119 replies to this topic

[SpiderSpaceman]

Another unknown part popping up in there is a simplified metal detector: 93106.

[DraikNova]

My LDD aliens will now be given purple pretzels.

[georgebjones]

Aanchir, on 18 September 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

The axe georgebjones mentioned actually is a much different piece that DOES seem to be unreleased. I saw it earlier when going through some of the categories to look at new parts. However, I can't find it now. There was a 0.0MB update to LDD a few minutes ago; perhaps it was not intended for inclusion and was removed/hidden? Or maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, but I guarantee there was a brand-new axe  blade piece (much larger than the one you linked, with blades on both sides) earlier today.

EDIT: I disabled the internet on my other computer and went on LDD in offline mode. Sure enough, the part was there and was removed. The part number is 11096, and I still can't recognize it as any existing piece. Legends of Chima, perhaps, or The Hobbit?

Interesting, I saw the picture of it someone else posted, it has the same description as the one I referenced. I guess I got the update after they caught their mistake.

[Superkalle]

I just got another mail from the guys in LDD Team. They are laying it thick on us now; seems they have another undocumented feature up their sleeve:

Quote

There is a new feature in LDD 4.3.5 that lets you have your own palettes. To use this feature you need to make a folder called userpalettes under the LEGO Digital Designer folder.

For Windows 7/vista: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer\userpalettes
For Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/LEGO Company/LEGO Digital Designer/userpalettes

Inside the userpalettes folder you can now place a .lxf/.lxfml file and it will work as a brick palette in the LDD mode. To access make sure you are in LDD mode, View/New Theme/LDD, and then use the filter brick by boxes button.

One last note is that these .lxf/.lxfml files are loaded when LDD starts, so having several files containing a lot of bricks in this folder will slow down the startup of LDD.

Big up to the developers in Billund for this   

[hrontos]

Superkalle, on 19 September 2012 - 09:53 PM, said:

I just got another mail from the guys in LDD Team. They are laying it thick on us now; seems they have another undocumented feature up their sleeve:


Big up to the developers in Billund for this   

  Very nice and wanted feature and with a quite elegant solution. Works like a charm. Even the brick counts are working depending on the number of parts in the LXF.

[Superkalle]

Hm, I think the 'ol "Generate LXF" feature in LDD Manager will come in handy now. It's been there forever without any real use, but now it's suddenly REALLY useful

I'll do some upgrades and have a new version out soon!

[Calabar]

Superkalle, on 19 September 2012 - 09:53 PM, said:

I just got another mail from the guys in LDD Team. They are laying it thick on us now; seems they have another undocumented feature up their sleeve

Very useful to build official set after you generate a part list.
Perhaps it would be more comfortable if the software simply imports a .csv list and allows to choose one of the imported lists using the already existing "Filter Bricks by Boxes", because the present solution implies the use of an external software to create the proper lxf/lxfml file.
But for now it is a great news!  

[Tontus]

Swert, on 19 September 2012 - 07:46 AM, said:

Alright, I might be going nuts here, but I cannot recall prior to this update whether or not they added these parts, and nobody has mentioned it yet, so let's bring it up and see what happens.

3x3 plate, and inverted 2x2 tile.

To the best of my knowledge, these two elements have never been in LDD prior to this update, nor do they exist in the real world. Any insight, or am I just crazy?

Not sure about the 3x3, but the 2x2 inv tile is new to LDD, but exists in real. I think it was in the Samurai Mech and is probably the same piece discussed a bit earlier.

[Hinckley]

I'm on MAC OS X 10.7.4, Running Lion.

Just updated LDD and every time I try to save something, it crashes. I've restarted the computer twice. I've got stuff I need to finish and little time to do it in? Anyone having the same problem? Anyone know the solution? It's greatly annoying...

Update: I was saving files in a folder outside of the LEGO Creations folder. Apparently LDD doesn't like that.

[Stephan]

They removed the wheel covers:

85969 Wheel Cover 5 Spoke Thick - for Wheel 56145,
84086 Wheel Cover 5 Spoke without Center Stud - 35mm D. - for Wheels 54087, 56145 or 44292,
58089 Wheel Cover 7 Spoke V Shape - 36mm D.,

I know that at least two of them were available in the previous brickset version (I used them on the Lamborghini and Ferrari sets and they are removed now).

[hrontos]

Stephan, on 20 September 2012 - 09:27 AM, said:

They removed the wheel covers:

85969 Wheel Cover 5 Spoke Thick - for Wheel 56145,
84086 Wheel Cover 5 Spoke without Center Stud - 35mm D. - for Wheels 54087, 56145 or 44292,
58089 Wheel Cover 7 Spoke V Shape - 36mm D.,

I know that at least two of them were available in the previous brickset version (I used them on the Lamborghini and Ferrari sets and they are removed now).

85969 was not really removed. It is there, just LDD is not able to read it's name as I reported here.

[Sjuip]

Superkalle, on 19 September 2012 - 09:53 PM, said:

I just got another mail from the guys in LDD Team. They are laying it thick on us now; seems they have another undocumented feature up their sleeve:

Big up to the developers in Billund for this   

Indeed, a BIG thumbsup!     
I really missed this 'Filter Bricks by Boxes' option, that used to be around in the earlier LDD versions.
Now I can again check whether my actual 10183 Hobby Train set contains enough bricks for the model I'm building in LDD.
Plus: the chosen method with the 'userpalettes' folder now makes it very easy to make palettes with different sets together!
Again: thanks to the LDD team!

And thanks, Superkalle, for sharing this very useful information with us!  

[vynsane]

The user-defined palettes is a nice start - ultimately I would like more robust versions of the palettes we have now, like the ability to sub-categorized the 'Templates' palette.

Hinckley, on 20 September 2012 - 05:14 AM, said:

I'm on MAC OS X 10.7.4, Running Lion.

Just updated LDD and every time I try to save something, it crashes. I've restarted the computer twice. I've got stuff I need to finish and little time to do it in? Anyone having the same problem? Anyone know the solution? It's greatly annoying...

Update: I was saving files in a folder outside of the LEGO Creations folder. Apparently LDD doesn't like that.

I had a few crashes on the same system setup (MacBook Pro, Lion) yesterday morning, but nothing more recently. I save all my work directly to my DropBox folder, and haven't changed that, so I'm not sure that's the issue.

[DLuders]

When I opened LDD 4.3.5 just now, it installed a mysterious 0.01-MB update during the "Launching Bricks" portion of the program startup.  There's no explanation about these tiny updates on the official LDD.Lego.com website, so does anybody know what improvement has just been made?  

[Calabar]

Speaking about the new hidden feature (custom palette), what do you think it is the best way to obtain an lxf/lxfml file with a list of bricks, taken from Bricklink or peeron for example?

@DLuders
Could be a little update of the bricks palette.

[hrontos]

Calabar, on 20 September 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

Speaking about the new hidden feature (custom palette), what do you think it is the best way to obtain an lxf/lxfml file with a list of bricks, taken from Bricklink or peeron for example?

Probably LDD Manager is the only current solution. It is easy to create lxfml file, but problem is the part number mapping between Bricklink/Peeron and LDD. And LDD Manager is the only tool that has the necessary data.

[Superkalle]

Calabar, on 20 September 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

Speaking about the new hidden feature (custom palette), what do you think it is the best way to obtain an lxf/lxfml file with a list of bricks, taken from Bricklink or peeron for example?

I'm developing the function in LDD Manager now, and it works very nice. At the moment it will accept any list of LDD or BL bricks or colors with quantities in any combination (i.e mixing LDD and BL ID's). It also now support all assemblies (something it didn't do before), and also decorations (when using BL IDs).

It will also allow (as before) to import any BL set inventory, also now including quantities, to produce a LXF with all the bricks necessary to recreate official sets. All the bricks are placed programatically in a nice matrix on the scene, so you can open the LXF to verify the content and review the bricks before placing them into the CustomPalette folder.

I'm also looking at preparing a number of LXF files with some different variations (this is basically using the function for "color warnings" that allready is in LDD Manager). For example a LXF with all bricks where "Lots for Sales" > 5 AND "Known Colors" > 0. This means you can see directly in LDD which bricks exist in which colors. It is basically the same as "LDD" mode, only that this is based on bricks that are actually available.

[Calabar]

Superkalle, on 20 September 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

I'm also looking at preparing a number of LXF files with some different variations (this is basically using the function for "color warnings" that allready is in LDD Manager). For example a LXF with all bricks where "Lots for Sales" > 5 AND "Known Colors" > 0. This means you can see directly in LDD which bricks exist in which colors. It is basically the same as "LDD" mode, only that this is based on bricks that are actually available.

That's exactly what I was thinking for: use the custom palette to create subsets of bricks to use for RCBs and contests.
The "Existing Bricks" palette was the first example I thought of.

But there was a problem: the brick count!
Is it possible to create a custom palette without the brick count? It is necessary to use the palette in this way!

[Crissmonster]

I downloaded it yesterday and it is sooo much better than 4.2! I can actually build without it crashing every 5 minutes.

[MadManMingo]

Excellent up-date!!!

Really great that they finally cleaned up the inventory, and made more categories.

Maybe it's just me who's a total toad. But I just found out now, that you can twist and turn the bricks in the inventory by holding down the right mouse button, just like in wiew mode. COOOOOL  

[Superkalle]

MadManMingo, on 21 September 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

Excellent up-date!!!

Really great that they finally cleaned up the inventory, and made more categories.

Maybe it's just me who's a total toad. But I just found out now, that you can twist and turn the bricks in the inventory by holding down the right mouse button, just like in wiew mode. COOOOOL  

Yeah, and you can even rotate the models in the Start window. Check it out.

Problem with these functions is that loading 3D-data takes a lot longer then loading just 2D images, so it slows down the application

[hrontos]

Superkalle, on 21 September 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

Problem with these functions is that loading 3D-data takes a lot longer then loading just 2D images, so it slows down the application

May be a compromise will perform the best: use 2D thumbnails and load 3D data only when user attempts to rotate the brick.

[Scorpion]

There was a mini-update today when I opened up LDD in both my computers. They already had the first mini-update installed. 6 parts were updated, IIRC. Did anyone else get this?

[hrontos]

Scorpion, on 21 September 2012 - 06:00 PM, said:

There was a mini-update today when I opened up LDD in both my computers. They already had the first mini-update installed. 6 parts were updated, IIRC. Did anyone else get this?

Yes. And among other also the bug I reported here was corrected.

Edited by hrontos, 21 September 2012 - 06:10 PM.

[Aanchir]

Superkalle, on 19 September 2012 - 09:53 PM, said:

I just got another mail from the guys in LDD Team. They are laying it thick on us now; seems they have another undocumented feature up their sleeve:

Big up to the developers in Billund for this   

I am very grateful for this feature. It will be excellent for building sets (or MOCs you have inventoried and generated as LXFs with LDD Manager). But I can imagine other uses for it as well. For instance, I have for a while been in the business of generating color charts on LDD to make certain older colors more accessible (and understandable) for LDD users. Imagine if the same could be done for parts. I could conceivably create a palette of all available decorated parts in the correct colors (I already have some files of those, albeit not up-to-date), and LDD users could then use that palette to "paint" the correct decorations onto the parts of their already-built MOCs.

Likewise my complete LDD color chart could be accessed without having to close the model you're currently working with-- just switch to the palette of its parts, grab the one you need, and then switch to LDD Extended mode to use the eyedropper tool on them so you can paint parts of your model in those colors. Granted, this isn't very convenient with LDD's visual interface, since you can no longer just identify the color name and number by clicking on that brick, but for smaller color palettes like a BIONICLE-specific color palette it would work splendidly.

I imagine one consequence of this change will be that LDD mode will become much more widely-used, since the parts in it are no longer limited only by those pre-programmed for it, but rather limited by terms the LDD user creates for themselves.

Edited by Aanchir, 21 September 2012 - 06:31 PM.