alienwar9

@treeboy: That's a big section, buuuuut here's the LXF: BUILDINGS-9,10,11,12 (parking garage and surrounding buildings) And why not, I want to include this building too: So here is the LXF for Building 15. Hope you like!

Yes. Here is the sixth of 11 sections of my city project. Notice it is in 2 parts. Once again, I overstressed LDD and had to separate a separate section. This is becoming a pattern ; one I tried to avoid by making sections But enough with my faces. Here is the whole layout of section 6 so you can get an idea of how these 2 parts fit: As you may notice, this is the most confusing, complicated part of the city. I sure wouldn't want to drive on these streets . I went over budget with pieces here, but I couldn't help myself because the buildings were just so fun to make and kept on coming out better and better. I will admit however, that the 2 buildings behind and attached to the red building were the most annoying I've built, mostly because I had no real vision or feeling of what I wanted them to look like, and so it felt very forced building them. Besides that and the angled road between the buildings, this was once again my favorite to build so far! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some more pictures of section 6...part A: And the required:tongue: overhead shot: These buildings were the most fun to build. I already had the bridges finished much earlier, so that allowed me to get right to the fun part. Originally the parking lot was a lot more plain, but I didn't have any space to fit the ramps to each floor so I tried to find a way to make the smallest possible ramp that fit, and the result was the spiral ramp. The sign is possibly one of my favorite parts in the city, really bringing life to the view. I also really wanted to create a fully fledged fire escape, and between the parking lot and red apartments was the only large enough and visually fitting space. Finally, I decided to add another park because I felt there just wasn't enough green in the city. So here are some better pictures of the buildings: Piece Count: 29,084 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And now section 6.......part B: And its overhead shot: (pardon the piece outlines. I couldn't get any more screenshots) A lot less fun, but still very happy with the outcome. The two mirror corner buildings have a few nice details like the roof and the side entrances that make them stand out for me. But the real focus point for me is the red library roof. I modeled the building from another MOC and then used Chicago's Library as a real life basis to meld it with. I tried my best to recreate the corner sculptures on the roof, and together with the roof terrace and arched center, it all fit to give the building its strength. Building pictures? yes: Piece Count: 19,924 Once again, I have a few more pictures in my brickshelf. I apologize with all these pictures as this section was not the easiest to get good angles or pictures for. If anyone wants, I can make pictures or lxf files of parts if requested. Thanks again and hope you all enjoy!

I have been a big proponent of LDD becoming multi-threaded, so it came as a big surprise to me when I was stress testing LDD to make it crash (yes, on purpose ) that I found LDD tasking 50% of my cpu when I was moving and rotating the camera view. Why is 50% odd? Because my cpu is quad core. So apparently some functions of LDD do operate on more than one core. However, LDD still maxes out doing some functions at only 25%. Don't know if anyone else has noticed that. Oh, and I am still using version 4.1.6 "even with huge files it shouldn't take more then 10-20 seconds", :laugh: ...it takes me 30, on MY pc. To stay on topic at least a little bit , I'd love to see LDD implement a "free-rotate" where you don't have to have a piece connected to another piece to rotate it in increments less than 90 degrees. (mentioned already? bah! I still want it.)

I hope not... Actually, my goal is to keep it under $26,000, though I think at the rate the LDD is going, I might have to cut something. That is why I need to finish the LDD model so I can properly analyze how much needs to be taken out, and where it can be taken out. So far, since I don't like the way the EL-line looks in the lower city, so that might be cut out first if needed. After that, the subway would go. Then if still needed the industrial district (chemical plant first). Beyond that, I just plain fear @Superkalle: That...could possibly be the greatest feature yet! Though I wonder just how much it could accomplish. While it would make it A LOT easier to get sub-models together, the biggest problem is still having the whole thing run in LDD. The main point of having everything together is to get a proper view and feeling for the model, and if there is no possibility of opening and using the camera view with LDD, that feature would be mute. But it might also help make opening the model more stable too, as LDD wouldn't have to worry about calculating the connection. I hope I am interpreting the feature you described correctly though

I do as Calabar does it mostly. Hiding the model part you are moving I find is pretty useless since LDD shows the whole thing when you move it anyway. But I hide EVERYTHING else except for 1 piece, a reference piece that the imported model will be attached to. That way LDD doesn't have to calculate connections for anything else (actually, this is useful whenever building a complex model, since many times LDD starts to get confused where you want to place a piece or parts. Sometimes I even place a baseplate on the bottom so LDD has only one surface to place onto). The best reference piece will always be a baseplate that is on "ground" level, since you can't place anything underneath it. The tricky part is getting the exact location to move a model. When I separate a model, I leave a plate that stands out from the rest of the model and is attached to a baseplate in a corner. The plate goes with one part, the baseplate with the other. That way when I have to reconnect it, it will be very simple to find the connection point (since I often put huge chunks of cities together and its hard to even tell where exactly they go together ) Since LDD can take a while to load the movement, getting the position right the first time is important. So the with the imported model, I select a corner of a corner piece (or that extra plate I mentioned). This means that the cursor will barely be touching the piece (wait until you get that purple high-light) and will be a respective corner to the reference piece that you will be attaching it to (so bottom left corner to bottom left of reference piece, etc). Sometimes you will end up deselecting the whole model, but this is better than moving the model in the wrong place, so its worth it. As soon as you have "grabbed" the corner, your method of quickly moving is the next step . But you have to make sure you know where you are moving to. This means, that the final location of your cursor will have to be perfect (at least when I've moved big models, it has to be). Even a millimeter of mouse movement throws it off. What I have found is that if you try and place the corner EXACTLY on the reference piece corner, it will actually be a little off. Usually it is about 1/5th of a stud down and away from the corner (I use stud length because I'm pretty sure it matters how closely zoomed in you are). Like I said though, this is what I have found, and it might not be true for others. At last if it lines up, you can click and pray . I would save your model before you try and connect it, as I have found that LDD sometimes will be able to save a model when it is separated, but not together. It also helps to save and restart LDD before you move it if you are worried it might crash. As a side note, when importing a model or loading a template, make sure you have enough space so that it lands free, without trying to connect to the model that is already there. Sometimes the stress of loading a model in and then right away calculating a connection can make LDD crash. It also takes longer to re-locate the model. Oh, and if you move it to the wrong connection, LDD takes longer to calculate that. Sorry if that is a little more than you asked for. Its just I've had experiences where it has taken LDD 10 minutes to load the connection (the big trees in my Nayeli moc) and if you really are making a 50,000 piece model, I'm pretty sure you are going to run into issues. As for your 2nd question, its a bit complicated. I've been able to get almost 55,000 pieces in LDD 3.0, but I never used rotate, and very few types of pieces. Using rotate and more variety, I've managed to get 39,000 pieces in a very large model. The worst is 14,000 pieces max when I used a lot of the flex tool. So it depends on the complexity of the model. Surprisingly for this mini city, I built it entirely in one model, and it never crashed. It's almost 33,000 pieces, uses a decent amount of rotate, and lots of different colors and pieces. I saved like crazy during the end though with 34 versions saved. But I think I remember you saying you have a better computer now, so it might be able to pull off a little more. But at these model sizes, it becomes less a computer issue, and more a program issue. @eiker86: I'm probably not going to build this small version since it would probably cost more than $4,000, and I'm saving up for the full size. The full size version I am still working on in LDD, but hopefully I will start making the real thing in a few months! So Excited!!!

Phew, It's finally done (No, not the actual city ) It's the mini 1:4 scale of my city that I promised to make Whole LXF WARNING:32,895 pieces And for those with less powerful computers, here is the city split into sections: Bottom Half LXF ~9,000 pieces Middle LXF ~14,000 pieces Top Right LXF ~8,000 pieces And for those who want to test (or see the river together), the upper city (section 2+3) together: Upper City LXF ~23,000 pieces Once again, more work, more time, and more pieces than I expected But I finally get to see the scale and complete look of the city in LDD before the real version, and you do too. I tried my best to keep the scale and proportions correct to get the overall feel right. For the most part everything worked out (a few buildings are out of scale ) Here are a few more pictures of key views I liked: THE standard view view from the opposite side a sky view one of my favorite parts, the bridge 1st person view looking up And finally, my necessary overhead google maps view Hope you all like 8 more pictures on my brickshelf

Absolutely fantastic work! It all feels alive and so colorful At this rate TLG will want to get involved soon!

Oh my! Much better, I'd say. And it would be an Amazing piece in black, so "vest-like"

Well then.... Amazing job on that And yeah, that fire escape took a little while to figure out, mostly because I couldn't see the lower half from the pictures and LDD was so picky. But it actually looks like it REALLY doesn't fit in LDD, even if you would try it in real life. Go figure

And here is green grocer! LXF Green Grocer was really really hard for me to figure out from the pictures. I'm pretty sure I botched a lot of the techniques up

Here is the fire brigade! LXF And I've included what I could manage to make for the fan over Cafe Corner. Not exactly it but...

I saw these little guys on the front page and went nuts! I decided to make my entire city in miniature scale 1:4 just like these guys. But I also decided to try and quickly make these. Now that I have finished them all, here is the entire street. Enjoy! LXF The only piece replaced is the string with a chain. I don't know what pieces are on the insides, so I left that out. I only worked off the pictures so if instructions are out already, that would definitely help fix these Cafe Corner was the biggest pain, but I have to say it turned out looking the best. EDIT: Fixed the Cafe Corner fan thanks to bbqqq (Nachapon S. ?)

Hmm, this might be really really useful. Thanks! A little note just in case: LDD sometimes allows the collision at first, but when you save and load the model back up it deletes the pieces saying they were placed incorrectly. Sometimes it leaves them, sometimes it doesn't. I can never tell when it will or won't. I'm sure you've probably run into this though

Firstly, I think what has been done here is remarkable and everyone should be commended for the wonderful efforts! Yes, I think some topics should be pinned like mentioned above. But I also think that we should be more open to commenting on MOCs in these forums. Like many creations in town, or pirates, people get critiqued, helped, and assaulted with compliments I think that this forum should be even more so, since people can have a much more intimate knowledge of the building techniques and methods with LDD. I realize that much of this comes from the specialization that each section of forum members have in their respective themes, but it would be nice to have that sort of "helping hand" feeling that the other forum themes have. As for a general layout, I was thinking that there could be a tag system, something that every topic puts in its name, so that "questions, tips, and general comments on programs" could be separate from "creations". As I see it, these are two very different topic posts, but the volume of posts as yet doesn't necessitate subforums. Also, the current topics pinned could be consolidated when adding the other pinned topics (moc index / official sets / errors) and rather link to them. So like a general "troubles and guides" topic would link to LDD reference,troubleshooting guide, uploading LXF, bugs and brick errors, and unlocking extended mode (since they all have a similar theme to them. It's a bit too scattered now). Creations could be a second merged and pinned topic, linking to the moc index, official sets made in LDD, mocs/official sets made in other programs, and maybe a WIP topic. And then finally you would have the LDD index thread as the main pinned topics. I'm not sure how pinning works, but it would be great to have all the community builds pinned and linked to in another topic, since I think they are a really special part of this wonderful forum! Oh boy, there I went off again hope this helps!

yup yup! QX5700 core 2-duo overclocked to 3.2 GHz (quad core) Nvidia 460 GTX (1GB) 4 GB 800Mhz RAM 10,000 RPM 150GB hard-drive Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit just upgraded from vista with 32-bit. BIG improvement, and I have to say LDD runs smoother. At start-up zooming out doesn't jitter, and all camera movement frame-rates are higher I think. For 4GB, 32-bit doesn't actually use all of it and depending on your PC it could be a lot less. Mine used around 3.2GB of the 4. So I highly suggest if you have 4GB or more of RAM, you make sure you have a 64-bit operating system (especially if you have more RAM, say 8 or 16). Usually LDD hits a limit of 1.3GB, but with all the other tasks running (and I stop as many as I can, so really it was vista's fault) the memory taken up hits 75-80%. Win7 runs using significantly less ram, which is great compared to vista.

I thought I should share something I ran into accidentally yesterday while building in LDD. I've been a task watchdog and usually close as much as I can to let the computer run faster. But I left windows aero on accidentally (the "desktop windows manager" task), and when I went to save my LDD something different happened: The save window closed before the program tried to save; the 'hide' feature didn't un-hide everything while trying to save; LDD seemed to have an easier time trying to save, even though at the top it said the file was (not responding) for a little while. So while I was scared at first , I found out that aero and desktop manager actually seemed to help LDD run. Even when LDD did crash, windows aero let me know WAY ahead of time that the program was not responding, allowing me to close LDD and restart much faster, instead of having to wait a few minutes praying that it worked. Now, I only suggest this for people who have powerful enough computers to run both LDD and windows desktop manager (and who have win7 or vista, obviously). I haven't been able to test whether the aero feature is required, or just desktop manager (then again I'm not sure what the difference is ). If it is just desktop manager, it might even help people with less powerful computers. The oddest feature is that whatever you had "hidden" before saving stays hidden. This means that you can hide ALL the pieces and then save, which gives LDD a little more chance to not crash! So the tip is: 1)keep windows aero (and/or desktop manager) running 2)hide your entire creation before saving

:oh: Oh the possibilities! Imagine an online database of people's moc's for easy instruction building...and all the mocists have to do is scan in their build (of course I'm guessing they'd have to scan in multiple stages of the build so that the program would know what pieces are on the inside ) Then there could be linking with bricklink to instantly order the pieces you need, so you could literally have the best MOCs being spread throughout the community so everyone can have fun with awesome skillfully made creations! Or you could, you know, jump a figure over some blocks

I know I've posted it before, but it's too obvious and funny and I thought it could help the argument THIS is why the piece organization should be reconsidered. Seriously, that just looks bad for LDD.

Woah That's some very different stuff there! I love your bullet chains, and the overall "beat-up" look. That is a ton of barbed wire, someone could get stuck on that My favorite however is the buggy. It's clean, simple, has a really nice shape, and looks very mechanical. It's what I tried to build but failed. You've succeeded with it in flying colors!

I second the idea to allow multiple LXF files and multiple LDD instances! Which gave me an idea for a feature. If we could "lock" certain models or chunks of a build. Say I have a floor of a modular house, and its completely finished and I want to move it around, see if it fits on the other floor, etc. It would be really great to be able to lock that whole floor so that LDD recognizes it as one big piece, instead of the hundreds of pieces its made up of. That would save space for the program so it runs faster, and it would help people from accidentally taking parts off of the floor or chunk. Like if you have a vehicle and want to move it around a lot, if you had it locked you could just click on it and move it, without having to worry about bounding it, or having to make a group of it and then move it. I'm not sure how it would work, but if LDD could "compress" the group of bricks into one solid object with much less connection points and geometry, it would even allow people to take (ahem) parts of larger builds and put them together without having to worry if the program will crash. So if someone wants to put all the corner cafe buildings together, they would put 3 or 4 large locked pieces together, rather than 8-9,000 pieces. What would be really great is if you could even select the locked bricks and easily unlock them while building, and LDD would load the full model in, so you could change a piece that doesn't fit on the fly. Maybe if LDD takes a total LXF file and loads it as one piece, that might work?

Ummm, I feel super stupid now. I accidentally was deleting the wrong program files folder. I kinda have 2 hard-drives, both with program file folders, and both with LDD installed on them for some reason. Somehow LDD changed the short-cut link to my other hard-drive, so I was looking in the wrong place the whole time And I only found this out because I took your advise but went a little further, and deleted ALL of LDD files (even the LDD application) and then tried LDD and it worked Whoops

Actually, I copied both the program files and the appdata files, and it still starts up, takes a little while at the intro screen while saying "installing bricks" and then runs with the 4.1.8 bricks. I've deleted the db.lif file, I've renamed it, I've copied the old db.lif file, and it still creates the new 4.1.8 one. I've even tried to go back to 4.0.2, and it still installs the new brick pallet. And I've tried these also with offline mode. Tis not my day

Should just renaming the file anything work? I tried renaming it and when I started up LDD it just created a new db.lif file. I even tried LDD in offline mode and it still created the new db.lif file. I'm guessing there is some install file somewhere in some temp folder or something, but my hard-drives are such a mess I don't know what temp folder to look in

well that didn't work. Anyone know where LDD stores its brick pallet update right before it installs it? I swapped my LDD program files, but as soon as I open LDD it installs the new update.

Anyone notice a drastic increase in file loading times? When I was using LDD to create my nayeli moc I thought it was just because of the techniques I was using, but now that I re-opened my city files after the update, I've noticed that the load time is significantly longer, mid-way between LDD 3 load times and 4 load times. Edit: That train wheel piece! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I'm a little late on noticing it, lol, but I've used that on most of my lamp-posts in my city. WHY????? It's such a useful and important piece. Please update LDD FAST and get that piece back in, oh creators! For now, I return to using previous LDD version....