Mirroring MOC, mass colour change??

[Johnnycrash]

Hey all,

My current MOC, once complete, needs to be mirrored for a different version.The thought of doing it manually is... Well, it's not good. :-) Is there a "Mirror" option?? It could be for the whole MOC, or just a selection.
As well with the mirror, there also need to be a colour change. All the red bricks need to be green, and the green bricks need to be red. Obviously I'll need to do an intermediate colour change, but... Is there an option to select all bricks of one colour and change them to another colour?? Again, whole MOC, or just those selected??

Thanks in advance, all. :-)

 

This is what I am working on.

[SylvainLS]

Which software are you using?

 

[Johnnycrash]

Just now, SylvainLS said:

Which software are you using?

 

Oops!! LDD 4.3.

[Slegengr]

As far as I am aware, there is no mirror function in LDD.
For your particular need, though, it should be simple, since it looks like the door just switches sides while the rest of the house is identical.
...unless there are interior details or more things that switch sides that are not visible in the shared picture.

For the color change, just build one house in red, then use the selection option showing the arrow and color palate to select all red bricks.  Create a group of all red bricks, then copy and past the building.  Re-select your red brick group and use the paint tool to change all selected (red) bricks to green.  Now you can re-select all red bricks on the pasted building and create another group.  This gives you two buildings of different colors that allow for easy color change.  Then, if you copy and paste a building and switch the door to the other side, you can repeat the process to have buildings of either color and either door side.

To verify the method, I spent about 10 minutes to build simple houses with the ability to change color as shown in these images:

Edited December 12, 2019 by Slegengr
Added Images

[Johnnycrash]

The mirroring is a little more complicated than that. The walls have an interior and exterior sides, and the sides are different. I'll work it out. But that colour change I guess is the bigger issue. And excuse me for being a bit dense at the moment, but, I tried what you described, and it doesn't work for me. So, obviously, I am missing something. I'm pretty sure I did that before. But right now, I'm as dense can be. Sorry.

Select the bricks, make it a group. Got that.

Select the bricks, make a copy. Got that.

Select the group, then Paint... And it deselects the group.

BTW Slegengr, thank you for the help.

[roland]

If you can export to LDraw without too much problems (missing bricks etc) you could use my LDCad to mirror the house and then import it back into LDD.

[Slegengr]

2 hours ago, Johnnycrash said:

The mirroring is a little more complicated than that.
...
Select the group, then Paint... And it deselects the group.
...

I figured there must be more to the mirroring issue than just the door if you asked for help on that, though it is not obvious from the picture.

For recoloring the group, it should work to reverse the final step as well: select the paint bucket with the color you want, then select the group of bricks you want to recolor.

[SylvainLS]

Precision: “then Paint” means:

1. be sure you are in “LDD extended,”
2. select bricks or a defined group,
3. click on the Paint icon to select the Paint tool,
4. then choose a colour (even reselecting the current colour works).

 

[Johnnycrash]

4 hours ago, Slegengr said:

I figured there must be more to the mirroring issue than just the door if you asked for help on that, though it is not obvious from the picture.

If ONLY it was as simple as your example.

Guys, the colour change thing is a NOT working for me. I tried in Extended as well. As soon as I select the paint bucket, it deselects everything, and it greys out anything in groups.

[SylvainLS]

Your paint tool must be in the colour mode (small bucket icon) before the selection.  If it’s in decorate/pattern or colour pick modes (brick and pipette small icons), the selection is lost when you go to the paint tool because none of these subtools work with multiple bricks.

Also, the last method given by Slegengr, “select the paint bucket with the color you want, then select the group of bricks you want to recolor,” means click the group in the group pane with the bucket pointer.

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by SylvainLS

[Slegengr]

11 hours ago, Johnnycrash said:

If ONLY it was as simple as your example.

Guys, the colour change thing is a NOT working for me. I tried in Extended as well. As soon as I select the paint bucket, it deselects everything, and it greys out anything in groups.

Try the suggestions from SylvainLS that clarify what I am suggesting:

3 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

Your paint tool must be in the colour mode (small bucket icon) before the selection.  If it’s in decorate/pattern or colour pick modes (brick and pipette small icons), the selection is lost when you go to the paint tool because none of these subtools work with multiple bricks.

Also, the last method given by Slegengr, “select the paint bucket with the color you want, then select the group of bricks you want to recolor,” means click the group in the group pane with the bucket pointer.

 

Thanks for the clarification.  It is so easy to forget the things I do by default.  Also, thanks for the direct mention that "Extended Mode" is necessary.  I failed to mention this since it is the only mode I use in LDD.

[Slegengr]

@Johnnycrash By the way, did you start the model in extended mode? I do not think you can open a non-extended model in extended mode.  What you are describing is how it works when I try to repeat this process without using extended mode.  (Maybe there is a way to export/import the model to change the mode?  I don't know...)

I only build using extended mode due to the freedom allotted with color changing.  Generally, I use LDD as a prototype for physical builds I am planning, so I will later verify if parts are actually available in that color or I will check the markets for the part in that color before using it in a build.  Extended mode is just simpler to use in my opinion, since you choose pieces and color separately rather than at the same time.

[SylvainLS]

The mode is written in the LXF but, after opening, you can just change the mode (menu View | New Themes).

The mode you’re in when you save is the one which will be written in the file.

(Colour information in the normal mode is totally out of sync with reality now.  It was great to easily pick a colour though.)

[Johnnycrash]

I build in LDD in regular mode - As I want only legal parts. Part of the plan is to translate to real world builds. Extended allows illegal part/colour combos.

I'll finish the build, and see what I can do from there. If need be, I can do the mirroring and colour change in a brute force way.  More playing around with the setting/options and stuff, and maybe I can get it to work for me.

 

Again, thanks for all the help.

[SylvainLS]

1 hour ago, Johnnycrash said:

As I want only legal parts

But the regular mode doesn’t have “only legal parts.”  It proposes colours that don’t exist for certain parts.

And, not only is it missing a lot of modern parts, it’s missing many colours that do exist.

IOW, regular mode is totally broken nowadays.  Regular or Extended, you HAVE TO check and recheck the “legality” of the parts and colours.

So you can go to the Extended mode to recolour your parts and then back to regular to continue your build.

[Johnnycrash]

On 12/12/2019 at 5:36 PM, roland said:

If you can export to LDraw without too much problems (missing bricks etc) you could use my LDCad to mirror the house and then import it back into LDD.

And how would one go about do it that?? I downloaded and installed LDCad. But there is no option in LDD to export to that format, only LDraw. Different programs?? <confused>

 

OK, I got the mass colour change to work. Yup - Wrong mode thing. You can NOT load a model into Extended, if it was saved in Regular. You need to Import the model once in Extended mode. Solved. Yay!!

Now, to figure out how to mirror the thing.

 

I was NOT aware that LDD's Regular mode was so broken. Well, that sucks. Are there any fixes for this?? Someone out there must have tried. Sure would be nice if it had a way to add/fix parts. It would also be great to get a lot of the classic parts - Like windows and doors. We need MORE window options!!! Oh well. Part of the fun of LEGO is figuring out how to make the "real word" out of clunky blocky things.

[roland]

47 minutes ago, Johnnycrash said:

And how would one go about do it that?? I downloaded and installed LDCad. But there is no option in LDD to export to that format, only LDraw. Different programs?? <confused>

LDCad is an LDraw editor :)

There is a whole collection of programs that can work with LDraw files because LDraw is an open file format.

[Johnnycrash]

5 hours ago, roland said:

LDCad is an LDraw editor :)

There is a whole collection of programs that can work with LDraw files because LDraw is an open file format.

OK. Less confused now. Thanks. So, how do I get an LDD .lxf file into LDCad to mirror it, and then back out again to an .lxf??

 

What I have got done so far (8,225 pieces) - This is one of several phases the houses went through - 1919.

 

[roland]

26 minutes ago, Johnnycrash said:

OK. Less confused now. Thanks. So, how do I get an LDD .lxf file into LDCad to mirror it, and then back out again to an .lxf??

First be sure you have the latest LDraw library (complete.zip) installed.

Then follow the instructions from this thread:

Once you got your model as a ldr open it in LDCad

To mirror the whole model use "mirror this subfile" from the "session" menu using the default options.

You can also change the color by selecting a single brick using the current color, followed by "Select same color" from the "Select" menu.

Then locate the replacement color using the top left menu/color wheel. Once found double click it on the wheel.

Save the model and import it back into ldd.