LDD File with all official parts?

[swils]

As the title says, I'm curious if anyone has compiled a template file, one that has all the parts laid out (or at least all the bricks, not delving into figs/accessories), with a duplicate of each piece in each color it was produced in? I could probably spend an afternoon (or ten) putting one together for myself, but if there's already one floating around out there, I would love to get my hands on it

[Brickdoctor]

I have one that I use when I do RCBs. It's called, 'Aanchir'.

As far as I know, there isn't one. Personally, I think it's easier to select the brick in LDD first, then check it against BL's or Peeron's color list.

[Superkalle]

With LDD Manager you can create a LXF file with all bricks in all produced colors. Just download the BL "Part and Color Codes" catalog from here and then use the "create LXF" function in LDD Manager. The result should be a massive file with I'm guessing about 15.000 bricks. I haven't tried this, but in theory it should work

[Aanchir]

The basic LDD mode has this for the most part. Unfortunately it also has a lot of parts in colors that they have never appeared in sets in, suggesting that it was probably made simply by generating parts from TLG's database including ones that were only made as test runs or whatnot. Obviously it's not the most effective way of judging this.

Superkalle's suggestion sounds like the most efficient way to do this, though personally I just tend to keep a Bricklink window open pretty much whenever I use LDD. It's slightly inefficient, having to look up any part I'm not sure about before I use it, but I think it's worthwhile compared to having to find parts from one huge list. Plus, doing it this way makes it easier to check when/where the parts appeared and how much their Bricklink price is so that I can avoid using super-rare-and-valuable parts on something I hope to someday build myself.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Aanchir

[vynsane]

This doesn't pertain to when I'm creating a strictly-digital (read: never intended to be built in real bricks) MOC, but usually I'll design a build in a single color and then pick out a select few pieces that I've ended up using that I know will be available only in limited colors, look those up on BL, and color them to my liking within the availability restrictions, then color the rest accordingly. It's sort of like building in raw materials, then painting it after all is said and done.

[swils]

Thanks for the replies, folks. I might give Kalle's suggestion a try. Bricklink lookups have been my go-to thus far, and may continue to be, heh.