BasOne

LDD 5, what features do YOU want?

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It's not a problem with the new version of LDD, it's a problem with many, many versions of LDD [...]

Oh, ok, I read many complaints about the last LDD update and I thought the problem was minimal in previous versions.

About the decoration and the colour interface, I think LDD should dynamically use the left sidebar to show colours and decorations.

Common decorations such as faces or torso's could be grouped. For faces we could have for example: female, male old design, creatures and undead, male new design with accessories (glasses for example), male new design with smiling mouth, ecc...

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I think TLG's fear is/was that kids would add parts that don't exist at all or do other things with the program that can't be done with LEGO in real life.

You are right. But it could exist as external program or professional version.

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Hi All, is possible in LDD 4.2 have a "undo" command step by step during the "hide" operation ?

Normali I use "hide" but if I want go back of 1 Hide operation I'm not able I've to undo every Hide selection.

Thanks

Diego

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I would like a more professional style LDD released, i'd happy pay a fair price for it too. Some of the features i'd like are similar the ones in the CAD programs I use for work, Autocad & Tekla.

I only design large and complex designs (small models don't interest me), as such to make the real life building process easier I normally design in modules. I would like it if I could link those modules into the assembled model. So when I update/change/add something to one it automatically updates or prompts me to allow it to update the other drawings. If there were any clashes, highlight them in a non-standard colour and open a message box asking for rectification. Similar to how a XRef works on Autocad.

LDD manager is a great program, and whoever made it has saved me hours of work. However it would be good if it was built into LDD, and one feature i'd like to see added is the ability to calculate the weight of your model. Similar to the attributes tool in Autocad and reports tool in Tekla.

Another thing I would like added is the animation features that SR 3D Builder has, I wish I could use that program. However the controls in general seem to go against the standard that LDD and all these programs I use for work have. So its like having to use my left hand on the mouse.

Last I checked, LDD doesn't use the computer near as efficiently as it could. I'm pretty sure it only uses one CPU thread (which is annoying when you have 12). Would really speed up the instruction creation tool.

I know that is a fair bit to ask out of a free program, but the question was what I would like added. Also as I said, I would happily pay (up to a good few hundred dollars) for a version with those features.

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True multi-core CPU support so it can handle really large project without slowing down too much. Currently most decent computer start to slow down at over 15k part count because it has to calculate multiple connection points and with using only 1 core, it becomes a bottleneck.

I'd love to see full Monorail parts so that 6990, 6991, and 6399 can be added to official sets done in LDD

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I'd like to see a true designing platform aimed at AFOLS to create 'super' models e.i. models over 50k bricks (my fovorite :tongue: ).

But seriously, a 'beginner' setting, like LDD is now, and an 'advanced' setting, aimed at more serious designers, higher brickcount, more grouping options, view/windows options, more hide/unhide options etc.

I don't know what the LEGO designers use, but i want something like that :laugh:

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I've been using it for the last few days, and would love the following:-

1. A new recently used brick selection area. This could be placed at the top of the palette panel, and be separate from the main palette. It would make switching between bricks easier by reducing the need to open/collapse the main brick palette all the time.

2. The ability to hide the ground plate whilst adding bricks to the underside of a model. This would be useful when taking screenshots as well. If this already exists I'd love to know the shortcut.

3. The ability to bake thumbnails into still images, as my PC takes forever to render the thumbnails of my latest models when starting the application. Not sure why this needs to be full 3D anyway.

4. More decorated pieces, including all the Heroica characters.

I can't think of anything else at the moment, but I'll update the post if I do.

Kaitain

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I've been using it for the last few days, and would love the following:-

1. A new recently used brick selection area. This could be placed at the top of the palette panel, and be separate from the main palette. It would make switching between bricks easier by reducing the need to open/collapse the main brick palette all the time.

2. The ability to hide the ground plate whilst adding bricks to the underside of a model. This would be useful when taking screenshots as well. If this already exists I'd love to know the shortcut.

3. The ability to bake thumbnails into still images, as my PC takes forever to render the thumbnails of my latest models when starting the application. Not sure why this needs to be full 3D anyway.

4. More decorated pieces, including all the Heroica characters.

I can't think of anything else at the moment, but I'll update the post if I do.

Kaitain

#2 ctrl+K :)

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#2 ctrl+K :)

Thanks. I'd still like the ability to hide the ground plate whilst building though.

Kaitain

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I'd like for the black colour to look like it's actually black, not dark blue.

The reason for that is because if you turn of outlines, a pitch black color will not allow you to see the contours of anything black.

You can mimic a pitch plack color though by using the color 109 PC Ir Black. Check out Aanchirs color topic on how to apply it.

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The reason for that is because if you turn of outlines, a pitch black color will not allow you to see the contours of anything black.

You can mimic a pitch plack color though by using the color 109 PC Ir Black. Check out Aanchirs color topic on how to apply it.

I'm not asking for pitch black, just a dark shade of gray rather than a dark shade of blue.

Wasn't aware that there are colours available that aren't on the charts though (fairly new to LDD).. That's interesting. Still, rather cumbersome to have to use that to get a decent black when there's no real reason for the standard black to be that blue. The 109 black is a bit too dark too. A middle-ground would be nice, like so:

ldd-black.jpg

Standard black — What I want it to look like — 109 Black

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I'm not asking for pitch black, just a dark shade of gray rather than a dark shade of blue.

Wasn't aware that there are colours available that aren't on the charts though (fairly new to LDD).. That's interesting. Still, rather cumbersome to have to use that to get a decent black when there's no real reason for the standard black to be that blue. The 109 black is a bit too dark too. A middle-ground would be nice, like so:

ldd-black.jpg

Standard black — What I want it to look like — 109 Black

You got a point.

And it would be nice if LDD could display a darker black when edge outlines are turned on at least.

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Wasn't aware that there are colours available that aren't on the charts though (fairly new to LDD).. That's interesting. Still, rather cumbersome to have to use that to get a decent black when there's no real reason for the standard black to be that blue. The 109 black is a bit too dark too. A middle-ground would be nice, like so:

If you want easy access to PC Black IR I suggest adding it as a template so you have very easy access while building. If you don't know how to do this, it's quite easy. Simply select the "Templates" tab above the brick palette and then select the brick that is colored in PC Black IR and click the button at the bottom, which will save it so you can use it at any time.

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:classic: #1: Automatic gear meshing function. Perhaps it would be akin to the Hinge-Align tool, but it would rotate the gear whose parent axle has the least amount of parts attached to it.*

#2: Improvement of the Hinge-Align tool. It's... okay at best, but I have seen it nearly lock up the program when attempting to hinge-align a small grouping of under 15 parts.*

*There needs to be some sort of change in how LDD defines what parts to rotate with hinge align. As stated in #2, I think it was stalling because instead of rotating the selection around the shared pivot with the model, it was rotating the entire model around the selection's common pivot point! I think this could easily be fixed with a check to see which has less parts - the model or the selection - and rotate the object with less parts.

#3: The ability to export a full inventory of elements used in the design.

#4: A better way to build treads and conveyors using the plastic links. I just leave them off nowadays, or put the amount of links needed off to the side rather than spend four hours attempting to get it right...

#5: Orbit tool. It's more or less standard in most CAD programs, so I'd like to see some sort of camera function where you can fly around the model in a constant path.

I'll add more if I think of any :classic:

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#3: The ability to export a full inventory of elements used in the design.

You can obtain a full inventory of used parts crating HTML instructions.

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:classic: #1: Automatic gear meshing function. Perhaps it would be akin to the Hinge-Align tool, but it would rotate the gear whose parent axle has the least amount of parts attached to it.*

#2: Improvement of the Hinge-Align tool. It's... okay at best, but I have seen it nearly lock up the program when attempting to hinge-align a small grouping of under 15 parts.*

*There needs to be some sort of change in how LDD defines what parts to rotate with hinge align. As stated in #2, I think it was stalling because instead of rotating the selection around the shared pivot with the model, it was rotating the entire model around the selection's common pivot point! I think this could easily be fixed with a check to see which has less parts - the model or the selection - and rotate the object with less parts.

#3: The ability to export a full inventory of elements used in the design.

#4: A better way to build treads and conveyors using the plastic links. I just leave them off nowadays, or put the amount of links needed off to the side rather than spend four hours attempting to get it right...

#5: Orbit tool. It's more or less standard in most CAD programs, so I'd like to see some sort of camera function where you can fly around the model in a constant path.

I'll add more if I think of any :classic:

Good points. :classic:

Some comments:

1) I think this feature would only be implemented when/if LDD start supporting true physics (like gravity, multiple turning objects etc). The LDD Team switched to the Vortex physics engine some years ago, which would enable such features, but we havent't seen anything yet.

2) I agree that this can be very annoying. The solution is sometimes to click multiple times on the same part and it will alternate between the different rotation points that exist. Then it's down to trial and error to pick the "right" one.

3) A good way to get a full BOM is to use one of the 3rd party programs such as LDD Manager. It will also allow you to upload the parts list to BrickLink. The list generated by LDD (at the end of the HTML guide) is nice, but it doesn't include the Bricks ID's and it doesn't separate colors from part names, which limits it's usefulness somewhat.

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I want an option to completely disables F1 help. On most keyboard, F1 and escape key are right next to each other and I am tired of having to close browser window and switch back to LDD because my finger was off by about 1cm.

If it can't be disabled, I'd like the option to reassign it to a different key requiring 4 fingers to activate.

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I'd like to be able to import models made in older versions of LDD with the program being smart enough to repair blocks whose outlines have changed.

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Hello, I would also like to add a couple of points to this endless wishlist:

  • fully 64-bit app with CPU multithreading support (LDD really IS in desperate need of such enhancements)
  • add support for trackpad gestures (like pinch to zoom or two-finger swipe to rotate)

  • allow to put a brick on top of another (would ease solving situations such as placing a car or a minifig onto a flattop brick - as it is it drives me mental all the time) Maybe I'm just a clumsy moron, but I never manage to succeed on this task.
  • allow to rotate the brick freely in every direction (the free rotation mode could be triggered by a hotkey + mouse, p.e. ALT+mouse movement)
  • add some kind of tool which would enable to crook the structure by allowing you to adjust the stress of the connection between bricks. In the current release you can't build structures like this, can you? (See picture in code; notice those bent columns build presumably of 3062b's)

http://www.classic-town.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/4719103907_dccfbcd144_b.jpg

  • this tool should also allow to distribute the stress of the connection unevenly (again, see CODE for picture)

http://i47.tinypic.com/104q07c.jpg

  • add an ability to build angled walls (like this http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=21942) EASILY. It is possible now, but it's a helluva struggle to build them and even bigger to connect them to regularly angled bricks. (I always wanted to build LEGO Pentagon in LDD, unfortunately it is not possible right now)
  • gravity simulation - to test whether your construction would or wouldn't fall apart if it was made of real world LEGO - handy especially for building builders (I am a very keen LEGO architect myself, so I would very much appreciate the presence of all above mentioned features)
  • ==> basically, allow to connect everything to everything, anyhow and anywhere as long as it would be feasible with real LEGO parts. LEGO is a very versatile construction set, LDD is, on the other hand, incredibly limited. As an architecture builder, I can't build advanced structures without ability to do whatever I want.

generally unimportant stuff:

  • ability to import custom brick decorations
  • replace those hideous backgrounds in View mode
  • better quality thumbnails (when browsing the files in Exploler / Finder)
  • support for 3rd party cloud storage systems (p.e. dropbox) for backing up / importing LDD files (handy if you use LDD on more than one computer)

+ a bunch of Mac-specific enhancements (oh LEGO, please!)

  • support for OS X's fullscreen mode
  • a decent redesign
  • support for OS X's Versions and Autosave features
  • add LDD to Mac AppStore (or in case of W8 - windows store)
  • backup LDD creations to iCloud ?
  • support for multi-touch gestures (already mentioned above)

Edited by Bricklicker

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I want the ability to rotate an object or group of parts without rotating the rest of the object that they are connected to, I hope some people here know what I am talking about.

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Hello, I would also like to add a couple of points to this endless wishlist: [...]

There are two kind of requests among yours that probably will be not satisfied:

  • Those that requires a strong programming effort, such as multithreading, etc...
    After the closedown of the "Design by Me" feature and of Lego Universe, the development of LDD seems to be slowed down, for now I think we will see little improvement or bugfix and update of the brick palette (and that's a good thing, anyway)
  • Those that requires the use of "real life" techniques.
    LDD promote the use of legal techniques and discourage the use of illegal ones. Some of your requests regards techniques that are deprecated by TLG, so it is very difficult you will see that accomplished.

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Be able to categorize parts so that if you are editing a model its easier to do as you can move, delete or copy a catogory, for example I could name one whatever I like and it Could contain some parts of the chassis and the gearbox+rear parts like diff and suspention.

Or another example could be room1 of a modular building.

Without this its hard even with the selection tools to move the unwanted stuff out of the way for now so that you can work on a part of a model that was buried in other parts.

Also when you take some parts off to get into the bit you want it often does not go back on again due to LDD's awkwardness with joining some parts.

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Be able to categorize parts so that if you are editing a model its easier to do as you can move, delete or copy a catogory, for example I could name one whatever I like and it Could contain some parts of the chassis and the gearbox+rear parts like diff and suspention.

You know can create custom palettes now, right? Because then you can create a palette with only the parts you want. Sure, the parts will still be in the LDD default categories, but at least there will be a lot fewer of them.

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