Beginner Question - Town Layout Software?

[rockethead26]

My wife and I are new to the LEGO experience, only about 4 months and are getting ready to lay out our LEGO town and train system. We are familiar with LDD and I know BlueBrick allows you to make a track layout and has some completed town sets (not sure what they are) that can be installed as whole pieces, but do any of the building programs allow you to plop down a complete Modular, Haunted House or Train Station, for example?

Thanks!

Edited May 4, 2014 by rockethead26

[Withacee]

Hey rockethead26,

We use both LDD and BlueBrick for that.

BlueBtrick for the general lay-out, and LDD for the complete sets.

In LDD, one can just import a complete set as LDD and put it anywhere in the current file that is open.

We built our complete lay-out like this as one LDD-file, including all street plates. If you're clever and group the separate buildings, you can actually select them per building and move them around.

Mind you, a speedy computer is needed, because 10 modulars already consist of around 30,000 bricks.

You can find most official sets as LDD-file here:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=41226

Just search the page in your browser for the set number.

Keep putting those bricks together!

[rockethead26]

Hey rockethead26,

We use both LDD and BlueBrick for that.

BlueBtrick for the general lay-out, and LDD for the complete sets.

In LDD, one can just import a complete set as LDD and put it anywhere in the current file that is open.

We built our complete lay-out like this as one LDD-file, including all street plates. If you're clever and group the separate buildings, you can actually select them per building and move them around.

Mind you, a speedy computer is needed, because 10 modulars already consist of around 30,000 bricks.

You can find most official sets as LDD-file here:

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=41226

Just search the page in your browser for the set number.

Keep putting those bricks together!

Thanks for the great tip. I'm not clear on what happens between LDD and BlueBrick after importing the complete modular file into LDD. How do I get the LDD file to BlueBrick? Simple import?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Classicsmiley]

LDD and Bluebrick can have some complementary functions, but they don't have any direct interaction. There is no way to directly import an LDD file into Bluebrick. (You might be able to convert the LDD file to an Ldraw file, but that has its own set of challenges.)

Bluebrick is most useful for laying out your tables, where you want your train track, road plates, and blocks of buildings.

LDD can be useful for visualizing what portions of your layout might look like, but it's unlikely that you'd be able to create your entire layout in it. However, you could import the LDD files for some of the modular buildings into it, and get an idea of what some of your street scenes might look like.

If you could tell us what your overall goal is, someone might be able to give you some more specific ideas.

[rockethead26]

LDD and Bluebrick can have some complementary functions, but they don't have any direct interaction. There is no way to directly import an LDD file into Bluebrick. (You might be able to convert the LDD file to an Ldraw file, but that has its own set of challenges.)

Bluebrick is most useful for laying out your tables, where you want your train track, road plates, and blocks of buildings.

LDD can be useful for visualizing what portions of your layout might look like, but it's unlikely that you'd be able to create your entire layout in it. However, you could import the LDD files for some of the modular buildings into it, and get an idea of what some of your street scenes might look like.

If you could tell us what your overall goal is, someone might be able to give you some more specific ideas.

Hi and thanks for your reply and clarification on the relationship between LDD and BlueBrick.

Our goal is just to plan a tabletop setup that will cover an area of 5' x 8.5'. It will consist of modulars, city sets, roads, trains and eventually a MOC or three. I guess it may be easier to start with good old graph paper to get some basic ideas as far as what will fit into the allocated space. After thinking about this some more, there really is no reason to use fully rendered modulars or other sets in BlueBrick as I can just allocate the space needed for each. The train track layout seems to be the most difficult and BlueBrick should make that easier.

I'll have to play with BlueBrick and see what all it can do. Sorry for the newbie ramblings. We're excited to get started. We went from zero to about 40,000 pieces in three months. Just ordered some road plates and track to get an idea of how the stuff lays down and work out how to join roads, sidewalks and crossings. I see that it will be a work (play) in progress for quite a while.

There is a lot of great info on the Trains and Town forums, but any and all additional suggestions and tips will be appreciated.

[Classicsmiley]

Bluebrick should be exactly what you need to help with your layout. You can create a "table" layer to hold your table top, a baseplate layer to hold your road plates, and other color-coded layers to use for building placeholders.

One of the nice features of Bluebrick is the connection points it has between road plates, and between train track sections. Once you place your initial section, you can then just click the picture (in the track or baseplate list) of the piece you want to add next, and Bluebrick will add that piece in line with the selected piece. For things like T-intersection baseplates, you can click on the side of the baseplate that you want the next road piece to connect to.

Have fun!

[rockethead26]

Classicsmiley,

Thanks for the followup. I was playing around in BlueBrick last night and found the table tops which I though were cool except for the text labels that I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. I just used an area layer instead and painted in the tabletop area. Love the layering as I'm familiar with that from Photoshop.

I also created a tabletop grid in Word that we can print out and draw on while we're throwing around basic ideas, before we try it with BlueBrick.

The fun has started!

[rockethead26]

As a follow-up, I thought I would post my first layout in BlueBrick. My only issue is with the Flex Track on the right side of the track. This is a fun tool.