Custom LDD bricks and fixes

[polymaker]

1 hour ago, M2m said:

He is using a program called Brick.Creator.v0.1c-alpha (which was developed by Polymaker by the way) - its in the google drive jester shared. And also of course in the github of Polymaker who developed it originally,

Wait what! Really? I was not aware!

Good to know it was useful! But that version was something I whipped up real quick for someone that was a bit impatient.

I had most of the code to read and write LDD parts for a while but I'm bad with UI and also I'm a bit perfectionist so I envisioned a full fledged 3D editor from the start but I did not have the knowledge and time to make it happen until recently.

I agree that a release of the latest version is long overdue! I'm trying to make it stable enough so people with no coding knowledge can use it.

About the MacOS thing... I share your dream man but I'm specialized with .Net and WinForma and the few cross-platform UI frameworks for .Net that exists are bad or cannot really achieve what I want.

Edited May 22, 2020 by polymaker
Typo

[The Mugbearer]

So weird question. If we can now access and edit the .g models from LDD, can we also extract those models from LDD and put them into Stud.Io? There's a couple of pieces I've been dying to have in it, but the developers are too busy with other things.

[jamesster]

26 minutes ago, The Mugbearer said:

So weird question. If we can now access and edit the .g models from LDD, can we also extract those models from LDD and put them into Stud.Io? There's a couple of pieces I've been dying to have in it, but the developers are too busy with other things.

People have been using various methods to port LDD bricks over to the LDraw library for quite a long time, and as far as I know, stud.io uses the LDraw library and thus almost certainly already has some LDD pieces in it (see the second half of this post; as of 2017 the LDraw parts library credited LDD in 542 parts files) - so yeah, definitely possible. There's a few options for directly converting the entire LDD brick library to OBJ (here's my tool for it), though of course there's still the task of turning those OBJs into proper LDraw/stud.io bricks. But, yes, should be totally possible.

Edited May 22, 2020 by jamesster

[The Mugbearer]

3 minutes ago, jamesster said:

But, yes, should be totally possible.

This is encouraging!

However, I know of this method and it does not work with Win10 unfortunately. Also, the application used for the process is no longer available.

[jamesster]

6 minutes ago, The Mugbearer said:

This is encouraging!

However, I know of this method and it does not work with Win10 unfortunately. Also, the application used for the process is no longer available.

Which method are you referring to? If you mean 3DXML captures, that's more useful for entire models than individual pieces - it still works fine on Windows 10 (I'm not aware of any method that doesn't, actually), and the software is still available via the web archives; see this topic.

When it comes to converting pieces from G files directly - which is what you're gonna want for porting parts to LDraw/stud.io, it's far more convenient than manually capturing each piece as a 3DXML - see the topic I linked in my previous post (other folks have their own converters, as well, mine's just one of them):

12 minutes ago, jamesster said:

There's a few options for directly converting the entire LDD brick library to OBJ (here's my tool for it)

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by jamesster

[The Mugbearer]

Thank you.

[jester]

7 hours ago, Kuramapika1 said:

Hello @polymaker: I am the first to share your work here. I appreciate it a lot but jester "discovered" how to become parts multicolorable and refuse to share the finding, the question is: do you know how to do that and want to share it? I give you a lot of thanks!!!

There are no any secrets) Just nobody asked it....

Here some steps:

1)I use G to OBJ converter (by @jamesster)

2) With blender import the part I need to color

3) Delete in the menu all materials

4) In edit mode separate the necessary faces 

5) The faces, that should be colourable, I make textured

6) Export OBJ again

7) When simply with Brick Creator (by @polymaker) i make a new part (copy collision and connectivity to the new part) and replace the old one

That's all.

If you'd like, I can try to make the video of hole process to become more understandable.

7 hours ago, polymaker said:

Hey dude!

I just discovered your work and I think you may be interested to know that I have made an almost complete editor for LDD parts.

You can edit the model and connections at the same time and output the G and XML files directly into LDD primitives.

I've managed to reverse engineer the whole G format and I can generate the data to render edges/outlines on the bricks.

My software is still in progress but I have already made a bunch of missing parts (but not as much as you)

I also managed to create flexible parts but only by script.

If you are interested checkout my github project: https://github.com/Polymaker/ldd-modder/tree/v2

That's look fantastic! Can you share it? I'd like to try to work with outlines

Edited May 22, 2020 by jester

[M2m]

2 hours ago, polymaker said:

About the MacOS thing... I share your dream man but I'm specialized with .Net and WinForma and the few cross-platform UI frameworks for .Net that exists are bad or cannot really achieve what I want.

Yeah I see. Maybe I give Swift a try, luckily you released the source, and I may look into converting it into Swift. 

14 minutes ago, jester said:

There are now any secrets) Just nobody asked it....

Here some steps:

1)I use G to OBJ converter (by @jamesster)

20 With blender import the part I need to color

3) Delete in the menu all materials

4) In edit mode separate the necessary faces 

5) The faces, that should be colourable, I make textured

6) Export OBJ again

7) When simply with Brick Creator (by @polymaker) i make a new part (copy collision and connectivity to the new part) and replace the old one

That's all.

If you'd like, I can try to make the video of hole process to become more understandable.

That's look fantastic! Can you share it? I'd like to try to work with outlines

Great Tutorial ?? Keep up the amazing work. 

[jester]

I made a little tutorial, hope it help

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by jester

[M2m]

@jester That video is great. Easy to follow these steps.

@polymaker Ever considered a Blender Plugin for exporting g. files ? Not sure if it feasible, thought. Anyway I hope you can release an updated version of your cool tool. I may run a virtual Windows just to use it

I just released an update of LegoToR - my LDD to RenderMan and USD converter with initial support for custom bricks:

https://github.com/sttng/LegoToR/releases/tag/v0.5.0.7

Edited May 22, 2020 by M2m

[JGuy]

Don't know if you guys already know how to do this, but after a little messing around I figured out how to add a texture to a brick that was not previously able to be textured. I did this one freehand without any UV unwrapping template because I couldn't get the .lxf to .obj converter to work  but if I could figure that out, it could make it go 200% smoother and faster

Edited May 22, 2020 by JGuy

[Stephan]

On 5/21/2020 at 6:16 PM, M2m said:

Have 2 fixes (Fixed connections on the top):

 

Included in parts pack 200522v1.

[SylvainLS]

@The Mugbearer : Studio already has all the parts that are in LDD converted to .dat (the .dat is in their ldraw directory).  They just don’t have all of them referenced / associated with BL / available in the parts palette.

So you just need to use the part in an LXF then import it in Studio and it should be visible / available again by copy/paste.

Or you can use the .dat as a model for PartDesigner, add connectivity…, and then export it to Studio.

 

[The Mugbearer]

1 hour ago, SylvainLS said:

So you just need to use the part in an LXF then import it in Studio and it should be visible / available again by copy/paste.

If all LDD files were already in Stud.Io there won't be part request section in their forums. When I asked them to add a specific part, they asked me if I have a 3D model. So no, they do not have all the LDD parts.

[Jason C. Hand]

Updated the Dobby headpiece to better act as a regular headpiece.

Download found here.

[M2m]

2 hours ago, Jason C. Hand said:

Updated the Dobby headpiece to better act as a regular headpiece.

Download found here.

Nice ! Thanks

@Stephan You may want to include in your parts set :)

Edited May 23, 2020 by M2m

[Stephan]

2 hours ago, M2m said:

Nice ! Thanks

@Stephan You may want to include in your parts set :)

Yes, I will look into it :)

[Calabar]

8 hours ago, The Mugbearer said:

If all LDD files were already in Stud.Io there won't be part request section in their forums. When I asked them to add a specific part, they asked me if I have a 3D model. So no, they do not have all the LDD parts. 

The first assertion don't imply the second one. In fact LDD doesn't contain all the bricks but a small subset, so it is possible to request a brick that is not available both in LDD and in stud.io. Besides as SylvainLS explained you there are two kind of availability in stud.io: "full" availability (a brick is available for use in the palette and it is fully working with the proper connections) and "partial" availability (geometries are available if you import the project from an external font, but the brick could lack connections and is not available in the palette). Therefore, it is likely that many requests involve bricks partially available asking to provide them in full availability.

That said, I'm not 100% sure that stud.io doesn't miss some brick available in LDD, but SylvainLS is surely an affordable font as he manages a pair of tools that converts LDD parts in LDRAW parts, so he knows what he is talking about.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Calabar

[SylvainLS]

1 minute ago, The Mugbearer said:

If all LDD files were already in Stud.Io there won't be part request section in their forums. 

That argument is wrong in many ways.

First, it doesn’t apply to what I said: I didn’t say the parts were “in Studio”, I specifically said the .dat files are in the ldraw directory that comes with Studio.  Two different things altogether.

Secondly, you’re saying (official, old) LDD has all the files Studio needs.  That’s wrong because there are parts that are not in LDD, especially official LDD.

Thirdly, there are many parts that are not in Studio (and neither in LDD) and TLG make new ones every year.  And people would want those parts in Studio, be they in LDD too or not.  So the part request section is only proof the Studio team acknowledges that Studio doesn’t have all the parts that exist and that it certainly doesn’t have all the parts that will exist. 

So even if all the parts in LDD were available in Studio’s parts palette (with connectivity etc.), which is not what I said, there would still be a need for a part request section in Studio’s forums.

 

13 minutes ago, The Mugbearer said:

When I asked them to add a specific part, they asked me if I have a 3D model.

The Studio team simply don’t know what they have.

You can read said forums and see several instances where we (plural we, because I believe I’m not the only one) point to the existence of a .dat file in the ldraw directory of Studio.  E.g. https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3860 (note that 23714 is in LDraw now).

I’d also remark there are requests on Studio forums for parts that ARE in Studio’s part palette.  But that’s beside the point.

 

33 minutes ago, The Mugbearer said:

So no, they do not have all the LDD parts.

I know all the parts were there when Studio came out.

But as you insist, I rechecked anyway:  Out of about 4291 parts that are in LDD, about 1170 are not in LDraw, and out of the ~1170 parts that are in LDD but not in LDraw, 230 are not in Studio files, the other ~940 are.
So it appears I was 5% or 20% wrong, depending on whether you count all the parts in LDD or only the ones that are not in LDraw too.

However, the 230 that are not in Studio files now are all from the latest update of LDD (2018).

So, as I remembered, Studio included all the .dat files for the parts that were in LDD, but that was when Studio first came out.  The Studio team simply didn’t bother to update them for the last update of LDD in 2018.  And I didn’t bother to check they were not updated before now.

Therefore, I’ll amend what I said earlier: MOST (80%) of the parts that are in LDD and not in LDraw are in Studio ldraw directory (not necessarily in the palette) AND, anyway, for the parts that are in LDD but not in Studio (even under an alternate ID) and not somewhere in the ldraw directory in Studio’s installation, you can always find a .dat file on http://digital-bricks.de if you can’t make one yourself.  And believe you me, Cheenzo and the Studio team (and the LDraw part authors) know how to find (or make) them when they need to.

Official LDD parts are not a big problem for Studio (or LDraw) (if you don’t care about accuracy, cleanliness, compliance with LDraw standards, connectivity, etc.).

 

[The Mugbearer]

Ok, my response was ill-informed and I apologize. Thank you for more detailed explanation.

[SylvainLS]

It’s okay, I was wrong too.

[SylvainLS]

Little correction:

• New_LDD_3612 is actually BL_412 (“turned” or “fingers rotated”), BL_3612 is already in LDD as 6101 (“straight” or “fingers aligned’).

Complements / corrections for the list in the main thread:

• 6051, 6053, 2557, and 2559 are 6051c01, 6053c01, 2577c01, and 2559c01 in BL (and LDraw).
• Skull with helmet is 93065 (not 69065).

Bugs:

• 30219 is missing stud connection on its stud.
• 28925 is missing its bottom or it’s invisible.
• 30271 is missing its .xml (at least on GitHub).

Nice job guys!

Nice mix of old and new parts too 

[Stephan]

LDD parts pack 200522v2 is now available.

[PicnicBasketSam]

The Dropbox link for 200522v2 goes to a 404 Page Not Found error.

Download was successful from GitHub but part 30571 (the large raised baseplate) was not included in that version, and the LXF file of new parts could not load it.

Additionally, parts 48165 Wedge 3x3 Sloped Right and 42862 Wedge 3x3 Sloped Left have a boundary problem where other pieces cannot be placed against the flat edges.

Edited May 23, 2020 by PicnicBasketSam
added more information after downloading

[Takanuinuva]

There is a new glitch with adding these parts. Seems you can't create building instructions with both the new and old parts in the same file.