Help with posting every known part in LDD for Studio conversion

[Cyborg_Samurai]

I am currently creating a project to help the whole studio community by creating parts that are not available in Studio. 

https://bricksafe.com/pages/Cyborg_Samurai/parts-not-in-studio-custom-parts

This list is constantly updated with new parts being added, as well as deleted once parts that get officially added later in Studio updates since they would no longer be needed to avoid duplicates.

I realized that Studio is missing a lot of pieces, specifically parts in LDD that aren't in Studio such as a lot of the minifigure accessories and animal parts

Some of the bricks out of many I have managed to export are this dinosaur arm and minifigure helmet

So I started downloading files from the community that made sets in LDD, looking for the exclusive parts I need in the sets as I would open them in Studio and then send the part to PartDesigner.

Where I need help is if someone may send a LDD file where the file includes 1 of every known part in Lego Digital Designer. This will be very helpful for the whole Studio Community

thanks!

I also forgot to mention that not to worry about decaled bricks since they do not export to Studio

Edited November 10, 2022 by Cyborg_Samurai

[SylvainLS]

Hi,

Your process seems overly complicated and wasteful to me.  I especially fear the method you use to “send the part to PartDesigner.”

A few facts / a little context:
— All the parts that are available in LDD have a(n ugly) LDraw version, a direct conversion.
— All the ‘converted-from-LDD’ LDraw files that have not been refined (or remade from scratch) by LDraw are distributed along with Studio.  Some of them are included in Studio’s Main palette.  Some, as you found out, are not.  But they are all still there.  That’s why you can import any LXF and Studio will show them to you.

What that means is that you can import those LDraw files directly in PartDesigner, without needless conversion and click-click-clicks.

What you need is a list of the IDs that are in LDD and not in the Main palette.  That can be easily obtained from StudioPartDefinition2.txt and the list of .dat files in Studio.  Then you can copy the .dat files in a separate folder to more easily find/open them from PD.
You also need a table matching LEGO IDs with BL IDs (they aren’t necessarily the same, and you’ll find many parts only exist decorated in the BL catalogue).
And then you ‘just’  open one file at a time in PD and add connectivity and export it to Studio and pack the files….

You may also find my ldraw.xml file useful to know which parts are available in LDD (and if they have a good LDraw model or just an ugly one).

(As an aside, Studio knows how to import some decors.  lxf2ldr & lxf2ldr.html know how to do that too, and better than Studio  )

Edited November 10, 2022 by SylvainLS

[Cyborg_Samurai]

Hi Sylvain, thanks for your time and help as your advice is noted. Sorry for the late reply. I actually saw the message the day it was sent but I didn't have time to sit down until now.

I do want to point out for the record that I am a really bad programmer and have next to no programming experience (I tried to learn C++ and I was rather unsuccessful) meaning that I mainly work without advanced console commands. (I even tried to use the superior LDraw before and my head got fried )

On 11/10/2022 at 8:25 AM, SylvainLS said:

A few facts / a little context:
— All the parts that are available in LDD have a(n ugly) LDraw version, a direct conversion.

It's just that I remember looking at the LDraw website and there would be some things that would not pop up. For instance, this part that is available in LDD is not visible in the LDraw website

and a lot of time time, when they are, the 3D model comes disassembled into random bits meaning you need to download multiple files and connect together in PartDesigner

On 11/10/2022 at 8:25 AM, SylvainLS said:

You may also find my ldraw.xml file useful to know which parts are available in LDD (and if they have a good LDraw model or just an ugly one).

I couldn't really figure out how to use that but I don't really see the problem with just directly transferring LDD by opening it in Studio but of course I do not doubt that you are more knowledgeable on that. I hate to be a hastle but I am going to need a very simplified version of understanding what parts are in LDD that arent in Studio. Normally what I would do is that I see a part that doesn't look familiar, check its BL ID since LDD uses official Lego IDs, then place that BL ID in the search bar and see if anything pops up

So I think what I have to ask is that you have every single LDD part files and their LDraw versions? Because that would be exactly what I am looking for 

[SylvainLS]

7 hours ago, Cyborg_Samurai said:

It's just that I remember looking at the LDraw website and there would be some things that would not pop up.

The parts I’m talking about are indeed not in LDraw but there’s an LDraw file for them.  They have LDraw 3D models because there’s tools (digitalbricks.de) to convert LDD’s (and a few LEGO games’) parts into LDraw.  They are not in LDraw because they are far from being acceptable (they are just a triangle mesh, they don’t use primitives, they are often wrong (LDD parts are not very good)).
Those files are in Studio (generally in Studio 2.0\ldraw\Unofficial\parts ).

For info, there’s about a thousand parts in this situtation (= in official LDD, but not on the LDraw website, but with an existing LDraw file).

7 hours ago, Cyborg_Samurai said:

I couldn't really figure out how to use that [my ldraw.xml file] but I don't really see the problem with just directly transferring LDD by opening it in Studio

Simply put: in ldraw.xml, there’s all IDs of parts in LDD and their official/unofficial LDraw match if it exists.  (To answer your other post in the Custom LDD bricks thread, the custom part are also there.)  It’s just a matter of crossing that list (or those lists) with Studio’s StudioPartsDefinition2.txt (the parts Studio knows and has).  Then you’ll have the list of LDraw files to import in PartDesigner.

The doubts I have on going through Studio are:

• How do you know the parts the parts are not in Studio?
  • you need to select and check the parts one by one, cumbersome
• How do you ‘send’ those parts to PD?
  • you need to put them one by one in a file, cumbersome
  • hopefully you’re using the LDraw format, not OBJ!
• Then, in PD, you need to import the files one by one.  (That, unfortunately, is unavoidable.)
• Assemblies.  Example: the faun legs.  Even in LDD, it’s 3 parts/IDs ((standard) hips, left leg, right leg).  If you don’t notice that in your click-clicks, you will end up with a monolithic part (un-poseable) in PD.  Going with IDs, you won’t have a choice.

Lots of clicks.

8 hours ago, Cyborg_Samurai said:

So I think what I have to ask is that you have every single LDD part files and their LDraw versions? Because that would be exactly what I am looking for 

Well, all that is in ldraw.xml.
I’ll see if I can find time to help you.

BTW, I hope you know about Cheenzo’s parts repository.

[Cyborg_Samurai]

I see. thanks for the response.  My reply might look a bit long but its actually not too long since I wanted to include all your points that I am replying to to be precise 

11 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

How do you know the parts are not in Studio?

• you need to select and check the parts one by one, cumbersome

Indeed. And I just hope that my Bricksafe database will save others a lot of work should they want to download more expansions for Studio that normally takes them years to finally add in updates. I add all the connectivity ports and BL IDs to them meaning all the downloaders need to do is open it in PD and hit export but this process is done one by one which is still a grind.

11 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

hopefully you’re using the LDraw format, not OBJ!

Thanks for the advice, Although on the LDraw parts website, it downloads parts automatically as a ".dat" file, and sometimes when I open it in PD, it will give me an error saying its empty and there would be only the connectivity and a destroyed part such as when I downloaded the squirrel part. Any thoughts on that?

11 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

Assemblies.  Example: the faun legs.  Even in LDD, it’s 3 parts/IDs ((standard) hips, left leg, right leg).  If you don’t notice that in your click-clicks, you will end up with a monolithic part (un-poseable) in PD.  Going with IDs, you won’t have a choice.

I did realize that when I was exporting the new minifig horse model with movable legs so the only way to get around that is to export each joint separately. Normally in those cases I don't put a BL ID on the movable joints but only on the main body to avoid color/pricing confusion

 

11 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

Well, all that is in ldraw.xml.
I’ll see if I can find time to help you.

BTW, I hope you know about Cheenzo’s parts repository.

I really appreciate it. Also I'll need to take a look at that BL forum. Seems promising

Also do you by chance happen to know where I can find the minifig gas mask part? this part: 24135 which will be very helpful for my cyberpunk theme series

You said earlier that

12 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

The parts I’m talking about are indeed not in LDraw but there’s an LDraw file for them.  They have LDraw 3D models because there’s tools (digitalbricks.de) to convert LDD’s (and a few LEGO games’) parts into LDraw.  They are not in LDraw because they are far from being acceptable (they are just a triangle mesh, they don’t use primitives, they are often wrong (LDD parts are not very good)).
Those files are in Studio (generally in Studio 2.0\ldraw\Unofficial\parts ).

For info, there’s about a thousand parts in this situtation (= in official LDD, but not on the LDraw website, but with an existing LDraw file).

For me, it is fine that the parts are low poly because they are better than nothing and are definitely a lot better than the monstrous placeholders I made in PD so I am wondering where I can look to fetch these parts since LDraw's website doesn't want to use them and Digital-bricks.de only has a select hand few.

Again, thanks for your time and help

[SylvainLS]

23 hours ago, Cyborg_Samurai said:

Thanks for the advice, Although on the LDraw parts website, it downloads parts automatically as a ".dat" file, and sometimes when I open it in PD, it will give me an error saying its empty and there would be only the connectivity and a destroyed part such as when I downloaded the squirrel part. Any thoughts on that?

Again, the .dat I’m talking about are already in Studio, so there’s no need to download them (well, except a few, see below).  Official LDD part -> is either totally in Studio or there’s a .dat in Studio 2.0/ldraw/Unofficial/parts, it’s those files you need to import in PD as 3D models.

As for files downloaded from the LDraw website, yes, they are .“dat”.  Because that’s the extension for LDraw part files (not a great idea to use the overused .dat for a text format… but it was the 1990s).  You need to download their subfiles and maybe new primitives… and that’s partly explained in the Parts FAQ.
The thing is, .ldr, mpd, .dat, are the LDraw extensions and the native format for Studio parts (that’s how they’ll end up once exported from PD).  Even PD’s .part format is just a slight extension to LDraw’s .dat.  That means there’s no transformations when you import a .dat/.ldr/.mpd into PD (well, when you export to Studio, PD makes a few not really smart changes but it does not change the geometry).

 

23 hours ago, Cyborg_Samurai said:

this part: 24135 which will be very helpful

It’s on digital-bricks.de (direct link to the .dat).  I forgot that: it’s was in one of the last updates of LDD and the .dat is not in Studio (Studio already existed at the time and didn’t update with LDD).  Otherwise, look in Studio’s files.

 

23 hours ago, Cyborg_Samurai said:

LDraw's website doesn't want to use them and Digital-bricks.de only has a select hand few.

LDraw doesn’t want to include them as-is in the library, even in Unofficial.  But they are sometimes used to start a new model (but there’s so many corrections to do, especially on ‘sculptures’ that the authors often start from scratch).

And D-B.de has all of them… it’s just the navigation on the webstite that’s not easy.  (Use the link above as a template: replace the ID in the URL and if the link answers, you get the .dat file.  Otherwise, the model is not in LDD.)

 

[Cyborg_Samurai]

On 11/17/2022 at 1:44 AM, SylvainLS said:

Again, the .dat I’m talking about are already in Studio, so there’s no need to download them (well, except a few, see below).  Official LDD part -> is either totally in Studio or there’s a .dat in Studio 2.0/ldraw/Unofficial/parts, it’s those files you need to import in PD as 3D models.

As for files downloaded from the LDraw website, yes, they are .“dat”.  Because that’s the extension for LDraw part files (not a great idea to use the overused .dat for a text format… but it was the 1990s).  You need to download their subfiles and maybe new primitives… and that’s partly explained in the Parts FAQ.
The thing is, .ldr, mpd, .dat, are the LDraw extensions and the native format for Studio parts (that’s how they’ll end up once exported from PD).  Even PD’s .part format is just a slight extension to LDraw’s .dat.  That means there’s no transformations when you import a .dat/.ldr/.mpd into PD (well, when you export to Studio, PD makes a few not really smart changes but it does not change the geometry).

 

It’s on digital-bricks.de (direct link to the .dat).  I forgot that: it’s was in one of the last updates of LDD and the .dat is not in Studio (Studio already existed at the time and didn’t update with LDD).  Otherwise, look in Studio’s files.

 

LDraw doesn’t want to include them as-is in the library, even in Unofficial.  But they are sometimes used to start a new model (but there’s so many corrections to do, especially on ‘sculptures’ that the authors often start from scratch).

And D-B.de has all of them… it’s just the navigation on the webstite that’s not easy.  (Use the link above as a template: replace the ID in the URL and if the link answers, you get the .dat file.  Otherwise, the model is not in LDD.)

I see. Thanks for the help doc! 

Should I have more questions, I'll ask but for now I believe I have all the resources. 

👍