010, 06:11 PM, said:

I should have used this when doing the Atlantis sets. I notice one of the colors in the 1x1 brick section of colors not in the universe palate is "Atlantis Green"

I used the closest alternative, which I believe might be the glow-in-the-dark green that is used for glow in the dark bricks (like the ghost sheet that goes on the minifigures)

Speaking of glow in the dark, the real Buzz Lightyear (according to the movies) has glow in the dark parts... do the Lego Buzz's glow in the dark?

Actually, Atlantis Green is in the Universe palette. Hold your mouse over the regular trans. green and it appears as an option.

And I think we'd have heard about it if there were GitD on the Buzz Lightyear fig. But it would have been cool; that's for sure.

[Randal]

Aanchir, on Jun 8 2010, 01:52 PM, said:

Actually, Atlantis Green is in the Universe palette. Hold your mouse over the regular trans. green and it appears as an option.

And I think we'd have heard about it if there were GitD on the Buzz Lightyear fig. But it would have been cool; that's for sure.

I know that. I meant the Atlantis Non-transparent Green... AKA Lime Green. All my canopies and transparent green bits are the correct yellow-green. (Which I like way better than the original more bluish transparent green.)

[Aanchir]

Randal, on Jun 8 2010, 12:22 PM, said:

I know that. I meant the Atlantis Non-transparent Green... AKA Lime Green. All my canopies and transparent green bits are the correct yellow-green. (Which I like way better than the original more bluish transparent green.)

Lime green can be accessed with a simple trick, even if you don't download the expanded color chart. At the top of the window just go to View>New Themes>LEGO DesignByMe, and your project is temporarily switched to DesignByMe mode (the default mode). Then just choose a lime piece (the minifig flipper works nicely for Atlantis stuff, since most of the sets have a couple of those), and do the same trick as before to switch back to Universe mode. Voila! A lime green piece which you can easily use the eyedropper tool on in LU mode!

And don't be afraid to use colors outside the default LU palette. They do no harm to the model and help to make the final product more exact. I'm not sure why lime green isn't in the default palette, but it works perfectly fine if you use Superkalle's color chart or the trick I just explained (not mine; it was discussed in one of the earlier posts in this topic).