New software by BrickLink - Stud.io

[Superkalle]

Just read about this new upcoming software by BrickLink.

http://www.bricklink.com/v2/article_view.page?id=1009

Thoughts?

(took me an while to figure out the "stud".io name. But I guess it all goes in line with the AFOL pun tradition )

 

[Andy D]

Sounds like a good idea. I hope it is easier than LDD to use.

I have no interest in Beta a Testing but I will try it when it is available for general use.

Andy D

[SylvainLS]

Now we know why the development of the marketplace side of BL is so, er….

(I relayed that info on the BL’s forum, where nothing has been announced. As always.)

 

[Gnac]

SUPER INTERESTING

I might abuse this as a more "visual" way to make wanted lists.

[inkpanther]

Integration with BrickLink is a great feature. But it's difficult to judge the application from only two screenshots.

[62Bricks]

1 hour ago, SylvainLS said:

Now we know why the development of the marketplace side of BL is so, er….

(I relayed that info on the BL’s forum, where nothing has been announced. As always.)

 

"nothing has been announced"

It has been in top rotation on the front page for a couple days. First thing you see.

[SylvainLS]

I meant on the forum. A small announcement there would have been nice.

And who goes to the frontpage every days? I hadn’t gone in weeks.

And who looks at the “ads” when there? If I have to go through the frontpage, I usually only look for the catalog icon or another one and click on it as soon as I can.

But I should be used to BL’s communication skills by now….

[62Bricks]

1 hour ago, SylvainLS said:

I meant on the forum. A small announcement there would have been nice.

And who goes to the frontpage every days? I hadn’t gone in weeks.

And who looks at the “ads” when there? If I have to go through the frontpage, I usually only look for the catalog icon or another one and click on it as soon as I can.

But I should be used to BL’s communication skills by now….

I see - because you chose to ignore the announcement it means there was no announcement?

Many more people visit the front page than visit the forum. And it is currently the first item in the rotation at the top of the page. It is literally in the highest-profile location on the site. And you're complaining that Bricklink never told anyone. Nonsense.

 

[SylvainLS]

I never said there was no announcement or that no one was told anything.

I said I relayed the info on BL’s forum because I saw nothing on BL’s forum about that.

I complained BL didn’t use its forum to make that announcement. As always.

That’s all.

You’re skewing everything I say.

But if you want to continue putting words in my mouth, go on. Have your day.

[Superkalle]

I'm curious where the 3d bricks in the software come from. Could it be Ldraw?

Anyway, it's going to be interesting to see what the building experience will be like. The GUI looks sleek - a bit Meckabrickish with a hint of 3D Studio Max? From the pictures there is a SNAP and COLLISION button.

[CM4Sci]

Looks like a mixture of Mecabricks and LDraw. I'll have to try this out - I think the design of LDraw looks horrible but I love Mecabrick's UI so we'll have to see! 

[62Bricks]

27 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

I never said there was no announcement or that no one was told anything.

I said I relayed the info on BL’s forum because I saw nothing on BL’s forum about that.

I complained BL didn’t use its forum to make that announcement. As always.

That’s all.

You’re skewing everything I say.

But if you want to continue putting words in my mouth, go on. Have your day.

"As always?" Maybe you have the Administrative and News topics turned off in your forum settings? Because I've read three or four announcements about site updates in the past couple weeks (new store settings page, HTML editing).

 

[legolijntje]

13 hours ago, Superkalle said:

I'm curious where the 3d bricks in the software come from. Could it be Ldraw?

It's probably not LDraw, at least as far as I know nobody at the LDraw forums has heard about this before the announcement. I think it's either a custom library or the one used by Mecabricks.

Quote

Anyway, it's going to be interesting to see what the building experience will be like. The GUI looks sleek - a bit Meckabrickish with a hint of 3D Studio Max? From the pictures there is a SNAP and COLLISION button.

Those buttons catched my eye too. Especially the collision button. As far as I know it would be the first tool aside from LDD to have collision detection.

Also, note that the announcement says that when you use the software with your Bricklink account, you can build together in real-time. Sounds interesting.
I wonder if this tool is evolved from MOCBuilder. MOCBuilder was a tool released in 2014 by Bricklink that also included Bricklink part integration and had part-snap based on LDraw. However, that one died quickly.

[Scrubs]

It is definitely not the Mecabricks part library.

Was MOC builder using Ldraw library if I remember? It shall be still installed in a corner of my harddrive somewhere to check.

[62Bricks]

I wonder what the process will be to add and link parts between the part library and catalog. Adding an existing part in a new color is a simple thing, but new pieces will have to be modeled before they can be added. That might be a little complicated to rely on volunteers to get done quickly. I can see the parts library falling behind the catalog pretty quickly unless BL is going to have someone in-house modeling parts as soon as they are released.

I also wonder how they will determine what makes a part color "available." The "known colors" information on BL is incomplete in many cases, so if they use that it will create errors. On the other hand if they use the list of colors currently for sale it will also create errors -  from sellers who have listed parts under the wrong color or for rare colors where there may not be any actually listed for sale from time to time.

[scoiltreasa]

Has anybody actually been given access yet?

[62Bricks]

1 hour ago, scoiltreasa said:

Has anybody actually been given access yet?

I have signed up, but have not heard anything yet. Today is the first day and the announcement says they will be adding testers "incrementally." I notice today they created new forum topics to report bugs, request features, etc.

[monkeyjay2003]

Nice, I see a few bricks not in LDraw, I think they're doing some indigenous coding. The conical astromech head in LDraw doesn't have decorations, but the brick design is similar. They probably started from LDraw.

[Philo]

There is one existing pattern for the conical astromech head, albeit unofficial: http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cgi?f=parts/98100ps1.dat

Otherwise, did you see any new shape not in LDraw?

[SylvainLS]

I think monkeyjay2003 was talking about what can be seen in the screenshot on the announcement page. And yes, that looks like 98100ps1.

So, still no one invited for the next step/download?

Edited November 3, 2016 by SylvainLS

[CM4Sci]

I have not received anything .. really eager to try this out cause I love digital building  

[ThirdPig]

I got access to the Beta yesterday. Very impressed. The snap-together functionality works well and is quite intuitive, and the library of parts is very complete and detailed. The models look incredible...none of the rough polygons approximating circles I'm used to from MLCAD. A huge plus for me is the color selection interface. It resembles MLCAD, but gives the option to filter by colors in which the part is actually available. I haven't tried it yet, but apparently it can be used something like google docs for collaborative work. Bricklink integration with part prices right on the screen is very nice, though I wish that you could customize the source of this beyond just 6 month sales/current inventory of new parts...maybe add some favorite stores, or at least allow the use of used parts if we desire.

It's not perfect yet -- the free rotate and hinge tool are a bit buggy, there are a few UI shortcomings like non-obvious or outright missing keyboard shortcuts, and advanced features like a flex hose tool that are missing. But the core of the program looks phenomenal. 

[legolijntje]

3 hours ago, ThirdPig said:

I got access to the Beta yesterday. Very impressed. The snap-together functionality works well and is quite intuitive, and the library of parts is very complete and detailed. The models look incredible...none of the rough polygons approximating circles I'm used to from MLCAD.

[...]

Well, probably everything looks incredible compared to MLcad  

I'm wondering: is the collision detection any good? (I suppose it has collision detection, since the screenshot has such a button...)

[ThirdPig]

Collision detection was reasonably good in the time I spent playing around with it, though I didn't do a whole lot to specifically stress this feature. Caught everything you'd expect it to, and a few (correct) subtle catches one might not expect. Only one false positive -- it really didn't agree with the idea that a visor fits on a minifig helmet for some reason. 

When toggled on, it won't let you place parts in a way that they end up colliding. If you turn it off, anything goes, and parts that collide get made transparent when you turn the tool back on. 

[Philo]

What about file format? possibility to export to LDraw?