Bojan Pavsic

2 points - LegoDejc (EntryID 227): Crane Truck Awesome technic creation, even better LDD representation (i know how hard it is to create something like this in LDD). 1 point - Igorlando (EntryID 220): Anastasia Astoria International Hotel Awesome details Basicly i couldn't decide between other town designs and technic creations, but i think that it's harder to design technic creations in LDD then other designs, so my votes went to that direction.

This is my contribution to the "LDD only" category: A circus arena. http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bpavsic/Designs/Circus/arena-lowbricks.lxf

Yes, of course, all the bricks in their colors have to exist in physical form too (that's one of the basic rules for the contest). Btw, with this project i really started to use your LDD Manager and i must say it's really really really usefull. Just one more thing. Minifig parts are included into the 2500 count or is the brick count cap at 2500 + 50 * 4 (legs, torso, head, hair)? I think i read somewhere that minifigs are extra, but can't find the post

With this specific creation in "LDD Only". Just to make things a bit more clearer. I have tiled floor on baseplates (basicly single color with some exceptions). If i tile it with 2x2 tiles, then it looks good in physical and virtual world. If i tile it with less brick count (so use other tiles like 1x8, 1x6, 2x4, even 6x6 or 8x16), then it represents the same thing, looks the same in LDD, but if made out of bricks, the gaps make an "unusual" and ugly pattern, not the uniform one like with the 2x2 tiles. I will eventually make this in physical too, but right now i lack a lot of parts in specific colors, so this one will only compete in "LDD only" category. That's why i intend to do 2 different LXFs, one with the uniform pattern tiling (and brick count greater then 2500) and one for the competition that will look the same in LDD but with much less brick count.

Hey, i kinda got into the contest myself and i have a problem. I need a lot of 2x2 tiles on the baseplates for my LDD-only creation (which take up like 800 bricks). I could change them to bigger ones like 1x8 or 2x4 (and lower the brick count by 300-400 and add more features), but if the MOC would be eventually be created in real bricks, it wouldn't look that good (because of the minor gaps between the tiles and the texture the gaps make). From the LDD point of view it doesn't matter which ones i use, because the gaps aren't visible. So my question is, can i make a "special" version (that will look exactly the same) for the LDD contest but will be in the 2500 brick count limit and later on after the contest just exchange the file with the original?

Hey, i accidently found this thread :) Btw, the LDD file is not totally complete, because there are no old big panels in LDD (that are used on the car). Also the picture of the "broken" parts is not from this truck. The 20 bevel gear was melted in another truck that i made (TTB-005) in a 90 degrees axle connection, which wasn't supported enough. The 16 gear is from this truck but not from the last version of it where the gears are sufficiently supported. The Axle is from the rear left wheel (i have no idea why only one of the axles was damaged. But there is some info on the internet, that some of the 5.5 axles are weaker then others (they are distinguishable by color). About the tan gears and u-joints. I was on an offroad competition and before that, i spend about a month playing with the car outdoors. No u-joints or 12g tan gears were harmed during it all :) The motor to wheel ratio is 3:1, which is right about there for a nice speed / performance ratio. There is not that much torque on the joints & tan gears because the main reduction comes after them in the wheel hubs (thanks for that idea, zblj). We also had rope pulling on asphalt! The cars weren't moving at all, wheels weren't turning because of the grip so the motors were stalled. And nothing broke either.

Ok, i checked out "Technicopedia". Very nice website with lots of info. But i'm sorry, i couldn't find ANY disclaimer where it said "You are not permited to copy the images". Not that anyone reads them anyways. If i take my wallet, camera and notebook and leave them somewhere in town, i pretty much doubt, they will be there the next day. It's the same with internet. Once you put something on, it's public. The only thing you can do is watermark your pictures (which is a simple batch process). I know you put a lot of work into Technicopedia. So like Enilder already said, watermark the pictures and i guess u'll sleep better. (and this is not flaming, just advice, because i see reasonable replies in your posts) Well, i can try contacting him and tell him to credit you guys in the descriptions. Will that calm everyone down?

He just put the 8043 on his BS account and wrote "on wishlist"... How can he put something with a pic on wishlist if he doesn't have it yet to make his own photos? I'm not defending him, but geez... it's just a pic of a Lego set, it's not the blueprints for a Nasa Space Shuttle and he didn't even tried to claim it as his own.

:) yea, but it's by far from the final version. I don't like it, so i didn't make a "physical" version yet.

Great, thank you

Hehe, waiting for the black "clown" hair from the second minifig series. "The Hoff" had such hair back then in Knight Rider.

Hey there, this is my first published MOC, so please be gentle :) Well, here it goes, it's the Trailer truck from the 80's series Knight Rider. I designed it entirely in LDD, then bought the missing parts and "materialized" it. The trailer features a mechanism to lower the legs when it's not connected to the truck. Inside there's some space for K.I.T.T. which will be build sometime in the near future. The logo isn't really the best, but i just couldn't make a better one. The whole truck is a mix of normal building and SNOT technique. Truck only Trailer opened and viewed from top Trailer legs mechanism How the mechanism works Lowered ramp LDD file (full hierarchical grouping for better inside view) http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bpavsic/KR/kr.lxf Some more images: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=430506 edit: some grammar

@mr. lego_bildur Well, the thing about the new bricks is that TLG removed them for some reason and i don't want to come against them just for these couple of bricks. It's not worth the time spent or consequences to do that... About the mod. I'm not really sure if i should continue, since all i can do is create a palette with the same bricks that are in LU mode. The only difference is that my palette could have only available colors for each brick. But that requires quite some work. So in short, for now the mod is "frozen". If i find something really really really useful with it, i'll continue, but LU mode is basicly all that i wanted to firstplace.

@SpiderSpaceman Those bricks are no longer in the db.lif file. Even if i'd make a new palette, those items (15 of them) wouldn't be there anymore. They include a pig, siringe, ray gun, 5 different minifig headgears, trumpet, a 3x4 tile with 4 studs in the middle in a line etc... It's the bricks i was talking about in one of my previous posts. Instead of those, there are some new items in there, for instance 2 train bases (short and long one), 2 panels, 2 tires, 2x2 modified plate with 1 stud in the middle, etc... There's nothing to do... Actually there is, i could import the missing definitions from the old db.lif into the new one, but that would mean everyone would have to replace their db.lif, rebuilding the db.lif with every update and so on and in the end TLG wouldn't like it either. So those couple of items are replaced with some others. I wouldn't bother with that too much as it's not worth to go through all the trouble just to get a couple bricks more (from 1799 to 1814). Items that weren't in the old db.lif (before the april patch): Btw, for those that don't like the LU coloring mode... I'm usually designing in Creator mode and if i'm missing an item, i just switch (View/New Themes menu) to LU mode, pull out the bricks and switch back to Creator mode.

@NecroViolator You are probably comparing my mod BEFORE the april patch and the LU mode AFTER the patch. My file still works, but it's basicly useless now... The data for the bricks is stored in db.lif. The updated file has some parts (around 13) deleted and new ones added. You can't get the old ones with the new db.lif either in LU mode or using my palette file. @Aanchir The decorations are defined as images... again in the db.lif file. The graphic files that contain the bricks, contain the info where a texture can be added (the UV coordinates for the vertices). Not all of them contain this info. So the triangles where the decorations can be put on are already defined when the brick was designed. Which brings us to the example of a 1x1 brick, which can have a decoration only on one of the four sides (if you understand what i wrote here - from the 3D graphics view - then you'll understand why that's like that). About the minifig front and back deco. From my understanding LU mode doesn't use any palettes, but works plain on the brick definitions found in db.lif. Before the different heads were defined in the palette files (brick number, color, decoration etc..) so the right front and back was defined there. In LU mode you got free access to all the bricks but that brings us to the point where LDD doesn't know in what color each brick in reality exists. All that was defined in a palette before. This is the main reason why the multicolor stuff (PF, NXT etc... parts) have to be colored by hand and all colors are available to all bricks. The error in textures (like pizza) is because these UV coordinates are set wrong (which means the 3D vertices are mapped to wrong XY coordinates of the texture). Same thing is with the road baseplates. The pizza error requires recalculation of the UV coordinates on the brick, but the road baseplate could be fixed in 2 ways, rotating the texture image or recalculating the baseplate vertex UV coordinates. Regards, Bojan p.s.: Some stuff in this reply is assumed from my knowledge that i got from decoding the *.lif files and common knowledge about 3D graphics so it might not be 100% correct, but i think it's pretty close :D

It worked with the old version and it works with the new one. No internet needed.

Well, you can still do that Just change the color of the bricks before selecting them... It takes just a click longer, but the option exists :)

Yea, i totally agree with superkalle. Right now i'm working on a Trial Truck and i made a live axle design in LDD. After that i made it from real bricks, noticed some structural "failures", repaired that in LDD and real bricks again. Rock solid now. If i'd be doing that only with bricks, it would take me ages to get everything fit together and i'd be putting stuff together and apart all the time. LDD is easy to start with and once you "master" it, it's really really really helpful. It has it's flaws, but when you're using it on daily basis, you find out how to get around most of those flaws.

Wow, took me like 10 mins just to read through the posts that gathered over the night. @Scorpion Don't worry, i had fun checking out the lif files and making the first mod. And if it actually helped superkalle to convince TLG to open up the LU mode, there was no second wasted. @wmanidi & mr. lego_bildur You can actually change the color of the bricks on the palette from red to any other color, but they'll all be the same color. It's done with the button Color Palette just above the bricks. @alienwar9 Use the menu option View / New Themes About pieces in my mod that aren't in LU mode. I think the pieces are the same. Why? Because there is no palette for LU mode, which means the piece list is nowhere stored. All the items are in 1 color... These facts bring me to the conclusion that LU mode just uses every possible brick in db.lif and the colors are unlocked because no list of valid colors exists (which was controlled by the palette files in other modes). Regards, Bojan

Superkalle, u're the best :D And please forward the thanks to the LDD development team. I'm really happy if my work had anything to do for this to come out.

Working on the new file. The problem is that LDD keeps updating the new palette... It's there on the first run, but when i restart the program, it replaces it. I'll keep it posted.

Let's not think about that and stay positive, you know that one right: where is the will, there is a way

As am I. Sadly still no update from Lego.

I'm guessing the axle through the liftarm and motor ain't going fully through, right? If you check the image closely, the liftarm and motor isn't alligned as it should be. Try taking it off, realigning the pins in the motor and then back on, no turning around with the hinge tool. The axle should go right in.

@Petero The category for a part is stored in the db.lif file. Which means modifying the parts category -> modifying db.lif, which i don't want to do. The other thing i found out about palettes. If you make a new palette like MyBricks.lif and add it to the preferences.ini (the LDD settings file), it will get deleted. Why? Because at start LDD checks the palettes.lif in the LDD Program files folder and if the palettes that are stored in this file don't match with the contents of the Palettes folder in the User section, they will get overwritten etc... When i disabled internet, deleted the Palettes.lif and added a custom palette in my user section & preferences.ini, it worked. I didn't try to add it to the palettes.lif, but i think if i want to add a new custom user palette, i have to add it to the Palettes.lif in the program files and hope it wont get updated by LDD at start. For the search by part number. I wont modify LDD because that means disassembling the software. All i can do is to make a software that has the lookup so basicly you search by part number and it says in which category it is and if i check the order in which items are displayed in LDD, i could show a couple of parts that are before and after this one.