Alcom1

LDD is easily frightened and will enter safe-mode if it crashes in certain ways. You'll want to turn it off, it absolutely makes LDD really slow. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Compatibalibity mode level, and turn the slider all the way off.

Oh snap, there are definitely new bricks in this. Brick Version went from 1564.2 to 2075.

Yo, Bluerender says it wants a db.lif but I don't have a db.lif. I have a db folder with all the contents of a db.lif. Can I just use that?

Floating point values become less precise the larger they are, so if you place a brick like here: <Brick refID="0" designID="3004"> <Part refID="0" designID="3004" materials="23,0,0,0" decoration="0,0,0"> <Bone refID="0" transformation="1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,-200000000,0,-200000000"> </Bone> </Part> </Brick> You can end up with bizarre effects like Doesn't seem to do much to models, but I love how the base plane freaks out.

Yep!

That's it? That's the answer. I mean, I knew, I knew that the FOV line was there in the .lxfml file, I've studied the .lxfml format up down and sideways, but I had it written off as unused since it appeared to do nothing. I thought it had something to do with the OpenGL shaders and started tinkering with those. Managed to get some weird wide perspective effects but it wasn't as clean or as effective as this. Man... what a piece of software this is. Anyways, thank you.

My big issue is still a big issue.

So several months ago I modified my Nvidia driver settings to add AA (Anti-Aliasing) to LDD. The results were absolutely glorious: BEFORE AFTER The screenshot difference was used with my choice of 32x CSAA, which is rather redundant, but the performance impact is minimal. My laptop with it's AMD drivers uses 4x MSAA, which isn't as good but still looks far superior to default. A few things about LDD AA: AA will not work if LDD has "Advanced Shading" enabled, but will work fine with "High-quality rendering". LDD screenshots with AA enabled will have a faint grey outline around models, which is very visible with black or dark backgrounds, but not visible with light backrgounds. So if you can navigate through your GPU drivers settings, which should never be difficult, try enabling AA. I think it's incredible.

No, your links here have the 'D' in "Skeletondragon" lowercased, where the proper URL has it uppercased.

Hey mister, how'd you get that fancy perspective? When I use LDD at full screen stuff looks like this ↓, which is nausiating, so I have to make the view like 500-700px wide to take advantage of the horizontally based field of view. I'd love to know.

I can't have fun with LDD anymore. For years I've used this program. I've produced over 1,000 .lxf files over the past eight years. I've watched my building style evolve with updates, with the rise and fall of LEGO Universe, and with my use of supplementary programs like LDD2PoV, but the fun kinda stopped. I guess part of the issue LDD's 30 degree Field of View angle, which is abominable, and should never occur in any graphical simulation software. I've had to add special code into preferences.ini and resize the LDD window to something tall and thin just to negate some of the Field of View effects and make LDD usable. There's another issue though, a bigger one. My building style is a bit of a mess. It's simply selecting a brick and building around it, using quick wit and chance to produce something good. The result is sometimes like this (Bambous), though I have to try several times to get such a result. Resulting models also tend to pose poorly. I also have incredible difficulty recreating items out of LEGO. I managed to recreate something effectively once (Battletech Loki), but again that was luck. The recreation was also only possible due to its ease, and I have been unable to produce the same results again with anything else I'm a fan of. I seem to lack both artistic vision, and the ability to properly translate details into LEGO. I've tried to remedy that. I did some hard studying of other builders I enjoy such as Torokimasa. I took several creations, recreated them partially or perfectly in LDD, then practiced variations. Near the end of this exercise I produced this (MRs-A1), which recreated and was based on this (Torokimasa's MRs-05). When I then tried to return to my own building style, nothing had changed, and I had no interest in continuing the tedious recreations or collaboration builds. Perhaps I just need to distance myself from LEGO building and will find it fun again later, but that doesn't solve the issue of my building style. I've hit a wall, I don't know how to improve other than through brute force practice and even that is losing its effect as my building style cements itself. How do I improve myself as a builder?

Did you use your LDD FoV mod to make the view isometric/orthographic like that?

I would like a mod to retitle this to "Swarm Interceptor in the FreeSpace Open Engine" Edit: Thank you.

I'm trying to change the title in my most recent thread/topic but I cannot find the option. I've used other IP.Board forums and they all have the ability to change the topic title in the Full Editor. Why is the option missing here?

I was recently accepted to The School of Interactive Games and Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I would like to thank LEGO for helping me with this achievement, because one of the main items in my entry portfolio was this:

It's a concept I've explored a bit. It would help if you could establish camera positions to return to once each frame is set up. It would also help if the camera field of view angle was wider than most pizza slices. Anyways, I did used LEGO Digital Designer in a movieish manner for my Let's Play of Goat Simulator.

I can't remember between tx or ax which is the translation and which is the normal for the rotation, but I can figure it out with a bit of experimentation. Angle appears to be in radians. I see you, Pi! tx and the like are the translation directions, ax is the axis of rotation direction which doesn't have be a normal even though the .xml lists it as such. Anyways I hacked out the rotation of both bricks thanks to my brilliant education in linear algebra and the internet. Ima go sleep. You can figure out the translations. <!-- Technic Liftarm 1 x 3 with Rotation Socket 44224 21 --> <Transformation ldraw="44224.dat" tx="0" ty="0" tz="0" ax="1" ay="-1" az="1" angle="2.094395"/> <!-- Technic Beam 3 with Rotation Pin 44225 21 --> <Transformation ldraw="44225.dat" tx="0" ty="0" tz="0" ax="-1" ay="-1" az="-1" angle="2.094395"/>

Colors disappear if you have high quality bricks enabled in LDD. Disable that and colors should be captured.

LDraw's isn't? Actually before I type anything else, where are people getting their LDraw conversions? Whenever I do a conversion through LDView (which has been 3 times across a 2 year period), the resulting model is a mess of backfaces and weird geometries.

Well there is. Kinda. It's weird . I've been able to extract LDD models using 3dvia printscreen and import the resulting .3dxml into 3dsmax using something like this.

I guess it's completely my fault. Working in a variety of Cad programs, playing a few first person games, I have become way too sensitive and aware to the field of view of the programs I use. So as a result, the following has become rather intensely aggravating to me, *ahem*: [humorous statement deleted] While LEGO Digital Designer doesn't outright display its field of view, it is very possible to figure it out experimentally. It is obvious that LDD isn't isometric, a small blessing, so the field of view can be determined by recording the location of the camera and how far sideways distant objects can be placed before they disappear from view. After performing a bit of trigonometry and drawing a diagram, I got this: Unfortunately the aggravation induced by a poor FoV is rather difficult to explain, as it is almost a qualia, or an ineffable feeling. I can't describe the bad feeling, though I can express it. Oh, also I can show excellent comparison pictures thanks to LDD2Pov. Both of the following pictures were taken from the same camera angle. The only thing that changes here is the distance from the camera to the object: 30 degrees is terrible. What's worse is that the FoV is tied to the horizontal dimension and not the vertical dimension of the window, so the vertical FoV will always be lower, unless you have one of those exotic computer screens that is taller than it is wide, or unless you do something like this: Before After (Camera has not moved) All the other Cad programs I use have an FoV slider or option, which I set between 50 and 90 depending on what I am doing. In gaming an FoV of 30 is what you would expect from some scope or zoom effect, so LDD locking at 30 degrees is like taping a toy pair of binoculars to my face, thus the title metaphor. While I am very much thankful for the development of LDD2Pov and its FoV options, LDD2Pov has no effect on my building environment. LDD2Pov also seems to be very weak at interior screenshots with its camera positioning and lighting settings, so I would rather use LDD, except using LDD makes a screenshot from the back wall of a room look like this: I would normally believe the excuse that building mechanics in LDD is dependent on the low FoV for functionality. After all, I've known programs to have stranger functions tied to FoV (I'm looking at you, ). However, after my frequent usage of the LDD within LU that operated at an FoV of 40, and after experimenting with the new super skinny view that expanding the bricks list causes to create a faux high FoV, I would now find this very hard to believe.Here is what I want: An FoV slider for LEGO Digital Designer. That's it. I cannot image how this would be difficult or impossible to enable. Put it as a cheap addition to the .ini file, or added it to the preferences tab in the actual program. I know that I am currently the only individual asking for this, but I know that, with the addition of such a feature, that other users will understand it and appreciate it. Please? LEGO? Development team of LDD? I am begging you! Please? and thank you for developing such a magnificent LEGO building tool.

A month later, I haven't heard from Jamesster about it, and my attempts to use the Cheat Engine have only caused LDD to get rather flustered. Cheat Engine is not recommended unless you want to maybe get a few spontaneous laughs out of LDD. Meanwhile I ran into some friends who were demanding and upset by the same thing. [6:41:41 PM] Brigs: As I work on my Cogitare Restaurant, I increasingly need a FoV slider in LDD... [6:41:52 PM] Tim Beale (The Pangolin): xD [6:41:54 PM] The Machine: For what? [6:43:04 PM] The Machine: LDD? :P [6:43:22 PM] Brigs: Yep. :P [6:44:57 PM] Alcom Isst: YOU SUMMONED ME?! [6:45:26 PM] Brigs: Thank you, Alcom. :P [6:46:00 PM] The Machine: This is utterly ridiculous. It's probably just 2 bytes somewhere in their code that sets the FOV of the window. [6:46:01 PM] Alcom Isst: I'm guessing you are aware, Brigs, but this is an issue that I have been flailing my arms over. [6:46:13 PM] The Machine: However, they could be using FOV for their brick placement calculations [6:46:18 PM] The Machine: So higher FOV could cause problems [6:46:20 PM] Alcom Isst: They don't. [6:46:23 PM] The Machine: Are you sure? :P [6:46:30 PM] Alcom Isst: Yes, for two reasons. [6:46:51 PM] Alcom Isst: 1: LU had LDD within it, and had an FoV of 40. [6:47:11 PM] The Machine: So? :P [6:47:30 PM] The Machine: That doesn't mean it'd work in LDD. [6:47:59 PM] Alcom Isst: 2: You can simulate a higher FoV in LDD by sqeezing the screen horizonally, creating a wide vertical FoV, and bricks place fine at the top and the bottom of the screen. [6:48:41 PM] Brigs: I tried such, and I saw the light...

It's... It's beautiful. I NEED THIS! I WANT IT INSIDE ME!

A brief analysis of some LEGO creation sharing sites: Independent: Allows files to be uploaded to itself without another site being involved. Nested Files: Has nested folders containing files. Dynamic Files: All files can be moved and reorganized. Uncompressed images: Does not heavily compress images. Lxf sharing: Allows for uploading and sharing of .lxf files. Long Descriptions: Allows for long descriptions of creations. Length is still subjective. Comments: Allows for viewer feedback attached to the creation. After brickshelf drove me into a frenzy as I tried to move some creations and couldn't, I am now looking for a new site through which I can share my creations. I am looking for negligible and lossless image compression, dynamic file organization, and easy lxf and possibly link sharing. Any suggestions?

I spy LDD2Pov Ray renders. I'll try it. Thanks! :D