zinfinion

The click hinges and the collisions are two separate issues. As far as the click hinges, I don't own the set, so I can't speak with any certainty on the subject, but just based off the angles in LDD, as well as photos, it appears to me as though the top four wings when folded close to the body cannot get to a full 90 degree hinge angle, as well as the side wings not being able to achieve a 67.5 degree angle. The top four are definitely not posed at 67.5 degrees as well as the side two are not posed at 45 degrees, so logically, they are somewhere in the middle, and thus to my mind, out of click. Specifically in my LXF, they are at 82.5 and 62.5, so 7.5 and 5 degrees short of a 22.5 multiple. Even if you close them as tight as possible, they still don't get in click. If you compare my angles to any of the published TLG photos or the instruction manual of the set, you'll find they are quite comparable regarding positioning. As well, I took a look at the set at the LEGO Store as mentioned, and they were definitely folded as tight to the body of the vehicle as possible, yet to my eye, none of the hinges were at 90 or 67.5. Obviously without actually holding it and moving the hinges around and feeling them click or not click, I can't be 100% certain. With regards to the click hinges having slightly loose tolerances and being able to be a degree or two off, just experimenting with some real ones right now, the only way I've found to get a few degrees off and stay in click is through application of force (basically holding it there by hand), which none of these parts in question would experience. And if you do get it to hold at say, 12.25 degrees, the forks start to spread out from stump and I'm guessing this is what is bad for the parts. This happens as well at smaller angles, even 5 degrees, while the ridge of the fork is still technically in click between the fingers of the stump. As far as the collision issue, it's the columns coming up to the rearmost wings that are colliding with the side of the vehicle. This image gives a better idea of the affected parts: Image The blue column was less than a millimeter too close to the green side of the vehicle, which clearly is not an issue with the actual physical parts due to the looser tolerances of Technic beams and pins. And as far as adjusting for the collision, that allowed the entire rack assembly to which the rearmost wings are attached to be slid further backwards as intended, allowing the wings/hinges to get even closer to a proper multiple of 22.5. Either way, I just thought it was an interesting issue in LDD, especially given its tendency to prevent "illegal" building. Whether it extends to the real set or not, we'll just have to wait until someone curious enough about it checks it out. I still have to catch up on Alien Conquest and Atlantis sets, so it probably won't be me any time soon. That is truly flagrant. I do have these pieces on hand and the 61184 pin is definitely kept under compression. Ouch! Funnily enough, LDD allows it without any issues.

9444 - Cole’s Tread Assault - Theme: Ninjago - LXF File Errors: - Missing 98140 Snake Lower Part "No. 5". Ommited Skales mini figure. - Missing 98341 Crown w/ Blade. - Omitted 2x 85543 V-Belt Ø15. - Omitted 2x 32062 and shifted 2x 32016 outward 2 LDU to prevent a collision further rearward in the assembly of the rearmost wings. I checked the model at the Lego Store and it takes advantage of the inherent looseness in Technic connections to avoid colliding. Notes: I found it interesting that LEGO ignored their own guidelines for click hinges needing to be at multiples of 22.5 degrees. I'm wondering if this is more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule. Solved: LDD can't replicate the aforementioned inherent looseness of Technic beams and pins, which is what allows the hinges on the physical set to get in click. So an LDD issue, and not an illegal build. Again. _________________________________________________________________________ 9440 Venomari Shrine - Theme: Ninjago - LXF File Errors: - Shifted 2x 98136 Mini Snake up 4 LDU to prevent a collision with 6636 Flat Tile 1x6. _________________________________________________________________________ 9445 Fangpyre Truck Ambush - Theme: Ninjago - LXF File Errors: - Missing 98140 Snake Lower Part "No. 5". Ommited Fangtom mini figure. _________________________________________________________________________ Errors affecting multiple sets: - Missing prints. Missing decals.

9441 Kai’s Blade Cycle - Theme: Ninjago - LXF File _________________________________________________________________________ 9442 Jay's Storm Fighter - Theme: Ninjago - LXF File Errors: - Missing 99083 Mini Headgear Scout 1 "No. 2". Ommited Snappa mini figure. - Omitted 85545 V-Belt Ø26. _________________________________________________________________________ 9443 Rattlecopter - Theme: Ninjago - LXF File Errors: - Replaced 99464 Cape, Mini with 50231 Mantle for Mini Figure. - Missing 99038 Mini Head Soldier 1 "No. 2". Ommited Fang-Suei mini figure. - Omitted 85543 V-Belt Ø15. _________________________________________________________________________ Errors affecting multiple sets: - Missing prints. Missing decals.

This is what I do to get my LDD screenshots looking so smooth. I take screenshots at 3040x1900 and then resize to 512 wide or tall. On larger sets I will do a 1024 as well. To achieve this: - Decide the final image size you want. For this example let's use 512x512. - Disable AA in POV-Ray. - Render the scene at a multiple of 512x512. So 1024x1024, 1536x1536, 2048x2048, etc... - Using the graphics program of your choice, resize the image. You should have a few options, some of which will be Bicubic. Bicubic or Bicubic Smooth tend to work best. I tend to use Smooth. The GIMP and PixBuilder Studio are both free and have this capability.

3367 Space Shuttle - Theme: City - Space - LXF File Errors: - Missing prints. Missing all decals.

What Bricklink calls Light Bluish Grey, Peeron calls Medium Stone Grey. Old Grey is LEGO 2-Grey Light Bluish Grey is LEGO 194-Medium Stone Grey Dark Bluish Grey is LEGO 199-Dark Stone Grey. There also exists LEGO 208-Light Stone Grey and the old LEGO 27-Dark Grey. And a few other greys. Confusing at first, but you get used to it after a while. I always use this page when I have questionable color issues: http://isodomos.com/ColorTree/Roots.

Looking good! Now I just have to figure out LDraw. :D Out of curiosity, is there any way to do a render of only the object, and omit the background? I would prefer to have transparent pngs, instead of a white background with shadows on it. Similar to how LDD takes screenshots. Edit: The Google-fu is strong with this one: http://www.imagico.de/pov/icons.html If you could try this out and post a backgroundless image compared to one of your prior renders I'd be interested in seeing that.

As long as we are reporting mini figure head and shoulder issues, 3838 Mini Oxygen Bottles can't stack on top of 2526 Epaulets. It can be done with freemoving, but it should be legal. LEGO instrucion example here. It seems the neck in LDD is about half the height of the actual physical version.

Place the head on the neck, then free move it up a bit as detailed in this post. Put the shoulder pads on the neck, then free move the head down. It likely wont attach, but hopefully it will look right.

As I thought. If I need to rotate a group with unattached pieces, I will pull off those pieces along with a piece that does attach, rotate the remainder of the group, and then reattach the one piece while having all the unattached pieces selected as well. This generally does the trick.

I'm not entirely certain that groups rotate like that. I haven't ever had it happen. Is there some specific method to it? Because that would be very helpful.

From what I have seen, having stopped in the early 90s, and just now returned, it is almost as if TLG want to make LEGO look as un-LEGO and as smooth/sleek as possible. This can especially been seen in sets that make heavy use of SNOT and slopes and only have a few studs showing. The majority of the Alien Conquest and Atlantis sets demonstrate this well, a few sets have no visible studs at all. I personally like the new look. And MBPs. (Not mine, BTW!)

Place piece to be positioned as close as possible to desired location and orientation. Select piece and bush that will move in desired direction. Move bush along shaft until piece is in place. Repeat for Z axis. LXF File You can take the rigging group from here, and save it to your templates. With regards to terminology, I use "rigging" as the term for the pieces used for freemoving. If I use bricks to get something in place and then delete them, I refer to that as "scaffolding". A combination of the two plus attaching rotation points (I tend to use Technic pin bricks plus hole bricks, as well as turntables) to models will get most things where you want.

"Neigh!" says the Knight who says "Neigh!"

6983 Ice Station Odyssey - Theme: Space - Ice Planet 2002 - LXF File Errors: Base: - 2552 Ice Pattern Raised Baseplate 32x32 with Ramp and Pit replaced with a new brickbuilt version. Details and template. - 2748 Baseplate 16x32 replaced by 2x 91405 Plate 16x16 to keep the same thickness as the other baseplate. - Antenna hinge assembly shifted 2 LDU away from the ramp wall to prevent collision of the Plate 1x1 Round. - 2426 Technic Rack Winder replaced with 4x 3023 / 2x 3700 / 3710 / 2x 3024 / 32073 / 2x 32123. - 2428 Technic Rack 1 x 20 x 2/3 replaced with 5x 3743 Toothed Bar. - 2x 3597 / 3315 Hinge Plate 2x4 - Female / Hinge Plate 2x4 - Male (Digger Bucket Holder) replaced with 3022 / 3069 / 2x 2555 / 48336 / 3021 / Plate 2x2 / Flat Tile 1x2 / Plate 1x1 w. Upright Holder / Plate 1x2 w. Shaft ⌀3.2 / Plate 2x3. - 2x 3149c01 Hinge Plate 2x5 replaced with 98285 / 98286 / 2780 / Hinge Plate 2x4 Bottom w. Pin Hole / Hinge Plate 2x4 Top w. Pin Hole / Connector Peg w. Friction. - 2607 Magnet Holder 2x3 replaced with 6541 / 2x 50746 / 2x 3070 / Technic Brick 1x1 / Roof Tile 1x1x2/3 / Flat Tile 1x1. - 2609 Magnet Holder Tile 2x2 replaced with 3068 Flat Tile 2x2. Rocket Carrier: - 3149c01 Hinge Plate 2x5 replaced with 98285 / 98286 / 2780 / 2x 63864 / Hinge Plate 2x4 Bottom w. Pin Hole / Hinge Plate 2x4 Top w. Pin Hole / Connector Peg w. Friction / Flat Tile 1x3. Sled: - 2731 Technic Figure Accessory Ski replaced with 2x 2431 / 3070 / 50746 / 3023. - 2880 Hinge Bar 2.5L with 2 and 3 Fingers on Ends replaced with 87994 Shaft 3M ⌀3.2. Notes: This completes Ice Planet 2002!

2552 Raised Baseplate 32x32 with Ramp and Pit - Updated and Corrected - LXF File A number of changes were made to Solidbrick's brickbuilt version to make it more geometrically accurate: - The ramp was widened and the vertical walls alongside the ramp were removed and replaced with proper sloped walls. - Stud and flat placement was corrected at the top and bottom of the ramp as well as in the pit. - The pit wall angle now correctly matches the exterior wall angle, and the convex corner in the pit was restored. - Concave corners were left empty, rather than filled. The size of the corners in the pit was reduced from 2x2 to 1x1. - Longer and larger plates and tiles were used for a reduced part count and cleaner look with less seams. The interior was also hollowed out. - The part count was reduced from 562 to 327, a 42% decrease. - Images from Peeron were used to make the corrections. A quick comparison of the new version on the left to the old version on the right should make most of the corrections obvious:

4206 Recycling Truck - Theme: City - LXF File Errors: - Missing some prints. Missing all decals.

6898 Ice-Sat V - Theme: Space - Ice Planet 2002 - LXF File Errors: - 4504 Hinge Plate 1x6 with 2 and 3 Fingers On Ends replaced with 4275 / 4276 / 3023. - 3149c01 Hinge Plate 2x5 replaced with 98285 / 98286 / 2780 / 2x 63864 Hinge Plate 2x4 Bottom w. Pin Hole / Hinge Plate 2x4 Top w. Pin Hole / Connector Peg w. Friction / 2x Flat Tile 1x3. - The design of the new bottom hinge plate causes a color mismatch at the hinge joint. _________________________________________________________________________ 6973 Deep Freeze Defender - Theme: Space - Ice Planet 2002 - LXF File Errors: - 2731 Technic Figure Accessory Ski replaced with 2x 2431 / 3070 / 50746 / 3023. _________________________________________________________________________ Errors affecting multiple sets: - Missing all prints. - 2607 Magnet Holder 2x3 replaced with 6541 Technic Brick 1x1 / 2x 50746 Roof Tile 1x1x2/3 / 2x 3070 Flat Tile 1x1. - 2609 Magnet Holder Tile 2x2 replaced with 3068 Flat Tile 2x2.

All I know for certain is that the Hinge Align Tool was used in the castle drawbridge example. How it was used, I have no idea. I've only used it successfully once, and that was pretty much accidental.

brickshelf.com, where most of the posters here host their images and files, is currently down and has been off and on for the past 4 or 5 days. Once it is back up, you should be able to download.

That's correct. I created a new top level folder (same level in the hierarchy as the default "Photos" and "Public" folders) named "Shared", then used the "Get sharable link" command in the dropdown menu. This is an advanced option that differs from the "Get public link" that has to be enabled, you can read about it here: https://www.dropbox.com/help/167 . Anything I create beneath the "Shared" folder inherits its public properties. Only these files (and anything I put in the default "Public" folder, obviously) are viewable by others. Anything outside of those folders that I choose to keep private, stays private. As far as security concerns, the hash for the folder with the sharable link setting is unique to that folder, e.g. /s/ys8pzmetwwkmey5/ instead of the /u/2l534643/ (that's a made up number btw) you get when using the "Copy public link" command. So it is very walled off, and as long as you make sure you don't put anything sensitive there by accident, you're fine.

I've switched to Dropbox. It's free, super fast and easy, and allows hotlinking. You can upload any file type, use subfolders and Capital Letters (CamelCase filenames are much easier to read than all lower case). All the file management is done through your Windows/Mac/Linux file explorer (drag and drop!), and if you change a file and keep the same filename, your link remains the same also (unlike most hosts that create a new random hash each time). It supports transparent .pngs properly (instead of making a blurry mess out of the thumbnails in the gallery), and is pretty much unlikely to ever go down. You get 2GB of storage, and 10GB of bandwidth per day. Links look like this: dl.dropbox.com/s/ys8pzmetwwkmey5/LEGO/LDD/Sets/Space/M-Tron/Space-M-Tron-06811-425.604-PulsarCharger.lxf?dl=1 instead of a random mess of a hash like this: i.minus.com/1328097770/wBx0oN9WgM4pFl95E3d8mA/dbeaeFpcQARD7j.lxf I know this is very important for many of you, as it makes writing up posts much easier. Once you create a sharable link on a top level folder it assigns a permanent unique hash to only that folder name, and everything beneath it remains as you named it. ("Shared" is the name of mine, it is the "ys8pzmetwwkmey5" in the Dropbox URL, and will never change. And yes, I have overly detailed filenames.) You can see all my LDD sets here: http://db.tt/Zr1Ur1Ne to get an idea of how the galleries work. If you do decide to switch, signing up though this link, http://db.tt/NRG9TY6u, will get both of us an extra 250MB of space. I hope some of you find this helpful and hope it gets you back to showing off your great creations again.

6811 Pulsar Charger - Theme: Space - M-Tron - LXF File _________________________________________________________________________ 6877 Vector Detector - Theme: Space - M-Tron - LXF File _________________________________________________________________________ 6896 Celestial Forager - Theme: Space - M-Tron - LXF File Errors: - 3597 / 3315 Hinge Plate 2x4 - Female / Hinge Plate 2x4 - Male (Digger Bucket Holder) replaced with 2x 3022 Plate 2x2 / 3068 Flat Tile 2x2 / 2x 2555 Plate 1x1 w. Upright Holder / 2x 60478 Plate w. Shaft ⌀3.2. _________________________________________________________________________ 6923 Particle Ionizer - Theme: Space - M-Tron - LXF File Errors: - 4475 Double Wing 8x8 with 4x4 Cutout replaced with 6104 Double Wing 8x8 with 3x4 Cutout causing the control panel 3069 Flat Tile 1X2 to be 8 LDU too high. _________________________________________________________________________ 6862 Secret Space Voyager - Theme: Space - M-Tron - LXF File Errors: - 3597 / 3315 Hinge Plate 2x4 - Female / Hinge Plate 2x4 - Male (Digger Bucket Holder) replaced with 2x 3022 Plate 2x2 / 3068 Flat Tile 2x2 / 2x 2555 Plate 1x1 w. Upright Holder / 2x 60478 Plate w. Shaft ⌀3.2. - 2x 50746 Roof Tile 1x1x2/3 replaced by 2x 3070 Flat Tile 1x1 on rover's rear magnet holder due to collision. - Rover's magnets are slightly too deep in their magnet holders, but this was the only way to get the top rear hinge to connect properly. _________________________________________________________________________ 6956 Stellar Recon Voyager - Theme: Space - M-Tron - LXF File Errors: - 2x 50746 Roof Tile 1x1x2/3 & 2x 3070 Flat Tile 1x1 moved down 2 LDU on vehicle's rear magnet holder due to collision. _________________________________________________________________________ Errors affecting multiple sets: - Missing all prints. - 2607 Magnet Holder 2 x 3 replaced with 6541 Technic Brick 1x1 / 2x 50746 Roof Tile 1x1x2/3 / 2x 3070 Flat Tile 1x1. - 2609 Magnet Holder Tile 2 x 2 replaced with 3068 Flat Tile 2x2.

The only two collisions gone wrong situations I know of are: 1) System side knob brick into Technic brick with hole, obviously. 2) Using a large rim and tire on a bearing plate, moving the tire away, replacing the rim with a small rim, and then sliding the large tire back into place, but not attaching. Example LXF. There was a tire placed where the little rim is, didn't collide, and was able to save. Obviously on opening is gets removed. I'm sure there are plenty more.

Pretty awesome for using just the parts from two sets! Unfortunately, the Brickshelf page is not public until they review the content. If you could link directly to the .lxf file though, we will be able to download it. The link should look something like this: www.brickshelf.com/gallery/USERNAME/FOLDERNAME/LXFNAME.lxf