nemo

I don’t see how statistically relevant the poll is (unless there’s some hidden way to exclude all responders who are not parents of girls). My feeling is that my opinion is probably irrelevant, but that of my six year old daughter probably is. She likes the colours, is disappointed by the simplicity of the sets (but she’s made age 12+ sets on her own so she may not be representative), is irritated by all the fiddly “silly” bits (bows, hearts etc), and really dislikes the figures. Why does she dislike the figures so much? Because “you can’t bend the legs separately”, “they won’t stick down when sitting” and “you can’t move the hands”. My feeling is that charging the same amount for the featureless 3183 Convertible (1 figure; no doors; ages 6-12) and 4431 Ambulance (3 figures; opening doors and roof; bicycle; medical equipment etc; ages 5-12) shows that TLG doesn’t just think girls are imbeciles, but their parents must be too. Do not buy these patronising, insulting and overpriced sets. Demand TLG diversifies its existing ranges. My daughter has two Friends figures and doesn’t want any more. In contrast she has about 100 minifigs. But in addition to more female minifigs in sets, TLG needs more female designers, that is quite clear.

TL;DR: All the bricks, old and new, that aren’t in yet. There, that was easy!

That picture does show the design problem with the new brick pattern 2x1 – when staggered (normal building technique surely) the pattern doesn’t line up correctly, the vertical mortar lines clash. Look at the bridge supports in the original image. [Edit: Here’s a clearer image] I think there should have been three brick courses, mirrored on the other side, so that both staggered and parallel building would work correctly, bricks offset by tiles would still line up, and the mortar lines should go all the way around the bricks. As it is it’s a very poor design. I was hoping it was an early draft in LDD but no, there it is in the bridge.

You’re quite right, most remiss of me. I should also have mentioned her charming voice and engaging presentation manner. Better? (joke) Anyway... doesn’t this leave the recent 10230 Mini Modulars set somewhat lacking? Though I note that Lego describe that set as a representation of “the first 5 buildings in the Modular Building series” – so, here’s to Mini Modulars 2. Who’ll be first to make an 8×8 version?!

Half plus seven is all that matters. Half plus seven!

Is there an Astrid fan club? I had to watch the video again just to be sure but no, just Lego.

4 dix – Inn – 3 points 8 cava – Station – 2 points

I couldn’t give a monkey’s what that says – it does not and can not circumvent US and EU law, and US and EU law specifically allow reverse-engineering for the purposes if inter-operability. If the LDD EULA said you could never drive your car more than 10kph do you REALLY think that would be legally binding just because you ran the program? Don’t be silly. The whole basis of “you agreed to this by doing that” is ridiculous. In particular, and I don’t think this is widely understood, you haven’t broken the terms of your licence agreement just because the licensor (TLG) says so. Absolutely not! Only a judge can interpret the licence and render a judgement, not the licensor. So the reality is the very worst that could happen is that TLG could decide to sue one of their customers for breach of the licence agreement and only through legal action force them to discontinue use of the software. This isn’t going to happen. However, if someone legally reverse-engineers a file format (say) and documents that here, it is possible that TLG might pressure the forum into removal of the information on copyright grounds. Rather than argue that tenuous point any forum (and most site hosts) would simply remove the data. There is precedent for entire websites being deleted by hosting companies on the most implausible copyright ownership claims – hosting companies don’t care. This is why Eurobricks must be so careful. But to return to the OP, I would encourage him to publish everything – code and documentation – on SourceForge, which is a much better place than this forum for such stuff.

This is absolutely correct. It’s irritating that a number of us have had to do this yet have been discouraged from publishing the results. In truth there is some ambiguous language in the statutes which implies that one CAN reverse engineer but CANNOT document the results... but: I don’t think this stands scrutiny – “we can all look in the box but we can’t say what we saw” is just silly. It’s not an injunction, and even a signed NDA is irrelevant when all parties already know the information. There is so much precedent for the publication of previously-proprietary file formats. I really don’t believe for a moment that The Lego Group is going to sue anyone for documenting .lif or its contents. Having said that, Lego need the flexibility to make breaking changes to the file format without having to document them so we shouldn’t expect them to ‘open’ it. But I think we can stop the cloak-and-dagger and creeping in shadows. Excellent. That’s not something I’d looked at as I’m not familiar with 3D data formats. This is marvellous. Under US and UK law this is an interoperable program and you can do what you like, including publishing the source openly. Thank you for taking the time to do this. That’s marvellous. I sincerely hope it can run on the limited resource machines which LDD is less-than-happy about and I’m looking forward to getting hold of a copy! Skipping forward slightly – imagine a plugin that would allow .lxf files to be viewed and manipulated in 3D in the browser – there are a number of websites including this one that could benefit from such a thing! BTW, documenting the file formats is one thing. Appropriating Lego’s data contained within such file formats is quite another – that data (the .lif contents) certainly is subject to plain old copyright. You would require written permission to reproduce it. Converting it to another format is merely a ‘derived work’ and permission is still required. However, accessing the data in place (having installed LDD) and even modifying it are perfectly fine – just not distribution of it in whole or significant part. (And no, you can’t rip one brick out and say that’s “fair use”!)

Well I’m highly unimpressed. I think it’s astonishing that no attempt has been made to solve the stupid user interface mistakes reported by prateek here and myself here which simply cannot be worked around. I called it a SCHOOLBOY ERROR last time, but its persistence is simply SHAMEFUL. I write that as a software engineer of 30 years experience. The brick range has been updated, and the application skinning tweaked to remove DbM, but no serious software engineering has occurred at all. This is a decision made by somebody at Lego or the software studio, and it can be summarised as “we can’t be bothered, buy a bigger monitor”. Consequently I’ll document brick errors, but I’m not going to report any further application bugs. There’s clearly no point.

How nice, but at £1,500 a go I’d expect it to make my tea and darn my socks as well.

Considering how incredibly cheap the sticker sheets are it is disappointing that the number plates don’t fit with UK usage... but then am I alone in my disappointment that the instruction sheets always show the driver on the left – couldn’t a side panel show the right-hand-drive build variant? OK, so Legoland is ‘typical’ EU country – RHD, white plates front and rear, separate trailer registration, but US-style above-ground fire hydrants!

Why produce an asymmetric brick (which begs for a mirror image version too). Instead just have the triangular part with a single stud which can fit between the existing parts (which are available in a number of lengths). I still think you shouldn’t be putting the “Lego” logo on these renderings.

You’ve got too many clock faces! There are four, not eight!

Yes I was going to try Blender when I found a moment. Do try to persevere and see why it fails – is it when models have too many bricks, or certain brick designs? Being open source, there is a very good chance that any such Blender bug will be quickly fixed! This is just annoying.

Try making an image with a width that is a multiple of four.

This is a UI problem, not a database problem. Group the similar parts under the most recent version. Click on such a part selects the most recent version. Long press on part opens a floating panel showing all variants. Tooltip or fixed panel describes important design difference of the part under the cursor. Hover over desired part and release to select, outside panel to abandon.

We are talking about DesignByMe, not the Lego designed sets. If DbM & PaB are just an expensive way of buying bright red 4x2s then of course they won't be profitable. If they can deliver parts that cannot be got any other way, then there may be additional value there. Clearly Brickforge, Brickarms etc believe so - that's their business model! Ultimately though, it turns out that not enough kids have the imagination and determination to design and build things with LDD and buy them from DbM. Lego would probably make more money from a BUY button on every asset in every TT Lego video game. Was there a "buy for real" option in LU? If not, why not?!

I would not describe myself as an Adult Fan Of Lego – the “adult” smacks of “protesting too much”, and “fan” implies being part of the audience (football fan, Hollywood starlet fan) rather than the creative person. “Enthusiast” is a bit strong – I haven’t tried to convert anyone. “Fanatic” is a bit worrying. “No! Stop! Come back! I’m only a bit fanatical.” Then again, “User” is rather apathetic. So what am I? Ego Legoist? I’m amused that “builder” and “user” are so close in Danish: “bygherre” and “bruger” so there’s a pun to be had there... though the temptation of “He’s a real Lego Bruger” is strong. I’ve been called worse.

Where is the value? What is the value in some new set that Lego want to sell? Is it in the mid grey 2x1s and the bright red 4x2s? Is it in the instructions that will be available as PDFs from the Lego site? Is it in the box that gets thrown away? There is some value in brand new untouched virgin bricks. There is a little value in printed instructions. There is also the convenience of having all the necessary parts (and only those parts) to hand. Is that all? I think a major source of “value” are unique or rare items. Often these can be new bricks, but usually they are existing bricks in new colours, or printed parts. Printed parts are much more valuable than unprinted. New sets have often taken advantage of this, and it is a great pity that DbM and PaB have not leveraged this aspect more strongly. It may be symptomatic: Lego’s attempts at economisation by relying more and more on stickers has undermined this traditional approach. I note with disappointment that the 2012 City range of vehicles is using stickers for vehicle grills: Have they forgotten how they used to do it? Feast your eyes on what the humble 3010 has featured over the years, and tell me Lego are still adding value in this way.

Did I say new wheel arches?! Set 4437 Police Pursuit

I think the problem with LU runs deeper than that. LU is a video game. By all commercial measures it has been an unsuccessful one. There’s no shortage of unsuccessful video games. Something like two out of three game studios fail because of this. It’s difficult enough to make a successful single-player game, but MMOs are particularly prone to failure. So LU has failed. Meanwhile Travellers Tales have been successfully printing money with Lego video games. If anyone can make something like LU that actually appeals to the mass market, it will be TT. The thing is, I can’t see such a thing being much like LU. The nearest many people get to Lego is their Playstation, Xbox or DS these days. Consequently design and build is clearly much less important to such consumers than play. I suspect that is where future Lego game attention will be focussed. The alternative would be to emulate LittleBigPlanet and build a platform that doesn’t just allow assets to be built, but entire gameplay experiences utilising those assets. The danger is that a Sackboy is a lot cuter than a Minifig. And finally, MediaMolecule have succeeded where Lego failed by delivering a game that encouraged people to keep buying content. It’s difficult to do that when you have already handed over the means for building any content!

bbqqq, what software do you use to design and render these parts?

The SNOT bricks are interesting, but I always wanted a simpler one - just a 1x1 tile with the equivalent of a hollow stud underneath. However, the brick I've waited for so long for is a tile-height version of the 1x1 brick with side stud. But where do you stop? How about a 1x1 tile with offset stud (centred on a corner). Being fond of City-scale vehicles, there's loads of things I'd like to do there too - better wheel arches, doors, lights and grills. When I start thinking about these kind of things I start considering a change of career! BTW, all those renderings are superb. What's the toolchain? (Sorry if you mentioned already)

When I was a lad (cue muted brass band and misty shots of steep cobbled streets) there was a large range of small Lego parts sets available by mail order – not just a box of roof slopes, but things like a handful of trees, some hinges, a packet of fences and gates, numbered oners etc. If picking individual bricks for individual buyers from a necessarily limited range has proven to be uneconomic and unattractive to the public, I wonder whether a more generic range of small brick packs might be simpler. Lego Stores could stock them, the Lego Site could include them like any other product.