Which editor to use with lDraw?

[JoergH]

Hi there,

i am new to digital lego design, and started today using LDD.

As i saw in the internet, there are a other part-libary called ldraw and i want to try it...:-)

But my question:

I start from beginning and want to learn the editor i will use in the futhure (must NOT be the easiest editor, i am looking for the best).

So which one do you prefer:

MLCad

LeoCAD

LDCad

SR 3D Builder

I want to use it for building movie-scenes (star wars) and such things!

I looking at all the websites and it seems that LDCad is up-to-date. The website is nice and there are a very good online-manual avalible...

What do you think? Which one should i choose?

Thanks for helping!

Joerg

Edited June 16, 2015 by JoergH

[___]

Hi there,

i am new to digital lego design, and started today using LDD.

As i saw in the internet, there are a other part-libary called ldraw and i want to try it...:-)

But my question:

I start from beginning and want to learn the editor i will use in the futhure (must NOT be the easiest editor, i am looking for the best).

So which one do you prefer:

MLCad

LeoCAD

LDCad

SR 3D Builder

I want to use it for building movie-scenes (star wars) and such things!

I looking at all the websites and it seems that LDCad is up-to-date. The website is nice and there are a very good online-manual avalible...

What do you think? Which one should i choose?

Thanks for helping!

Joerg

I would go deffinitely with LDcad in no time!

[JoergH]

Thanks!

Is it possible to use POV-Ray to render Pictures when using LDcad?

I read that i need a special Part Library called "PGEO". But there is no download link that works for this!

Only source i found was the all-in-one pack from ldraw which i don't want to use...

Thanks again for help!

Joerg

[___]

Thanks!

Is it possible to use POV-Ray to render Pictures when using LDcad?

I read that i need a special Part Library called "PGEO". But there is no download link that works for this!

Only source i found was the all-in-one pack from ldraw which i don't want to use...

Thanks again for help!

Joerg

Yes, of course: you can render LCcad files with POV-Ray + the "special" library is called LGEO and its contained in LDRAW ALL-IN-ONE instalation file

[JoergH]

Thanks a lot!

I worked with LDCad for maybe 2 hours now, and it feels much better to me then LDD did...

This is my first result in ldcad...

Edited June 17, 2015 by JoergH

[___]

Thanks a lot!

I worked with LDCad for maybe 2 hours now, and it feels much better to me then LDD did...

This is my first result in ldcad...

That is a nice one render for a beginner

[barnylego]

Hi ---I have recently begun to try LDCad after a couple of years using SR3D. I can follow the editing tutorials ok, apart from the rubber band and three wheels example. I just cannot add the second or third ring, either being told 'invisible part selected' or the wheel reappears. I have watched (frame by frame) the 1.3 features video using a rubber drive ring and two wheels and still cannot copy the action.I would appreciate some advice and possibly a detailed list of actions required.--thanks.

[roland]

I just cannot add the second or third ring, either being told 'invisible part selected' or the wheel reappears. I have watched (frame by frame) the 1.3 features video using a rubber drive ring and two wheels and still cannot copy the action.

Sounds like you are selecting / duplicating the rubber band 'skin' itself instead of the control point. Are you sure you selected the center cross (turns light blue/purple) and not the band which goes around it. If the cross isn't visible (in nested mode) hide the wheel partlike the advanced editing tutorial describes.

[barnylego]

Thanks for that Roland. Your absolutely spot on,and I can now use these functions ok. Thanks also for a great program with so many good features(esp 2Dview). Please keep up the good work!

[___]

Thanks for that Roland. Your absolutely spot on,and I can now use these functions ok. Thanks also for a great program with so many good features(esp 2Dview). Please keep up the good work!

Yea - I agree: basically I only wait for a version of BlueRender that would introduce .ldr support (and I know that this support is WIP at the moment) and then I will also most probably switch completely from LDD to LDCad only, the best LEGO SW ever IMHO!

[Dilvish]

I still like MLCAD the most but it has a few bugs that unfortunately affect me especially. :(

[___]

I still like MLCAD the most but it has a few bugs that unfortunately affect me especially. :(

Did you actually try LDcad? I guess you could like it - it has everything from MLCAD and even more + work with flexi parts is easy and delightful experience!

Edited August 9, 2015 by bublible

[mfeldt]

All of them appear to have some quirks...

• LDD has all the modern parts and "simply works" - it's designed for kids after all. It can actually also generate pretty decent instructions with a little bit of tuning groups and subgroups. However, it strictly prohibits "commercial use" (many others do as well...), so you can do little with the products other than using them for yourself. It's the only program that reliably avoids parts penetrating other parts.
  
• LeoCad - for me, it strangely omits some parts. Rather normal ones, perfectly present in lDraw - it just pretends they are not around.
  
• LDCad - to me seems the best after LDD, but group handling is rather inexplicable. There is apparently no way to access a group other than clicking on a part of it. When deleting a group and then pressing undo, the group is ungrouped... The submodel concept still has some bugs (e.g. when you start moving a selection to a submodel but then have second thoughts and abort, submodels in external files appear not to work at all). Building at strange angles produces funny results and it's hard to get everything rotated in a way that parts match (and snap!) properly. LDD does that an infinite number of times better.
  
• MLCad - sorry, the user interface is so outdated, that can hardly be called a 3D design software anymore
  
• SR 3D couldn't get it to run yet under wine....
  

So in short: I love to use LDD, it simply works, it makes sure that the results can really be built, it has a modern and intuitive user interface. However, for doing anything than admiring the results, due to license limitations I have to then convert the model to lDraw, which in itself is usually problematic since lDraw is missing *a lot* of parts.

When these are tediously collected from the net, added to the library and then manually in LDCad, instruction building starts. This is unfortunately never as easy as in LDD, although the images finally produced by tool chain ending up in povray do arguably look a lot better!

[roland]

LDCad - to me seems the best after LDD, but group handling is rather inexplicable. There is apparently no way to access a group other than clicking on a part of it. When deleting a group and then pressing undo, the group is ungrouped... The submodel concept still has some bugs (e.g. when you start moving a selection to a submodel but then have second thoughts and abort, submodels in external files appear not to work at all). Building at strange angles produces funny results and it's hard to get everything rotated in a way that parts match (and snap!) properly. LDD does that an infinite number of times better.

Groups are handled as merged parts, so imho it should act the way it acts. I do plan to add some low level access to them in a future version though.

Building at strange angles should be avoided by using submodels and if needed anyway ti should be done while a relative grid is active. This way everything will be 'rectangular' in relation to the grid again. See also the basic editing tutorial on my site.

LDCad's snapping feature is not at the level of LDD as it does single shape matchings (e.g. one stud against one antistud), it relies on the user to use usefull base rotations during placement/relative grids etc. This is because it is mainly a helper tool at the moment, I do plan extend it to multi shape matching at some point though.

I'll look into the external file submodel issue it might be a bug, thanks for your thoughts.

[Philo]

Your comment on LeoCad seems strange to me since it (now) uses the same library as other LDraw editors. Could you tell me a few parts that seem missing?

Edit: Just read your other post...

Edited October 9, 2015 by Philo

[mfeldt]

Groups are handled as merged parts, so imho it should act the way it acts. I do plan to add some low level access to them in a future version though.

I agree it's just a different concept than in LDD and it does in fact make sense, especially when you also have submodels. It just takes a while (well, half an hour or so) to get used to!

One thing though: In LDD what I like especially is that you can quickly recolor a whole group of bricks with a single click to a new color - I do this all the time when generating instructions. In LDCad, since you have to use submodels, this is harder, since you firstly have to do it in the submodel itself, and secondly it will affect all the instances of the submodel simultaneously. In fact, re-coloring an individual instance appears to be impossible.

[roland]

since you have to use submodels, this is harder, since you firstly have to do it in the submodel itself, and secondly it will affect all the instances of the submodel simultaneously. In fact, re-coloring an individual instance appears to be impossible.

You can use the special LDraw color number 16 to use submodels in multiple colors. This is done by assigning the color 16 to any parts in the submodel you want to render in different colors when used. If you need multiple varying colors you need to sub divide the submodel. You can then assemble multiple submodels of the same object using different colors. Recursion is fun :)

[mfeldt]

That sounds great, I'll give it a try! Thanks1

[junaz]

I have mostly only used SR3D Builder, and I really like it. It's simple and the parts align, rotate and snap wonderfully. It's very quick and easy to use. However the only thing missing really is the possibility to use flexible parts such as hoses, strings, chains etc. It's sad that it will (most likely) never be updated/edited...

I'm considering moving over to LDCad, but as I've read some of the posts, some people say the parts doesn't rotate/align as preferred. How easy is the program to work with? And how well does the editing of flexible parts work?

[legolijntje]

LDCad has basicly 2 "modes" of placing parts. There's the manual one, just like in MLcad just placing bricks on a grid, but in a 3d space instead of multiple 2d windows. And then there's the automatic snap/allignment, which like in LDD or SR3D builder makes parts "snap" to each other (you have to manually turn this feature on). It doesn't work as wel as in SR3D Builder or LDD, but it works quite well. I really recommend to just try it out, build something to see if you like it

Regarding flexible parts: once you know how to work with flexible parts in LDCad, it's AMAZING. Adding flexible parts was never so easy (in my opinion at least). You can't edit LSynth parts though, if that's what you mean. But, at the same time, you can also only edit LDCad's flexible parts in LDCad (although you can view them in any LDraw software).

[junaz]

Thanks for the informative reply! Sounds promising, I'll surely be giving it a try! :)

[Philo]

LDCad, it's AMAZING. Adding flexible parts was never so easy (in my opinion at least).

Totally agree, in most cases it is really a delight to work with. Now I just completed the Technic 42043 Arocs, and cramming all the tubing at the base of arm remains a tough task... just as it is in real life ;)

It doesn't work as wel as in SR3D

Not even sure about that. Sometimes with SR3D you had parts that jumped in the wrong place (eg. 1/2 bushes on axles) and it was very difficult to get them right. With LDCad you have the grid mode as fallback if this happens!

[legolijntje]

Not even sure about that. Sometimes with SR3D you had parts that jumped in the wrong place (eg. 1/2 bushes on axles) and it was very difficult to get them right. With LDCad you have the grid mode as fallback if this happens!

I'm not sure why, but I liked SR3D's auto-allignment better (although it had it quirks of course ).

Regarding the bushes in SR3D; I believe (I haven't used SR3D in while) that turning on 'dense conns' made it perfectly possible to place bushes. A bit like the grid sizes in LDCad.

[Philo]

I am sure to know why I prefer alignment of LDCad: it properly turns axles in axle holes, something that SR3D doesn't do ;)

Yes, dense cons might help. But SR3D also had the bad habit of re-snapping things on load where it thought they should be, sometimes breaking subtle details you painstakingly adjusted...

Edited December 3, 2015 by Philo