Custom LDD bricks and fixes

[Umbrage82]

Can someone send me the rar link for the new LDD parts? I just joined and am not permitted to private message OP directly. 

 

I'm particularly looking for the dinosaurs from modern sets -- it appears as though those are supported (seeing images from users), but they're not in my current LDD (4.3.11). Am I looking for the right place by trying to find new pieces, or is there a setting / search I'm messing up?

[Stephan]

1 hour ago, Umbrage82 said:

Can someone send me the rar link for the new LDD parts?

I can do that. But there are no new dinosaur parts in the recent parts pack updates. 

[Umbrage82]

Thanks please do!

 

May be off topic please move if so - I see T-rex'es and Raptors being included in official sets in LDD, such as those below. However when I search for phrases like "rex", "raptor" etc in my LDD-extended I only see the older models. What am I doing incorrectly?

 

[PicnicBasketSam]

1 hour ago, Umbrage82 said:

Thanks please do!

May be off topic please move if so - I see T-rex'es and Raptors being included in official sets in LDD, such as those below. However when I search for phrases like "rex", "raptor" etc in my LDD-extended I only see the older models. What am I doing incorrectly?

The short version is, you're not using the right search keywords. Most of the dinosaur parts from 2012-2015 are in there. Search for "Animal No. 2." and the Pteranodon parts come up, No. 3 for the Velociraptor, No. 5 for the T. rex, No. 23 for parts of the Indominus Rex (although none of them work properly) No. 24 for the head of the Dilophosaurus. The Coelophysis is in there too under the name "Stud Insert F.Animal 2.nd Shot." The Triceratops and anything introduced in more recent Jurassic World sets aren't there but it's possible that someone will add them in the future.

[Umbrage82]

I think I see what you're saying! but still not getting what I'd expect to see as 'full' results:

 

[SylvainLS]

Wait a second, your category icons are wrong.  The antenna isn’t used in 4.3.11 and the interrogation point in the last one shouldn’t be here at all (it shows when a category is missing its icon).

Are you really using 4.3.11 or did you install the messed up 4.3.12?  Or did you made other changes to the db?

Look in Help | About (F3), on the right, Brick Version should be 2670.

[Umbrage82]

Ah, yep I must have 4.12, as I downloaded "4.3" from the lego website but now looking at the installer it is listed as setupldd-pc-4-3-12.

 

Within the program my version is listed as 4.3.11, but the Brick Version is 777 rather than 2670. I also receive the "cannot find internet" error on startup but I had assumed that was due to the app no longer being supported... Sorry this has become a troubleshooting of my installation! I found what I believe is a prior 4.3.11 build and trying now...

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Umbrage82

[Umbrage82]

1 hour ago, Umbrage82 said:

Ah, yep I must have 4.12, as I downloaded "4.3" from the lego website but now looking at the installer it is listed as setupldd-pc-4-3-12.

 

Within the program my version is listed as 4.3.11, but the Brick Version is 777 rather than 2670. I also receive the "cannot find internet" error on startup but I had assumed that was due to the app no longer being supported... Sorry this has become a troubleshooting of my installation! I found what I believe is a prior 4.3.11 build and trying now...

 

 

 

 

I'm at a loss; I've tried several installers claiming to be 4.3.11 but still stuck on 777 Brick Version...

[SylvainLS]

Be sure to desinstall LDD first, especially you user’s directory, delete db.lif (did you already install the new bricks? delete the db directory).

[Umbrage82]

25 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

Be sure to desinstall LDD first, especially you user’s directory, delete db.lif (did you already install the new bricks? delete the db directory).

Ah I missed the user profiles ! Thanks so much. Have not been sent the new peices link yet

[Stephan]

6 hours ago, Umbrage82 said:

Ah I missed the user profiles ! Thanks so much. Have not been sent the new peices link yet

I have to create a new rar file so you have the latest pieces. I'll send you the link today.

[marcuslfalk]

hi. i'm also new here and can't send messages either, so could you please send the rar file thanks

[SylvainLS]

On 6/22/2020 at 8:03 PM, Stephan said:

Yes, I would love to add the new Vibrant Coral color, but I don't know how to open/edit the Materials file...

The Materials file is just an XML file.  You can add (or change) any colour you want by adding a Material element:

<Material MatID="353" Red="255" Green="109" Blue="119" Alpha="255" MaterialType="shinyPlastic"/>

Then, the almost tricky part is to associate a name to the colour (otherwise, it’s named “??Material353??”).  For that, you need a real editor to edit MaterialNames/{EN,DE}/localizedStrings.loc.
It’s a bunch of zero-terminated strings (so stupid editors will think it’s data).  The strings come in pairs: one is Material## and the other is the fancy name.  So you just add “Material353^@Vibrant Coral^@” (where “^@” is the character 0) at the end and it’s done.

Now, the real tricky part is to add it to LDD’s palette.  But the palette isn’t in the user’s db.lif, it’s general to the application.
I added the IDs to CurrentMaterials.xml too but it doesn’t seem to do anything.  So, for now, I just edited the .lxf…

Edited June 25, 2020 by SylvainLS

[M2m]

2 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

The Materials file is just an XML file.  You can add (or change) any colour you want by adding a Material element:

<Material MatID="353" Red="255" Green="109" Blue="119" Alpha="255" MaterialType="shinyPlastic"/>

Then, the almost tricky part is to associate a name to the colour (otherwise, it’s named “??Material353??”).  For that, you need a real editor to edit MaterialNames/{EN,DE}/localizedStrings.loc.
It’s a bunch of zero-terminated strings (so stupid editors will think it’s data).  The strings come in pairs: one is Material## and the other is the fancy name.  So you just add “Material353^@Vibrant Coral^@” (where “^@” is the character 0) at the end and it’s done.

Now, the real tricky part is to add it to LDD’s palette.  But the palette isn’t in the user’s db.lif, it’s general to the application.
I added the IDs to CurrentMaterials.xml too but it doesn’t seem to do anything.  So, for now, I just edited the .lxf…

Maybe you have to add the material id to the MaterialSelector.xml which is part of the LDDExtended.lif file (on MacOS in Folder /Users/username/Library/Application\ Support/LEGO\ Company/LEGO\ Digital\ Designer/Palettes/ ) ?

[SylvainLS]

11 hours ago, M2m said:

Maybe you have to add the material id to the MaterialSelector.xml

Nope.  I thought too at first but this file has just one “grid” element and the LDD palette is divided in different grids, but I tested anyway and it did nothing.

It’s the same file that’s in Assets.lif and there’s no other candidate file, so I don’t know where the colour palette is really defined.

 

On that note, I also thought about trying to modify LDD.lif with the info from Studio’s “ADP Palette” but never got around to do it….

[M2m]

15 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

Nope.  I thought too at first but this file has just one “grid” element and the LDD palette is divided in different grids, but I tested anyway and it did nothing.

It’s the same file that’s in Assets.lif and there’s no other candidate file, so I don’t know where the colour palette is really defined.

 

On that note, I also thought about trying to modify LDD.lif with the info from Studio’s “ADP Palette” but never got around to do it….

Maybe its reading the palette from Asssets.lif (or Assets folder in case you extracted assets.lif ?)

[SylvainLS]

It’s even simpler than that: contrarily to Assets(.lif) or db(.lif), LDDExtended has to be a .lif, not a directory.

So, extract LDDExtended.lif, add the colours ID to MaterialSelector.xml, recreate the .lif, and it works¹.

What’s “funny” is that LDD puts colours into the solid or transparent sections all by itself.  (Colours in CurrentMaterials go into the Solid or Transparent sections according to their alpha channel, if they are in shinySteel (and not transparent), they go into the Metallic section, and if they are not in CurrentMaterials, they go into the Legacy section.)

 

(¹To be precise:  I was doubtful LDD would copy files in the user profile but still prefer to use the ones in Assets, but I tried anyway.  First, I tried on the extracted LDDExtended/ in extracted Assets/: it didn’t work.  Then on a recreated LDDExtended.lif in extracted Assets/: it worked.  Then I put the original LDDExtended.lif back in extracted Assets/ and put the modified LDDExtended.lif in my user profile: it worked.  I then removed the extracted Assets/ to use the original Assets.lif and it still worked.  I tried again in a directory: it didn’t work.  So it really needs to be a .lif.  You can even leave the extracted directory, it will only read the .lif.
What puzzles me is that I had tried with a .lif before, when I said it didn’t work (hence my remark in the other thread on LIF-Creator working well for me on the small LDDExtended.lif) but I must have made an error somewhere (in a name?) because now it works well.)

Edited June 27, 2020 by SylvainLS

[M2m]

Assuming you used my LIFCreator.py tool it could also be there was a bug and the lif file wasn’t created correctly  and prevented loading the 1st time you tried. 

[SylvainLS]

10 hours ago, M2m said:

Assuming you used my LIFCreator.py tool it could also be there was a bug and the lif file wasn’t created correctly  and prevented loading the 1st time you tried. 

Yes, I used your LIFCreator.py tool but there was no update inbetween the tests, so, unless it’s dependant on the date or a random value, the error is mine 

[Kuramapika1]

Hello: I try emulate what you do abaut colors (don't need to recreate the .lif file; I moved it to anoher location and left the folder) and have success, except the names: can you explaine how to add it?

[SylvainLS]

13 minutes ago, Kuramapika1 said:

don't need to recreate the .lif file; I moved it to anoher location and left the folder

Yes, original .lif are to be moved or the folders aren’t read.  But my LDDExtended folder is never read.  It’s only read when in a .lif.  Yours is read as a folder?

 

14 minutes ago, Kuramapika1 said:

except the names: can you explaine how to add it?

You need a good text editor (not notepad, not wordpad, maybe notepad++?), one that can open “binary” files and show and let you input control characters without breaking anything.

Open MaterialNames/EN/localizeStrings.loc (or DE).  You’ll see it’s just one long string:

2^@Material1^@White^@…

or more accurately a series of zero-terminated strings (or null-terminated strings). (“^@” is the standard way to show the character of ASCII code zero.  Depending on your editor, you might see \000 or 0x00 instead.  If you don’t see anything, try another editor.)

The first string is “2”.  I guess it’s a file type or it says that strings need to be read in pairs.  Anyway, you see that every next string is Material### (### being a number), and every other string is the name of the colour LEGO codes as ###.  E.g. the first two strings (after “2”) say “Material1” is “White”, and LEGO’s code for White is 1.

So you just need to add at the end “Material353”, then insert a NULL / zero, then “Vibrant Coral”, then another NULL.  In short, you add “Material353^@Vibrant Coral^@”.

Be careful not to add spaces (nor linebreaks), especially not in “Material353” because that’s the key LDD uses to match to “Vibrant Coral”.

[Kuramapika1]

25 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

Yours is read as a folder?

Yes it read as folder. Thank for the tip, I try to open and make changes. By the way, in the next day I send some bricks (most Trechnics): it realy a headache adjusting the propers connections. Another think: I saw the bricks uploaded by Equilibrium (the pneumatics) and I think it is more useful if change the slaider connectivity for axle 2 (cylinder) and axle 4 (piston). These way it can rotate without problem (I did it with my Shock Absorber 10L)

[Equilibrium]

I have updated my bricks, main changes;

1. Fixed Blueprint crash,
2. Better compatibility with LDraw export.

Detailed changes are inside rar file.

Due to numbering changes some files should be deleted from db folder:

1. 324960 should be removed from Assemblies directory
2. 9388 should be removed from Primitives and LOD0 directory
3. 279701 should be removed from Primitives and LOD0 directory
4. 279702 should be removed from Primitives and LOD0 directory
5. 932902 should be removed from Primitives and LOD0 directory
6. 2686.g1 and 2686.g2 should be removed from LOD0 directory
7. 2684.g1 and 2684.g2 should be removed from LOD0 directory
8. 2683.g1 should be removed from LOD0 directory

Also for the same reason as above pneumatic cylinders and monorail bogey carts will be removed from existing LDD projects. You have to place them again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Download links:

• My old LINK now refers to merged update 1 + fix,
• New LINK for fixes ONLY.

[Stephan]

Awesome! I'll make a new/updated parts pack.

[Stephan]

Added version 20200630β, which include 3 new parts and 18 updated/fixed parts.
If you already downloaded 20200622β, please check READ FIRST!!.txt in the folder/rar file first! There are some files in the Primitives, Assemblies and LOD0 folder that need to be deleted. 

This β version shall remain stand-alone for a few days. After that it will be included in the JUNE 2020 α version.