LDD 5, what features do YOU want?

[Zerobricks]

Any idea, is there even LDD 5.0 in the works?

[Gnac]

Any idea, is there even LDD 5.0 in the works?

Probably not, but it's interesting to read through some of the early suggestions and see that some of them have made it into LDD 4, in some form. Someone cares about us!

[Jdurg]

Hi Jdurg, some answers to your questions.

• LDD need a connection to place a brick. You can pose bricks only on the ground. Using scaffoldings as you did to place the doors is a common used technique.
  About collision, usually it is possible to fit gears in the right way, but it is not easy nor comfortable.
  
• You can freely rotate bricks using the rotation tool. The rotation need a pivot (another brick connected to the first one). I often use ball joints connected to a pivot in order to place a part as I want.
  
• You can use the integrated search function to get a brick starting from its elementid or designid.
  
• About having a list with the correct bricks in the correct colour and their count while you are using that, the solution is the custom palette feature (further informations about that here in this forum).
  
• Right click on a brick redefine the central point. Shift+Drag to pan the scene.
  

A final comment: LDD is not perfect and needs many "trick" and tools to make advanced things. In this forum you will find many on these tricks and tools. Take a look at the section index.

PS: I'm not sure this is the right place for this!

Thanks Calabar. Very much appreciated. This software is a lot like Google SketchUp. A bit intimidating at first, but very powerful once you get used to the quirks. I just went and built a Cloud City set in LDD since I know i'll never be able to afford the real thing. Only issues I had were with the minifigs and the bendable tubing. That brought me to a couple more wishes for the software which I'm sure have already been mentioned, but it can't hurt to re-mention them.

• The ability to view all of the decoration options in it's own little "tab" within the main software. This way it won't lock up the decorations when viewing a large list, will also allow us to see what they look like, and also won't result in the window disappearing if our cursor goes ever so slightly outside of the pop-up window.
  
• The ability to readily import more decorations so that we can import all of the Star Wars theme decorations, let's say.
  
• Individual names for each decoration. As it is right now, they are all named the same.
  
• Ability to purchase "theme packs" for the software, this way it will have all of the stickers, decorations, mini-figs, parts, etc. for a specific theme. I wouldn't mind paying $15-$20 for a pack that would guarantee me I'd have all of the Star Wars decorations/stickers/parts ever made.
  
• The ability to determine the length/diameter of tubes/axles/etc. instead of having set lengths. In the Cloud City set I built, LDD didn't have a bendable tube long enough for the Vader/Luke father revelation area.
  
• For an easier time bending items, let us put "anchor points" on the bendable item, and link those to fixed points in the model. This way LDD would automatically bend the piece so that it would fit where it needs to be. Sometimes bending chains or tubes in LDD is an experience not all that fun.
  

[Calabar]

Jdurg, some answer again:

• Agree. Exploit the side panel for decorations is one of the chances I listed in my requests.
  
• It is a long discussed question. The main problems are two: Decorations are not few and would require much disk space to store them (and time to create them). Besides custom decorations will make lxf files enjoyable only for those that would have the custom decoration installed. Otherwise include them in the lxf file could make the lxf files very large.
  
• It could be a good idea, at the moment decoration have an internal id code (you can see it opening the lxfml file).
  
• Same problems as the custom decorations, see above.
  
• Useful, but probably more complicated than add the missing part (I mean, in your example, add the flexible tubes with the needed length).
  
• Agree. At the moment it is possible to do something similar using other bricks as constraints and bending the flexible bricks one step at a time.
  

PS: Note that about requesting new bricks/decorations there is a specific topic (you can find it in the section index).

[Ben C]

A List of all parts used in the model with ID and element ID so you know what you need to buy..

[Shroud]

Look in the pinned software section I believe you will find what you are looking for. I've used it and exported the part list to bricklink purchasing through there.I designed my mini scale sky station in LDD first then exported the parts list and bought them:https://www.flickr.c...0ud/9299630508/

Edited July 3, 2014 by Shroud

[Zerobricks]

Autosave

[The Undo]

What i would like is an option with which we could lock selected brick (or bricks) into a desired plane (horizontal or vertical) and make it easier to put that brick into a desired spot in the model. Sometimes it takes awhile for LDD to "figure out" where you want to place a certain brick or a group of bricks, and this becomes a sort of a problem when building something big cuz LDD slows down.

[Bitl]

Every single part Lego has made.

[Lego Otaku]

Gravity check! Once in a while I have floating brick or brick oddly placed and with large project it's often hard to see errant brick or 2 unless they fall down or gets marked as non-complying to make fixing easier. It would be really useful if one planned to build a real model based on concept design in LDD.

[jaumeBCN]

Release a PC compatible version (I'm tired to run it on safe mode so it don't crash every minute)

[Zerobricks]

Release a PC compatible version (I'm tired to run it on safe mode so it don't crash every minute)

What are your PC specs?

[Calabar]

I don't think it is a matter of specs, I run it on every time of old and

Release a PC compatible version (I'm tired to run it on safe mode so it don't crash every minute)

Don't confuse compatibility with stability, these are very different things.

Oh, was it a Joke?

Jokes apart, I can suppose two theories:

- You are trying to manage buildings to big for your hardware specifications.

- Your computer have serious stability problems.

[Lego Otaku]

Some computers usually gets unstable after 10k bricks in a single file but the number can vary. Lots of 32x32 baseplates hurts because of polygon count.

If your computer is old enough to remember Windows XP install, it's probably a bit old nowday. Some budget PCs like those from Walmart with cheap CPU like Fusion is also poor at handling LDD with large project. Laptop isn't the best one to use either because they usually have lower performing CPU that runs cooler.

If your computer is modern and has true CPU and not cheap ones, and it still had trouble, have you tried stability test to rule out hardware issues? Memtest 86 can be downloaded and copied to bootable disk or USB and run from there to check memory. Prime95 torture test can also check for problem with CPU and motherboard. Furmark 3D or Occt for video card. If any of them fails, check and make sure all of the fans are running smoothly, free of dust, all connectors and parts seated well, and power supply is not some cheap no name junk.

If your hardware works fine and you still have problem, it may be to virus(es), check it out. The good people at forums like overclock.net usually can help check your system out, make suggestion what to fix or replace if it is older or defective, and http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f50/ for checking for malware.

My laptop is old (4 or 5 years old) and has lower end socket 775 dual Celeron with a paltry 4GB RAM and it runs LDD fine up to about 5k parts. My beast of a PC with dual XEON CPU handled over 400k pieces (albeit very slowly) and was able to take screenshots. The dual XEON and other server level computers don't come cheap and is definitely not for average home use.

[Zerobricks]

Increase the maximum zoom out value and increase the render distance... Some of my stuff is so big its not even rendered whole.

[talos]

I would like to have a way to subdivide the colours into 'all colours' and 'available colours,' ones that you can actually find to build something. Also the colour names used in a BOM list, are not always consistent with what they are called on BrickLink or other marketplaces (i.e. light stone gray vs. light bluish gray.)

[Aanchir]

I would like to have a way to subdivide the colours into 'all colours' and 'available colours,' ones that you can actually find to build something. Also the colour names used in a BOM list, are not always consistent with what they are called on BrickLink or other marketplaces (i.e. light stone gray vs. light bluish gray.)

For that latter problem, there's no perfect fix. Not every LEGO color has a 1:1 relationship with a Bricklink color. As an example, Bricklink refers to parts officially colored 131 Silver by at least three different names (including Flat Silver, Metallic Silver, and Pearl Light Gray — names it also uses for the official color 296 Cool Silver), while it uses the name Copper for at least four different official colors.

However, this spreadsheet might be useful, particularly Sheet 3, where I've tried to keep a record of official LEGO colors and what Brickink colors they correspond to.

[CCarmichael89]

Proper instruction manual creator. The current one is useless. It would bring LDD into the same era as LDraw

[Masta' Blasta']

The ability to select something and flip it vertically or horizontally.

Here's an example of usage: You could copy a constraction figure's left arm and use this feature to turn it into the figure's right arm with one fell swoop.

[Kierna]

I have sugestion: The option to export a HTML list of pieces in the model.

If you generate a building guide and export it as HTML there is a brick list at the last page.

It can take a long time to generate a building guide though, so export "part list" would be handy.

[Classicsmiley]

I have sugestion: The option to export a HTML list of pieces in the model.

If you generate a building guide and export it as HTML there is a brick list at the last page.

It can take a long time to generate a building guide though, so export "part list" would be handy.

You can get a parts list now. Just go to File > Export BOM.

[monkeyjay2003]

More of the older bricks such as 30102, 40253 and the harry potter bricks. And by far, more baseplates.

[Gnac]

I'd like to see tooltips for items in the templates palette, to reflect the filenames of the .LXFMLs wot lurk there. I'm working on some little timesavers which I will reveal later on today, but it's a bit troublesome to use them, the way things are at the moment. Maybe this suggestion is simple enough to happen sooner!

[kangmingjie]

Not sure if this has been said already, but I'd like to see all colors currently available in the regular LDD mode to be made available in LDD Extended mode.

Just checked LDD, it appears that many of the colors have been taken away. Does anyone know what happened?

Edited August 29, 2014 by kangmingjie

[Cy_Bored1337]

i would like a animation lab.

You take a model insert it into animation lab,set camera and are able to move the location of your characters and be able to rotate parts.

Edited August 29, 2014 by Cy_Bored1337