New LEGO Factory and LDD online

[snefroe]

ok..; just checked it out... no wonder people don't produce good mocs: there's hardly any range of parts to use. large plates in whatever colour are practically absent. hardly any minifig involved either. didn't see any canopy, almost no printed tiles,... I don't see this turning into a huge success unless they multiply the number of parts by a factor of 10 at least, very soon. they should have waited with the factory untill they had a decent range of parts... But this is really not good.

I also don't like the software. as such, it's not bad, but Ldraw is so much better than this!

[snefroe]

so i've been playing around with the new software and here are some thoughts:

1) the system is highly unstable on my pc. every 10 minutes at least, my pc crashes. Yep, I upgraded my radeon graphics card. Even "heavier" drawing software and games don't crash that often. It's frustrating ! :-X :-X :-X

2) i understand it's cool for lego to have a 3D designer software package, but this is real crap! you can zoom in or out but you don't control the process very well. it's very difficult for instance to put 4 cilinders for instance horizontaly on a flatbed; On ldraw, even a blind man can do this, on LDD it's a nightmare; also you can't really work on objects that aren't positioned at the center of the grid. consequently, you can't zoom in or out very well to get a better view on that particular object. The 3D system also doesn't give you could over view of the model. Very i tried to put a specific part in a container i made, but instead of dropping the bar into container it turned out i'd put it behind the container or below ... , wherever... but not in the container. again, on Ldraw, this would have been a piece of cake...

3) the designing system works with the brick concept. you can easily put bricks on plates for instance, but it's not as flexible as Ldraw if you want to position parts in a different way...

4) the software says you can use a maximum of 525 parts for a model. That's a lot considering the limited range of parts. There's seems to be a limit of items per part as well, but I never crossed the line, or anyway , not that i know of. when you select a part, you automatically get a reference that starts with "Unlimited: " Maybe that indicates you can use as many items you like. That would also be the logical thing, really, because the inventory is mainly built around flatbeds for cargo trains and passenger trains, so you'd need lots of items of specific parts anyway... besides, for Lego it's probably just a way to allow train fans to build their own cars so they won't have to... they'll make money out train fans even without having to design the trains themselves. The community just doesn't have picked up on it yet, don't know why really, cos this list has more or less everything a train fan needs...

5) for me, the list has several very interesting parts:

1 printed tile

2 x 2 x 1 dome

a steering wheel

round plates

6) the grey colours are weird tho. dark stone grey looks like dark grey on my pc; No doubt, bluish grey will make the models look differently, from what i saw on pc...

so i desinged a flatbed of my own, using quite a few items of these parts in different, rather unique, colours, making it worth my while. However, here's a typical Lego Group problem: they're using their identification numbers for their parts, so you don't know for instance, if the dome part is 553 or 553b, but what's even more mind puzzling is the terminology they're using for the grey colours. the entire community uses dark grey and bluish grey (bley) these days, but what does lego come up with? "Medium Stone Grey" and "Dark Stone Grey"! :-( :-X !

to find out how expensive it would be to build a model around the parts i wanted, i created 5 models. each time, i'd use the very simple flatbed that wouldn't take a huge cut in the budget, and i'd only change the cargo, which is built with the parts i want in large quantities. that way, lego could never claim i was just trying to get lots of parts without a model, in a parts pack... I uploaded all five models with the same flatbed but different cargo and checked the price. I guess it would be even easier to create 1 flatbed in 1 model, and different cargo in another, turning your second model in more or less a parts pack. lego could reject that model though, because they themselves tell you you can increase the number of parts for a model, past the 525 limited by importing a privious model to a new one, things like that... in reality, i think they just want to make as much money as they can with this, meaning, they want to sell as many parts as possible. They only need to make sure there's enough stock... and it would make my models a lot cheaper, which is good for my wallet, so everybody happy, i guess...

I created:

only a flatbed would be doable; about 11 euros for more or less two red 4 x 6 plates, 14 red and 7 blue 2 x 2 round plates (rounded bottom); 25 grid tiles 1 x 2, 6 printed tiles,... in all, 111 parts...

a flatbed with about 36 domes and 18 steering wheels, in all 179 parts: 19.96 EUR. Price on bl: 20 dollars. Lego's price would be fair i guess.

a flatbed with tanks that are supposed to be on the flatbed but lying on the ground: 285 parts: 27EUR. hm... not sure...

a fourth model with lots of rather expensive ladders: 215 parts for 27 euro

and finally:

a flatbed with the r2d2 body in dark stone grey: 186 parts: 22 euro

just checked these numbers with the batman sets:

batboat: 188 parts: 23 euro

dragster:92 parts: 13 euro

v-wing: 118 parts: 13 euro

jedi starfighter: 202 parts: 27 euro

clone scout: 108 parts: 14 euro

construction site: 298 parts: 40 euro

if you consider those prices, then the flatbeds are in fact quite reasonable; there's one difference, however, you're not really producing lego sets, but your own sets with a logo on it. That's why we're also comparing LDD prices with BL instead of the actual lego sets i guess.

I think the lego group can turn this into a success, but only if they marked this to the right public and if they keep on pushing down the price.

[Skinny Boy]

Has anyone else had my problem. (I posted it on page 3).

[xenologer]

1) the system is highly unstable on my pc. every 10 minutes at least, my pc crashes. Yep, I upgraded my radeon graphics card. Even "heavier" drawing software and games don't crash that often. It's frustrating ! :-X :-X :-X

I used to have this problem, if you go into your ATI Catalyst control center, and Disable VPU Recover it might help. I found that whenever LDD crashed, it was really because it was doing something funny with the graphics, and VPU Recover was in turn aggravating the problem because LDD didn't like being reset...

2) i understand it's cool for lego to have a 3D designer software package, but this is real crap! you can zoom in or out but you don't control the process very well. it's very difficult for instance to put 4 cilinders for instance horizontaly on a flatbed; On ldraw, even a blind man can do this, on LDD it's a nightmare; also you can't really work on objects that aren't positioned at the center of the grid. consequently, you can't zoom in or out very well to get a better view on that particular object.

There is a 'zoom centering' tool that will let you focus on a selected part, rather than the center of the grid. So you can do detailed positioning work. It looks like a dot with a square around it, it is located to the side of the camera rotatoin controls, next to the big + and - buttons.

3) the designing system works with the brick concept. you can easily put bricks on plates for instance, but it's not as flexible as Ldraw if you want to position parts in a different way...

Yup, its a real pain sometimes!

I have been working around this, by making it 'easier' for LDD to figure out what I want when I'm doing SNOT and other stuff by using 'brick scaffolding'. Basically, if I want a brick to be attached in a wierd position but LDD is being stubborn and wants to put it someplace else. I add extra bricks for it to attach to that are 'easier' for it to target.

Just to get the new brick into position. Then I delete the extra scaffolding bricks, leaving the one I wanted in proper alignment.

This is was extremely useful for doing constructions that depended on perfect alignment with other brick geometry...

Sometimes this is a multistep process, I'll align the brick to another brick instead of the main model, then select both as a group and use the studs on the extra brick to connect sompleace else, then delete that...

[alex54]

Kotua, my house is now update in my LDD gallery...