manglegrat

Couple of final pics and then I'll stop, I promise!

Aha! So there's more than one way to do it, it seems... Very creative! And LDD-legal, as well. Well, even though you did it another way, I learned a new thing today that I'll probably reuse a lot, so that's still one in the "win" column. Dev mode in LDD actually made it easy to do with no modifications to the structure. I have to remember to Toggle off "Physics Test" before reopening the LXF file or it removes all the colliding bricks automatically... I hate that function in LDD because it never tells you what got removed! Anyway, because of that I won't put that version up on Bricksafe. I added a couple more BlueRender renders to Flickr, based on the updated dev-mode LXF file and my standard .sc file. Need to play with the lighting to get better renders, though... Cheers!

Sweet looking renders @inkpanther! Particularly the second one - it's just dying to have a space background added to it... But wait - are those both from BlueRender and if so how did you put the side panels in-place in LDD? I always get collision errors rejecting my attempts at placing those on both Mac & PC versions of LDD... I'd love to know how you did it! <edit> Aaahhh, I see what you did there! You used LDD Developer Mode switched on via preferences.ini, with physics testing toggled off in the Developer menu. I wish I had figured that out when I was building Agamemnon, that would have saved me days of work learning how to do it in MLCad and LDView/POV-Ray... D'oh. Ah well, those are very powerful tools & now I can use 'em too. Silver linings, etc. Awesomely valuable lesson learned - thanks for leading me to it! </edit> I've also been working on a buildable parts list in Rebrickable and found out the new Tile, Modified 2 x 3 Pentagonal isn't currently available in DBG. I subbed-in black ones in the list. I'd probably make a transparent sticker with some LBG cabling on it to lighten them up. I also subbed-in a locking 4x4 turntable for the two side-mounted guns in the midsection (top part is DBG) - don't want it to suffer any gun-barrel droop!

Oops, I went and made a UCS plaque anyway (based on the one from Agamemnon). I also did the name plate and hull letter (which for this ship is actually a J). If anyone's interested in being the first to build their own, everything - all 3 version LXFs, plus sticker images & a couple of printer-ready word docs - is available in my Bricksafe here.

I'm starting to think you're right. In fact, I liked the beefier look of that version so much I decided to extend the theme and beef-up the gun platforms for the twelve cannons on the top & bottom. The cannons themselves I think are fine but the platforms are now longer and wider, and one plate taller, based on part #4855 (not cheap to find in LBG, though!). Meet version 3! I think this may be the final tweak... Here's a 360 render:

I revisited this assertion last night and decided to try a 7-rib version of the midsection - and now it seems to be a bit closer to the Antares reference image, and the side plates seem to fit-in better. I'm thinking I kinda prefer it to the 5-rib one but I'm not 100% sure... (Note that the 2x2 round tile surrounded by taps in the rear section is supposed to have a grille pattern but I couldn't get POV-Ray to parse the scene file from LDView with that in it, so I redid it as a plain tile. )

Oh, cool insight, Lyichir! Thanks. Are the ones in the prepack smooth, then? Either way, I guess that confirms that I'll most likely never see a smooth goldbar variant in LBG, though.

As requested by Inkpanther in my last thread on the EAS Agamemnon, here's another B5 MOC! This time it's just in LDD/LDraw, but the renders give a pretty decent idea of how it might look IRL. Front (got guns?): Side (oh yeah, don't forget the missile launch tubes as well as the guns ): Top shot (new greebles, new parts, another view of dem guns): If you're familiar with the reference material, or if you've seen the other thread, the Nova-Class Dreadnoughts are predecessors to the Omega Class Destroyers - without the rotating section but with a ridiculous quantity of guns and slightly fewer Starfuries. This beastie is for takin' names and kickin' megablocks. As a result, it wasn't much work to translate the Agamemnon into what I want to call the Schwartzkopf. The reference images I used are the Antares, but I prefer the one that was a topical reference (well, it was at the time!) to Stormin' Norman. Stats-wise, this one is 104 studs long (still legally a SHIP, right?), 30 tall and 20(ish) wide - or about 83x29x16cm. It contains 3720 parts, almost exactly 1000 less than the Agamemnon. I don't think I'll build this one in the brick (I'd have to make a UCS plaque) but just in case, I put the plaque holder on the opposite side of the stand from the Agamemnon so that they could face each other head-to-head on display at home. The model has 5 not 7 "ribs" in the midsection compared to the reference shot of the Antares but I'm fine with that - it fits my scale better so I'm taking artistic license. After placing the side-panels in the LDraw version, I can tell there could be some brick alignment issues with them around the midsection that would require a minor redesign of those, but they could probably do with a minor tweak anyway. The full Flickr album is here. As well as the renders there are a few reference pics I cribbed from the web, including a side-by-side comparison of a Nova and an Omega. Hope you enjoy it!

I’m trying to confirm whether a part you can only find in LDD extended mode actually exists IRL… or has ever existed IRL. The part is #96910 GOLDBAR. It is a version of part #99563 without the two “stamps” on top. It’s much nicer looking than the stamped version and I’d much rather have that than the stamped one for my builds - it has a much a cleaner texture for use in the plating on starship exteriors. I can’t find any listings for the 96910 variant anywhere on Bricklink, Brickowl, etc. A search for that part ID on Rebrickable results in a cross-reference to the page for 99563… so obviously someone has mapped it across in the past. So does 96910 exist IRL anywhere or is it perhaps a historical prototype variant of 99563 that was made available in LDD but was never made available physically? Does anyone know the history? And if it's not a real part, then why is it still available in LDD?

Just couldn't step away from the nano-scale Starfury idea... I tried a bit harder than the joke render with some spare parts, and came up with these: They look much better but are just a little too large to be perfect. They would just make it through the 2x4-sized recovery bay in the MOC, with a few sparks flying...

Thanks, Inkpanther! I think the mini/micro-scale ones you've shared renders of elsewhere are also awesome builds, particularly the Centauri warship (love the vibrant colours). You're doing your part to keep it alive! I was wondering last night what size a B5 MOC would be if the main cylinder was built using rings the same scale as the two DBG ones on this MOC. I'm thinking it'd be over 4 feet long... Not sure I have the MOCcing chops quite yet for something that scale, though! I agree, Bob (may have to go watch some) - and thanks, guys!

Thanks! Seasons 1 & 5 were comparatively weak IMO but the middle three seasons were awesome SciFi. Well, the story-arc episodes were, not the filler ones... I saw and really like those micro-models, but they're very out of scale to the Agamemnon so I decided to stick with just the ship. Omega Class Destroyers carry 2 squadrons of them, launched from the rotating section and recovered through the landing bay at the front, so to-scale they'd need to be about a 1x2 plate in size, more of a nano-model! You could explain the size differential by saying it's a forced perspective scene, though... <edit>Actually, thinking about scale again, I pulled together a quick render of a mixed wing of nano-scaled StarFury fighters to go along with the Agamemnon and threw it into the Flickr album as well here... Heh. For a sufficient fee I suppose anything's possible. That brings up another interesting statistic, though - Rebrickable says the parts are worth about $900 CAD on Bricklink right now, FYI...

Hi, folks. During last SHIPtember, Ryan Olsen created a SHIP based on Babylon 5 - the EAS Agamemnon. I stumbled across it at the time thanks to some Lego blogs, and at the end of the year decided to build one for myself. Credit for the original Lego design goes to Ryan, of course! I took his WIP pics (here) and final pics (here - awesome photography & Photoshopping!) and reverse-engineered it in LDD to understand how it all held together and what parts were required. Then I used Rebrickable to figure out what parts I needed. To build it, I used the "hide" tool in LDD - hide bricks in reverse order, then undo to play back the build as you follow along. Much more helpful than the absurd LDD-generated instructions... Here's the end result (Flickr album here) - my pics & lighting are not studio-quality, unlike Ryan's! The middle section rotates (manually) and stays put at any angle, so it's well balanced and the turntables provide enough friction to keep it stable. Stats-wise, it's about 95cm (~117 studs) long, 35cm tall and 15cm wide, using ~4700 bricks, weighing-in at just over 3.7kg (8.2lb). I made some guesses as to internal structure (e.g. the turntable connections in the rotating section) and the greebles on top & bottom are my own, but it's very close to Ryan's original design and some reference images of the original. Ryan was kind enough to share the image files he used for the stickers, so I was able to complete the model. I couldn't connect the front & rear side plating in LDD - as I learned here, the connections are just illegal as there's not enough clearance between the side plates and overhanging top & bottom plates in software - however, it obviously works in the brick. I converted the LDD to an LDraw file (using SylvainLS's updated parts mapper here) and used LDCad (which can ignore collisions) to place the plates in order to use POV-Ray to make the renders you can see in my album. I learned a lot doing that! Note that I made some tweaks in-the-brick but haven't re-done the LDraw file or any renders to reconcile the minor differences. It was a fun, frustrating at times, but very rewarding journey, and I'm really happy how it turned out. The SHIP looks awesome on display in my living room. Thanks for the inspiration, Ryan, and thanks to those on this site who helped with the digital stuff! Here's a 360 degree render: https://photos.app.goo.gl/caouE0BlHzarD6C42

If anyone's curious, I completed the LDCad conversion, installed the remaining panels and generated a few POV-Ray renders (so proud of myself )... The renders are slightly paler than BlueRender (gamma settings on POV-Ray 3.7 need to be dialled up further?), but I'm pretty happy with them. Here's the results of my efforts and your help - thanks for all the tips and assistance, guys! Front angle Side Rear angle

There were only 14 of the 3665's in fairly visible and reachable places, so I manually replaced the missing parts in LDCad. Seemed the simplest solution! 3665a may be a better mapping to use for the future, though. I added the unofficial parts library to LDCad to get the 2x2 wedge plates to be available, but only after I had already deleted all the "missing part" placeholders and manually replaced the other visible parts with alternatives, so I probably could've got the parts that are in there to work just by doing that first... Ah well, another lesson learned! I then spent another while placing the side panels (had to install LDCad 1.6 beta to get the multiple-select-by-CTRL-drag function to save my sanity), and I only have one pair of panels left to attach! They're going to be at an angle though, and I haven't figured that bit out yet. I think that may happen in LDD or real life prototyping first, as doing it as an LDCad newbie may cause my laptop to be thrown at the wall in frustration... We're nearly there, though! Cool, thanks! I've learned a lot of useful stuff on this little journey. Thanks for your help! I suspected that might be the case, as the number was just too coincidental. Also confirmed by Sylvain, so I'm happy I haven't missed something else that I'll only notice later on... Thanks for the advice, Roland! As per my reply to Sylvain above, I took that advice and installed the unofficial library, but probably not in the most efficient sequence... I'll know to use the missing files dialog next time (if I'm ever brave enough to do this again...). Much appreciated.

Some more analysis - probably the last, as I think I have a way to move forward in LDCad... I checked the 6 parts that caused the MLCad missing file complaints: 14x 3665b Slope, inverted 45 2x1 - The ‘b’ was added in the export from LDD, not sure why it did that! 4x 24316 Technic axle 3 w/stop - should be there in end-2016 parts update… 32x 92582 Hinge Plate 2 x 2 Locking with 1 Finger on Top - an unofficial LDraw part for now 14x 48729b Bar 1L with Clip Mechanical 14 - The ‘b’ was added in the export from LDD, but it should be there in end-2016 parts update… 1x 24299 Wedge, Plate 2 x 2 Left 1 - an unofficial LDraw part for now 1x 24307 Wedge, Plate 2 x 2 Right 1 - an unofficial LDraw part for now So a total of 66 parts are in those above 6 part types. Reconciliation: LDD parts count: 4664 LDCad parts count: 4608 LDCad visual reconciliation: 3665b - missing 24316 - missing (internal to the model, not a crisis) 92582 - missing 48729b - missing 24299 - missing 24307 - missing Subtracting these 66 missing parts from 4664 leaves 4598. This is 10 less than the LDCad count - not sure where the difference comes from! Maybe LDCad is counting some of the multi-part components separately (i.e. the 2 technic turntables and 8 1x4 hinge plates)… Rebrickable did give messages about merging them on the import, but I know LDD counts both top and bottom parts as one piece. Odd but not critical. Visually, for the purposes of completing a panels-on render in LDCad, only five of the part types above need to be fixed, 62 parts in total. Not as much of an issue as I expected over the total number of parts, so the LDD-LDraw translation is actually doing a really good job with Sylvain’s XML file! I think I can manage to manually fix those… Just for fun, here’s the difference between Rebrickable import of LXF and LDR files both generated from LDD: LXF part count: 4664 LDR part count: 4637 27 parts are missing across 3 different part types, only one of which is in the 6 listed above! The LDR import also complained about one technic brick (1x2 with axle opening) that was actually in the LDD import but didn't cause a warning, but I changed it to another variant just to clear it. 5x 3713 Technic bush 8x 43093 Technic Axle Pin with Friction Ridges Lengthwise 14x 3665 Slope, inverted 45 2x1 So something subtle was missed in the translation from French to Spanish to English!

Good idea! That'll definitely help highlight some conversion issues. I've been using Rebrickable to validate the availability of parts in general as I was building, but since importing to Rebrickable also does mappings from some of the older part variants still used in LDD to more preferred ones, that might also point to some parts that could be falling out of the LDraw conversion, even just by reviewing the output of uploading LDD file alone. It's kinda like translating something written in French to Spanish, and then the Spanish to English, and also translating the original French directly to English and comparing the results. Hey, anything that helps is awesome... Thanks!

Yeah, I got that, I updated the file on my Windows VM no problem, it's just the way apps are packaged on a Mac they're bundled into a '.app' file with the contents hidden inside, rather than the way Windows does it with folders - a slightly different paradigm. However, I just found out that you can explore the contents of Mac .app files if you open the 'Applications' folder in Finder, right click on the 'LEGO Digital Designer' package & select the 'Show Package Contents' option, then you can explore the package folders as normal. The 'ldraw.xml' file is inside the 'Contents\Resources\' folder, and I was able to copy your version into it (I renamed the old one first, just in case). It seems to work, and did a much better job than the original file. Nice! Hey, now you can update the "how to" instructions in your thread about how to install this file for Mac owners... There are some parts that don't make it through the conversion and are missing, but some of those may just be variants (e.g. 15207 - which I manually replaced with 30413 and that came through OK). MLCad says '.dat' files are missing for the following part IDs: 3665b, 24316, 92582, 48729b, 24299, 24307 - but LDCad doesn't complain about those when I open the file. I'll need to investigate why and learn more about MLCad/LDCad to check on the missing parts - LDCad says there are 4608 parts in the ldr file but the lxf has 4664, so definitely some detective work to do there... Ooh, cool! I hadn't ever used that tool before - much smarter than moving & replacing. Thanks, Sylvain!

Wow, awesome work figuring that out, and thanks for the great illustration! That approach does the trick - if you can follow that sequence and if you don't subsequently have to move either of the overhanging bricks (top or bottom) once the side plates are placed, which seems to reset the collision/legality test logic. Here's a render of the recreated SHIP model I'm working on now (Ryan Olsen is the original builder), so I'm not sure at this stage I'd be able to reimplement the exposed internal structure using technique above... Can't hurt to try in one section, though. I'll give it a go. However, the next time I'm starting something that has awkwardly-sized recessed side panels using plates, I'll know how to make it work.

I just tried that - for the purposes of producing a render with the side panels on, that sounded like it could work, but obviously not be structurally valid, so I gave it a go... I tried both SNOT types - i.e. "Brick 1x2 w/knobs" (11211) and the headlight brick (4070). Unless I misunderstood the suggestion it doesn't seem to work for me. The first brick type still produced an illegal overlap with the plates above and below the top & bottom, not allowing any plates to be connected to the SNOT bricks with the overhang in place. The headlight brick looked like it was better, after I added a plate to bump out from the recessed stud on the headlight brick, and while that does push out the side panel vs. the technic pegs, it might not have required a redesign of anything else in the model to accommodate it due to some "play" in the existing gaps. In the screenshot below, you can see that using the headlights got me a part of the way there, but I can't put any plates on the visible blue plates from the layer behind the multi-coloured one. I guess we're still playing in "illegal connection" land... A top-to-bottom contiguous 5 stud solution on the same layer of plates still isn't allowed while it's between those overhanging plates, and the side plates need to be recessed. I appreciate your suggestion, for sure! If I misinterpreted it and there may be another way, please let me know...

Both of them are callbacks to the bad old days of non-intuitive user interfaces (MLCad from the static multi-canvas perspective, LDCad from the odd/ugly menuing system). Still, in 20 years in IT I've never written anything like that and made it available for free to others so it's a bit mean of me to criticize others too harshly. I'm so needy. Ooh, thanks for those tips! I'll take a look and see if that makes LDCad a bit more usable. I tried it yesterday and it seemed more intuitive than LDCad, but I still got my head turned inside out trying to get to grips with piece rotations, and the brick palette would take some getting used to after becoming so familiar with using LDD's extended mode... Actually, that last bit applies to every other package, too! I read some concerns in other threads here about their licensing terms and what they claim ownership over, but I think that might be more about public rather than private builds... Definitely interested in seeing how that software evolves though! For my SHIP MOC recreation, I just kept plugging away in Extended mode in LDD (checking on Rebrickable for parts in unavailable colours along the way) and left the side panels disconnected. I finished it earlier tonight - ~4600 parts, including the tiled display stand... Rather than trying any conversions for that, I'll stick to trying out any new software on new - simple - builds... Thanks again! No not yet - that might help! Is there a way to make that file work on a Mac, or is everything too packaged-up for that to work and you need to use Windows? I only installed LDD on my Windows VM the other day as a result of this problem and haven't tried it yet on that, but I'll take a look - thanks! The potential issue with technic pegs you mention might not be that much of a hurdle in comparison to everything else with a conversion to LDCad - there's only 40 or so of them to redo... 0.8% of the total part count.

After experiment, it seems that whether the connection is direct from the technic pins or via some other mechanism (I tried four, one of which seemed OK but only worked if you did things in a certain sequence), there seems to be no legal and predictable or consistently successful way to get this to work in LDD without introducing additional gaps into the design. I also downloaded the latest LDraw package for my PC (it's a Parallels VM) and faceplanted over that adoption hurdle again. In comparison to LDD, both MLCad and LDCad are impenetrable to my aging and simple mind... Also, exporting the SHIP from LDD to LDraw format lost a lot of parts I'd have to find (if they're even in visible places) and replace. It may be too late in this build to productively switch to anything else! I haven't tried Mecabricks yet, so I guess I could take a look at that as well...

Argh. Well that explains it. Thanks for the link - I've actually skimmed through that before but it was ages ago. I've bookmarked it now for future reference! Knowing that, the seeming randomness of LDD applying the rules in this case is weird. It shouldn't work at all! I've installed LDraw (and Bricksmith on my Mac) a few times but the usability just turned me off completely. It seems to have a much higher barrier-to-entry than LDD, and since LDD has served well to-date I've never really committed to jumping the hurdles. May have to revisit that... I shoulda maybe checked that thread first, you probably mentioned it there... You did a helluva great job, by the way! Given your info above, I doubt there's a legal workaround. I'm going to do some investigating in LDD and try to find alternative methods before completely giving up on LDD... I suspect that they'll either be just as unpredictable and/or will introduce gaps that may cause spacing issues with other parts of the design. At the moment, the side panels are just sitting loose, as you say. Not much use when you want to produce a render of the finished model, though!

Hi, I'm pulling my hair out trying to either work around or simply understand why the scenarios I describe below are happening. I searched this subforum but wasn't able to find an answer - apologies if my search kung-fu is weak... I'm building someone else's SHIP MOC in LDD from pictures off Flickr, and have replicated the box frame for a section of it that is 6-studs wide, with 8-stud wide plates on top and bottom (studs inverted on the bottom), and should have 5-high SNOTted panels on the sides. I've used technic beams & frames for the body, and 5l liftarms & plates to get the correct vertical separation for the side panels and brace it all, with technic pegs (#4274) to provide the connections for the sides. However, the top and bottom plates seem to collide unpredictably with the side panels, and I can't get it to work. Here's a screenshot: The yellow plate was placed before the 2-stud wide red plate below it was added, then the file was saved. It doesn’t complain when you reload the file (I was expecting a "brick placed incorrectly" barf) but if you try to move it off that position then back to the same place, it doesn’t accept it. It didn't complain when I added the bottom plate, either - completely inconsistent! The blue plate can move left and right up to just beside the red plate. The red plate cannot be moved any further right, fails to move just one stud to the left (?!), but does move 2 or more studs left of its current position towards the blue plate OK. The green plate can move right but not left. I read a post on this forum that mentioned peg orientation as sometimes an issue for snapping & collisions, and oriented all of the pegs (and the black pins as well, because why not?) to 0 degrees, with no improvement. The top right red plate and the bottom left two red plates are colliding with the SNOT plates. If I remove them, I can move the SNOT plates around but can’t subsequently re-install the top & bottom plates. Gah. This works in real life (I just tested a simplified version of the above), but LDD seems to be intolerant of what I’m trying. I'm using 4.3.10 in both Mac and PC environments on the same file, with the same results in both versions. The same SNOT/collision issue caused me to be unable to replicate Raskolnikov’s awesome AT-AT MOC in LDD following their provided instructions, so the scenario I was trying definitely worked in real life and in their own software (not sure if they used LDD or LDraw). Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and how/if it can be avoided in LDD? On the SHIP recreation, I'm already up to 3400 bricks (some side panels built but obviously not attached) and really don't fancy having to do an epic rework to try to realize my version of the guy's MOC in LDD! Thanks in advance!

Great idea! If only my cat was as cooperative and poseable as the AT-AT... I put it on the floor and while it's taller than he is, he's longer and out-bulks it by quite a bit, especially around his saggy belly! I tried for a few minutes to get the cat to sit next to the AT-AT, but all the ginger idiot wanted to do was nuzzle my camera-holding hand and miaow at me for strokes and ear-scritchies. He just wouldn't take any direction from the photographer at all. As W.C. Fields said "never work with animals or children"...