PerryMakes

Note to past, present, and future contestants ... if you'd like to know why you did/not get my vote, or what it takes to get it - continue reading. If you could give two flying liftarms about what I think, join the rest of the world Things you may wish to do, if you consider votes a good thing: Don't post an old model. That defeats the "spirit" of this contest. It seems others feel the same re: this issue. Definitely don't re-submit something that you just submitted two contests ago. Please post your entire model. I like to see how things tick. Please post a fitting description. This contest especially required this in order for us to know what record this model is going after! Have fun with it. I'll spill the beans here and say I voted for the 18 wheeler - the # of panels is just crazy, but my main reason for choosing this one was I can tell by the model that this person had A LOT of fun putting this one together! Now the disclaimer... these bullet points are not meant to be personal attacks, please don't be offended and please forgive me if you think that one of these is a personal attack on you. I did not have any specific models in mind when I made the list - I just brainstormed the things I can remember thinking over the course of the last few contests. Cheers ~ Perry

I was kind of wondering how others did this ... hoping that it wasn't another situation where modifying the xml directly could do easily what was taking me somewhat lengthy somewhat arduous sessions to accomplish. But like described above, I also delete most of the surrounding bricks to minimize things getting in the way - but I do this using a "copy" of the entire structure. This allows me to make all sorts of changes that would most likely screw up the surrounding structure - but on a copy, who cares? Once the flexible piece is in the proper shape, it can easily be moved into place. (even though the word easily doesn't really belong anywhere near the process of getting flexible pieces in place! Cheers ~ Perry

On the page you linked, there was a link to a page that answered some questions I had dealing with speed variation between motors.

I just received two new XL motors direct from LEGO. The first thing I noticed, without any gear reduction, was that they sound different and run at slightly different speeds. Some questions came to mind that I'd like to present here in hopes of getting some answers from those of you experienced with these products: Is it common for motors to be this different? If the speed is different, could the performance differ as well? What is a good way to measure the performance of these motors? (or any electric motor, for that matter) Regards ~ Perry

I find it odd that they have a servo motor for NXT, but have not bothered to release this for PF. A shame.

I read this and thought for a moment, "LDD has the ability to animate?" ... but I wonder if that is just a translation issue, no? I feel like maybe you mean to say "posed" or "articulated" (unless there is yet another layer to LDD that we can unlock with enough knowledge of assembly and hex

I've got to run out for a couple hours - but when I get back, I'll post a comprehensive system spec.

Of course not! I am a senior software engineer as well, and we all know that you must have FIVE megabytes of significant projects before expressing your opinion! I'm very surprised you did not know that... EDIT: You can probably pick out who the software developers are by looking for posts that have been "edited" 1 or 2 minutes after they were posted. In others words, rather than finding the errors first, we push out the goods first ... and fix problems later

You can see the bump that's being talked about:

8271 - Wheel Loader [Vers 01] - Theme: Technic LXF File No Errors. 8271 - Wheel Loader [Vers 02] - Theme: Technic Coming soon! Cheers ~ Perry

8256 - Go-Kart [Vers 01] - Theme: Technic LXF File Errors: No Stickers. 8256 - Go-Kart [Vers 02] - Theme: Technic Coming soon! Cheers ~ Perry

Might be a moot point to post these if you've already identified the error ... but I guess it couldn't hurt. http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/PerryMakes/LDDManagerProblems/lddm001.png http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/PerryMakes/LDDManagerProblems/lddm002.png http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/PerryMakes/LDDManagerProblems/lddm003.png

Actually - I'd suggest that that Nemo attempts a few "official" builds before writing this software off as junk. Not only will it help with the efforts in creating this extensive library - but from my own experience - I've found that seriously using the tool for extended build sessions has greatly swayed my opinion. It's actually quite amazing what it CAN do And the comments regarding target audience are dead on - this is not the AutoCAD / 3ds Max / SolidWorks in the world of LEGO ... it's more like the Google SketchUp ... which is made evident by the fact you can barely read the manual, launch the software, and become proficient in very little time (thank goodness, the manual isn't going to win in technical documentation awards any time soon) (and thank goodness for that... because I'm not even sure there -are- any technical documentation awards!!!) Where was I? ... I think it's awesome that there are a few threads here for submitting bugs, discussing what we'd like to see in future versions, and the one I especially love... a pretty large catalog of official models built with LDD! But what was mentioned earlier regarding the target audience - no matter how awesome and perfect we want this software to be... it's a toy for children! Regards ~ Perry

Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to explain that - I'd never noticed the bump separating the two sections on that pin. The issue came up when I was building the alternate model for 8260 - which apparently uses an "illegal connection" So I guess in the end ... I'd think that if LEGO has official models using this building technique that they would also allow that technique to be used in LDD. But that's just one man's opinion!

Hmmm - perhaps I'm not being clear with the problem, as it is most definitely a "legal connection." If you look at the 3M axle, it's currently passing through 2x 1/2 liftarms and 2x normal liftarms - total length of 3. Again - looking at the image you see that the order goes: 1/2 + 1 + 1/2 + 1. The 3M connector peg is grouped with 2M on one side and 1 on the other. So if you replace the axle with the connector peg using the following grouping: (1/2 + 1 + 1/2) + 1 ... it works absolutely fine. I've tested it with physical pieces in addition to just using common sense. I hope this clears things up for both of you - please let me know if I'm just plain wrong :) PS: I don't remember seeing an announcement regarding image size, but I'll certainly go back to review it and make any necessary changes.

I also apologize if that has already been reported. And while not as serious as a SCHOOLBOY ERROR, it does seem to present a problem :) There should be no problem whatsoever with replacing the 3M cross axle with the 3M connector peg you see in this screenshot. It's physically possible, but this is one situation where the change from "place things wherever you want" to "intelligent snap points" is failing to allow valid placement. Cheers ~ Perry

8260 - Tractor [Vers 01] - Theme: Technic LXF File No Errors. 8260 - Tractor [Vers 02] - Theme: Technic LXF File Errors: 1x 3713 Red Technic Bush could not be placed correctly due to collision detection 1x 6558 Blue Technic, Pin Long with Friction Ridges Lengthwise was replaced with 4519 Blue Technic, Axle 3 due to an "illegal connection" Cheers ~ Perry

8272 - Snowmobile - Theme: Technic LXF File Errors: List coming after some sleep... Cheers ~ Perry

I've been a software developer going on 15 years now, and I've NEVER seen a major application do what LDD does when it opens a file and tells you that some parts can't be placed so it's just going to throw them away ... without bothering to tell you which parts or why. Pardon a crass comment, but that pure rubbish LEGO (or whatever 3rd party does the actual development).

For a second there I imagined that you were Neo - and what appear to us mere mortals as linear actuators show up for you as green characters falling down the screen - and you just will the matrix transformations to happen with only your thoughts ... how cool would that be???

I'm actually having trouble with the latest release. The feature that launches LDD from within LDD Manager works great for me in the previous version, but this latest just spits out MessageBox after MessageBox with errors. Is this feature working for others? Maybe it's related to my environment ... if nobody else is having trouble with this, I'll post some more specifics, including screenshots. Perry

This looks pretty awesome in the digital world. Very expressive with those articulations. The only problem(s) I see are the fragile arms. The leg joints may not have enough friction to carry the weight, but that's something you'll have to test with real parts ... unfortunately LDD is quite happy with letting you build models that are just simply not possible in the real world! Cheers ~ Perry

I'm sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but may I ask - how was is that the LA's were modified to different extension lengths? Cheers ~ Perry

Is the "Decoration Tool" still available in LDD? I've only recently gotten involved with this tool, so I wasn't around when all the "hacking cool features -> LEGO allowing a backdoor to be opened" business was going on. Could someone please sum up the current state of that? What exactly can be enabled? What additional behavior does that give you? Or does it simply add additional parts? Also ... with all weekend for nothing but coding, we can expect to see a new version of LDD Manager tomorrow, right??? ;) Cheers ~ Perry EDIT: Found the decoration tool, so I'll rephrase the question as such: Does LDD Extended mode provided everything that the old "hacked" LU mode did? EDIT #2: Found the new release of LDD Manager!

8048 - Tractor [Vers 02] - Theme: Technic LXF File No Errors. Cheers ~ Perry