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LDD is an Underdeveloped Abomination - Why Do So Many Still Use it?

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I can think of this as something user-friendly like Sketchup compared to BRL-CAD. One is limited, but user-friendly, and the other is used by the U.S Army Research Laboratories, and therefore extremely complicated. It has trade-offs. I for one am not too organized, so I can put up without groupings just fine. Plus, the graphics are better as compared to LDraw before it got the shading update a few months ago. 

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Well, for someone like me with no CAD experience, LDD presents an extremely user-friendly platform that's immediately accessible regardless of your experience level. It's easy and fun from the start.

Since LDD is no longer receiving updates, I thought I'd try my hand at LDraw. After a half hour of fumbling through it, I've managed to figure out how to select parts, rotate them, and change their colors. I still have no idea how to get them to connect to each other. In the same amount of time with LDD, I could have built a small model, or at least a sub-assembly of a larger one. Therein lies the strength and allure of the official program- no need to read through long tutorials to figure out how to do the most basic functions of a LEGO-based program. If they could merge the basic snap and click interface of LDD and combine those with the more complex tools of LCAD, it'd be a much more rewarding experience. As it is, there's a quite a learning curve for the uninitiated.

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@M'Kyuun
Ldraw is a library of parts, supported by several editors, some more, some less user-friendly. Which one have you tried? (I suggest LDCad that does have snapping functions, but your personal preference might be different).

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I have a hard time using LeoCAD because it freezes and doesn't always respond. I'd like to see The LEGO Group release their own successor to LEGO Digital Designer someday.

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Can you give me more information about what you are doing when it freezes? This is the first I've heard of it.

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15 hours ago, leozide said:

Can you give me more information about what you are doing when it freezes? This is the first I've heard of it.

Alright, every other time I start up LeoCAD, it tends to not respond as in the "program is not responding" error.

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21 hours ago, MatthewRC said:

I have a hard time using LeoCAD because it freezes and doesn't always respond. I'd like to see The LEGO Group release their own successor to LEGO Digital Designer someday.

As i said before, i want to see LDD with an integrated, user friendly renderer in the future.

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1 hour ago, Iloveazure said:

As i said before, i want to see LDD with an integrated, user friendly renderer in the future.

Me too. Should we start a petition for The LEGO Group to keep LEGO Digital Designer alive and up-to-date?

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4 hours ago, MatthewRC said:

Me too. Should we start a petition for The LEGO Group to keep LEGO Digital Designer alive and up-to-date?

I think we should. The question is, how many suppporters can be found?

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8 hours ago, MatthewRC said:

Alright, every other time I start up LeoCAD, it tends to not respond as in the "program is not responding" error.

Are you using your own LDraw library or LeoCAD's internal one? It can be slow to start if it has to scan the folders for parts, I'll look into that.

As for LDD, my completely uninformed guess is that TLG may be trying to cut costs, I read that their profits have gone down and they were planning layoffs a few months ago.

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Just now, leozide said:

Are you using your own LDraw library or LeoCAD's internal one? It can be slow to start if it has to scan the folders for parts, I'll look into that.

As for LDD, my completely uninformed guess is that TLG may be trying to cut costs, I read that their profits have gone down and they were planning layoffs a few months ago.

Since LeoCAD is harder to use than LDD, I might as well uninstall LeoCAD for good. LDD runs smoother and better.

31 minutes ago, Iloveazure said:

I think we should. The question is, how many suppporters can be found?

Here's a link to another thread I made. Let's discuss it there.

 

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While waiting of Lego to update LDD you would have learnt how to use the ldraw softwares...

Edited by Darats

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21 hours ago, Darats said:

While waiting of Lego to update LDD you would have learnt how to use the ldraw softwares...

I've definitely grown more used to using alternative software like Stud.io, Bricksmith, and Mecabricks since LDD stopped updating regularly. Doesn't mean doing so has ever become less of a chore. I have yet to find a digital building software that is as user-friendly and captures the fun of real-life building quite as well as LDD. So while I definitely have alternative options if I want to put together a functional file using newer parts (and some of the others have additional benefits like Stud.io's direct integration with Bricklink), they're still pale substitutes.

Edited by Lyichir

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1 hour ago, Lyichir said:

I've definitely grown more used to using alternative software like Stud.io, Bricksmith, and Mecabricks since LDD stopped updating regularly. Doesn't mean doing so has ever become less of a chore. I have yet to find a digital building software that is as user-friendly and captures the fun of real-life building quite as well as LDD. So while I definitely have alternative options if I want to put together a functional file using newer parts (and some of the others have additional benefits like Stud.io's direct integration with Bricklink), they're still pale substitutes.

Out of curiosity, what's the feature you miss the most from LDD that doesn't exist in other applications?

 

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3 minutes ago, leozide said:

Out of curiosity, what's the feature you miss the most from LDD that doesn't exist in other applications?

 

It's not so much that it's based on a single feature that isn't replicated in any other software as it is that most other software I've tried falls short with one feature or another. Bricksmith lacks simple part snapping, requiring me to nudge most parts into place manually along three axes—far too inefficient for me to resort to on any larger MOCs. Mecabricks requires way too many keyboard shortcuts for me to easily keep track of, and takes much, much longer than LDD to browse parts (I imagine in part due to being a browser-based tool instead of an independently-running program). Stud.io is one of the best I've worked with, but it can't flex chains and similar parts the way LDD can, and its database being based on Bricklink's is both a blessing and a curse—parts lists are often organized poorly and cluttered with minor part variations. Of those three, Stud.io is the only one to feature more than a paltry selection of Constraction parts. Obviously, given its advantages and the kinds of things I build, it emerges as the clear winner, but I still prefer LDD's interface, and none of them can match the "glory days" of LDD, when new parts were added extremely promptly after new releases.

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7 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Of those three, Stud.io is the only one to feature more than a paltry selection of Constraction parts.

Beeing based on LDraw library, Stud.io doen't have more parts than other LDraw editors including Bricksmith or LeoCAD (and it may have less, parts for which stud.io has no connectivity or collision information defined). Was about to ask you if you tried LDCad, but as you quote Mac only Bricksmith I guess you work on Apple platform so it's not an easy option.

Edited by Philo

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4 hours ago, Philo said:

Beeing based on LDraw library, Stud.io doen't have more parts than other LDraw editors including Bricksmith or LeoCAD (and it may have less, parts for which stud.io has no connectivity or collision information defined).

Well, Stud.io includes Official, Unofficial, and parts from digital-bricks.de, so it’s more complete than a default LDraw installation that only includes Official. (Lack of connectivity info on some parts is a problem but doesn’t preclude using them.) Now if it were less power-hungry…

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1 hour ago, SylvainLS said:

and parts from digital-bricks.de

Ah. Was not aware of this. So it is definitely more complete (and in line with LDD)

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LDD has always been quite easy to get into and build stuff with. Stud.io, however, has some promise. To me personally, it operates just a little like the Mecabricks site. Only thing is that it is a slow beast, and "power-hungry," as SylvainLS pointed out. If there were a less demanding version of Stud.io out there right now, I'd happily use it in tandem with LDD.

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stud.io looks good when regarding the specs, but once I started trying to use it... First of all I couldn't get it to run on 2 older machines, nor on a virtualbox. Apparently the requirements - which are nowhere to be found by the way - regarding openGL are too high for those.Once it does run on a modern PC, it creates a CPU load beyond belief, hardly aver responds fluently and is simply no fun to work with. Importing a model from LDD seems to destroy the sub-model grouping completely, although I read otherwise somewhere.   stud.io seems to follow the step-logic known from ldraw editors, which I personally simply hate.  In fact, using these groups one can create great instructions rather easily. The only sever ddrawback of LDD is that TLG strictly prohibits any commercial use, so you can't sell anything created in LDD. In principle, you can't even upload pictures to a web site that has advertisements, as that's already commercial use.

So for me stud.io is a promising alternative that might become the tool of choice one day, but it still needs a lot of improvement. For the rest of ldraw, it's somewhat like the usual story with "free" software.  It's great and one can achieve stunning things, but it usually lacks professionalism, the latter meaning that it's not so easy to do all the great things without doing a lot of other things first, like finding the right version of library X, piling through config file Y, or figuring out the meaning of GUI element Z.

For implementing ideas LDD is still without alternative!

 

 

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As someone whom (embarrassingly) had no idea that any of these software options existed until about 5 days ago, this thread and the forum topic has been very helpful. I've downloaded and played around a tiny bit with both LDD and Stud.io. Here are my first impressions:

LDD seems like it was designed simple enough for kids to use (or for anyone with minimal design software experience). Frankly, Lego should develop a LDD 2.0 just for the educational benefit for young Lego enthusiasts. They could continue on the theme of the easy user interface, but maybe increase the pixel resolution, keep the parts inventory up to date, and improve the building guide mode function. So far I haven't figured out how or if LDD integrates with a way to purchase the pieces for something you've created, but if they made an LDD 2.0 it would be awesome if the program could integrate with Pick a Brick or even Bricklink for pricing and availability info.

I would guess that part of why they discontinued LDD was because they were seeing the third party software surpass anything that they could develop. As much as it would be nice to see a robust replacement to LDD, maybe Lego should just stick to making the bricks that we love, and encourage the third party development to continue (and actively support/encourage it). Stud.io seems like it holds a lot of promise. At first glance it seems much more robust, and I imagine it will get better as time goes on (as LDD grows ever more obsolete). The integration with Bricklink pricing info seems helpful. The only thing I couldn't find was a way to create a building guide - though I did notice that you can create steps as you design, not sure yet what that lets you do with the final design. I think I am going to prefer Stud.io, but I may explore LDD for certain things too. I still think it is cool that ANY of this software exists at all.

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Really the opposite for me. While I hate how the LDD lacks updates, and I hate how the it doesn't offer some "no collision/free placement" mode, I love how fast it is.

But I don't remember if I've tried LDCad. Its archaic UI doesn't really invite me to. I have hopes for Stud.io, not there yet in terms of usability, but its UI is lovely.
(& then there's Mecabricks for the true masochists)

I only wish that the LDD was made open source by Lego, so that parts can be added more quickly, or replaced by HD ones.

On 27/02/2018 at 1:13 PM, mfeldt said:

The only sever ddrawback of LDD is that TLG strictly prohibits any commercial use, so you can't sell anything created in LDD. In principle, you can't even upload pictures to a web site that has advertisements, as that's already commercial use.

I would reaaaally not worry about that. You have to understand that Lego is a big company, they leave lawyers care about all those terms. And that's what lawyers do, they push as far as they can, for maximum safety. I'm even quite surprised that they aren't stating that anything you make in the LDD, becomes the property of Lego, because that's the kind of thing they do. If it was legally acceptable for a TOS sheet, they would probably add that they own your soul.
The TOS for Lego's contests are quite abusive as well. But here again, it doesn't matter, it's just what lawyers do as their job. I've won some prizes there. "Legally", Lego owns my stuff now - I've signed that. But it doesn't matter a single bit, Lego isn't really gonna steal my stuff, and they don't need to, I've only signed legal crap that every business does to protect itself.

So yes, quite obviously you can sell LDD files, many do just that. Which.. doesn't even really matter anyway, because you won't find anyone to buy them. I can't imagine the average MOC instructions selling more than a dozen, in the hundreds at the very best for the top ones -maybe-.

 

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