Custom LDD bricks and fixes

[Dtonavector]

Hi! 

I would like to know if it is possible to add more parts and decals from Ninjago in future updates. Also, there is a release date for the next update?

[Stephan]

Sorry, no update date yet. I hope to be able to give you guys an early Christmas present.

[legomanijak]

First of all many thanks to all the amazing people keeping the best Lego digital builder still alive!

Having updated the parts in the app I found out that switching to "Building guide mode" would crash the app in case some of the parts from the updates were used in the build. I haven't found any info about it in the topic so my question is: Is this happening to me because I messed up the update process somewhere? And if not, how could I go about fixing the Building guide mode?

Edit: Part 36840 is the one that causes the crash (there might be others too)

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by legomanijak

[Cyborg_Samurai]

On 1/8/2021 at 7:01 AM, M2m said:

These parts are now decoratable in my parts pack, but in LDD the part no are 50746 and 3298 (see the parts at the left border). I added reference to the 3070 flat tile deco (55071.png) and didn't create a new one for 50746 and for the  Roof Tile 2X3/25° is used the space logo which also was already there.

I apologize if this was already answered but is the parts right here available as an LDraw file? also I found some of those parts but they do not come in color such as for example killer croc's blue pants (found from here http://www.digital-bricks.de/en/index.php?site=lddp&mg=259)

I am trying to import parts for studio which will benefit everyone as I upload them to my shared folder

https://bricksafe.com/pages/Cyborg_Samurai/parts-not-in-studio-custom-parts

 

thanks

[bjwhitbeck]

Is it possible to up the quality (poly-count?) on part number 32019 (Tyre dia.62 40x20), which I believe is an original LDD part? The custom tire 70490 (49.5 x 14) you guys added looks so much better in comparison. Great work and much appreciated as always. v/r Brian.

[Equilibrium]

On 11/10/2022 at 1:39 AM, legomanijak said:

First of all many thanks to all the amazing people keeping the best Lego digital builder still alive!

Having updated the parts in the app I found out that switching to "Building guide mode" would crash the app in case some of the parts from the updates were used in the build. I haven't found any info about it in the topic so my question is: Is this happening to me because I messed up the update process somewhere? And if not, how could I go about fixing the Building guide mode?

Edit: Part 36840 is the one that causes the crash (there might be others too)

 

 

It's not your fault. Bricks without collisions will crash building guide mode. Since not fully completed pieces are allowed there might be a lot more of them. If you want to fix it "the fast way" just add 1 tiny collision inside a brick and it will work.

[Stephan]

I am working through the older parts without colissions. But they will be distributed across multiple updates. New parts will always have their colissions though. 

[mon-o-mat]

I do not know if this belongs here: But has anybody already found a way to render your models after using custom bricks?

[Cyberfounder]

40 minutes ago, mon-o-mat said:

I do not know if this belongs here: But has anybody already found a way to render your models after using custom bricks?

Well, they way I do it is, I load the LXF file with Studio (most of the bricks stay in place, but some bricks like 36840 and its friends like to misbehave and go a little crazy, so you have to manually fix them).
But other then that studio can render most files made in LDD. 

[legomanijak]

On 11/19/2022 at 9:38 PM, Equilibrium said:

 

It's not your fault. Bricks without collisions will crash building guide mode. Since not fully completed pieces are allowed there might be a lot more of them. If you want to fix it "the fast way" just add 1 tiny collision inside a brick and it will work.

Yup, that appears to be the issue, thanks! 

I've added a <Box> element within the <Collision> (setting all attribute values to 0) to a couple of bricks and one time it worked, the other not. Is there perhaps some documentation or at least a thread where the sX, sY, sZ, angle, ax, ay, az, tx, ty, tz attributes for the <Box> element are explained (I'd like to understand the purpose of the values assigned to them)? How do I know how many collision boxes to add?

My apologies if this is not the correct thread for these questions.

Edited November 22, 2022 by legomanijak

[BrokenEye]

6 hours ago, Cyberfounder said:

Well, they way I do it is, I load the LXF file with Studio (most of the bricks stay in place, but some bricks like 36840 and its friends like to misbehave and go a little crazy, so you have to manually fix them).
But other then that studio can render most files made in LDD. 

The texturing systems are totally incompatible, though, so the decorations all have to be completely redone.

[jester]

Hey guys!

while a have a little pause, I got an idea 

if you are interested in custom LEGO parts ( marvel dc games ) you can pm me to discuss adding it 

[Funnysh]

Just now, jester said:

Hey guys!

while a have a little pause, I got an idea 

if you are interested in custom LEGO parts ( marvel dc games ) you can pm me to discuss adding it 

I am already add some parts from ttgames

[Equilibrium]

@legomanijak Don't set them all to 0s :)

  <Collision>
    <Box sX="0.01" sY="0.01" sZ="0.01" angle="0" ax="1" ay="0" az="0" tx="0" ty="0" tz="0" />
  </Collision>

"S"s are collision scale and can't be 0 or below. You can leave it like above, this should be small enough. Angle + "A"s are angle coords leave them like this. "T"s are position coords - 0,0,0 will place collision at bricks default point. Depending on brick and its maker it will or will not collide with anything. For example technic beams default points is mostly at bottom/top in the middle of first pin hole - collision would collide with pins/axles. For plates it's mostly bottom in the middle of a stud so it should work. It depends. These are the only values you should adjust. Try to stay inside brick bounding box.

If you have enabled developer mode in LDD you can press V to show collisions. You can also try polymaker's LDD Brick Editor https://github.com/Polymaker/ldd-brick-editor

 

On 11/21/2022 at 8:10 PM, mon-o-mat said:

I do not know if this belongs here: But has anybody already found a way to render your models after using custom bricks?

@M2m wrote python script for compiling unpacked files back into one lif file which allowed to use both blueprint for instructions and bluerender(bublible also) for rendering - check my avatar.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Equilibrium

[jester]

On 11/23/2022 at 12:22 PM, Funnysh said:

I am already add some parts from ttgames

I mean the whole minifigure: decorations parts 

[SNIPE]

Hi,

I would like to request the lego pen bead parts, as they is nothing like them in normal lego parts, so they could be useful in digital MOCS.

I made one in ldraw but may have lost it, and the ldraw community are too busy making more important parts it seems.

Here is a link so them: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=G&amp;catString=464

 I can provide more information on their geometry if needed, I do know that jangbricks has showed them in his stationary mocs and parts hauls, so they are definetley compatable with normal lego studs and clutches.

The ones I would like to see most is BEAD001, BEAD002, BEAD003, BEAD004, BEAD005, BEAD006 and BEAD029

Edited November 25, 2022 by SNIPE

[suenkachun]

It’s been a while since I logged on here, but well done all on the recent progress made and please keep up the good work! I recently noticed an odd behaviour regarding two Decoration Sizes when creating more custom Decorations for my own LDD Projects. These did appear before but I chose to ignore them, perhaps now is the best time to see if they can be addressed.

The first Decoration Size is the Flat Tile 2×2, which was already decoratable officially back in the day. What I usually do is create a Square Decoration then scale up to 1024px times 1024px before output. A few months ago, I created the following Floor Tile Pattern for a Custom LEGO Restaurant Project in LDD (Preview is 400px times 400px but original image is 1024px times 1024px).

The Square Tile Pattern was designed to fit onto a White Flat Tile 2×2, and I also made three 1×1 Quarter versions and four 1×2 Half versions for any corner arrangements in the floor as shown below.

The screenshot clearly demonstrates that in the 2×2 version the black border is slightly thicker than those of the other seven versions. As shown below, if the other seven versions are combined to recreate the Square Tile Pattern the correct thin border can be maintained, but this does not match with the thick border of the Square 2×2 version (this is especially noticed when I combine the tiles on the floor of the Restaurant).

After further investigations, I was able to locate the source of the issue. Apparently, the Decoration Mapping of Flat Tile 2×2 has a slight border issue where elements too close to the border will be blurred and expanded. As demonstrated below, I applied the same custom Fire Alarm Panel Decoration to a Flat Tile 1×1 and a Flat Tile 2×2, the 2×2 version clearly does not stick to the edges with a darker unwanted border visible around the shape.

The issue also seems to affect existing old official LDD Decorations too as shown below. The Ship Painting does not touch the border of the Flat Tile so works fine, but the Treasure Map and the Ultra Agent Attack Screen both have more than one expanded and blurry bit around the edges, while the custom Speed Camera Road Sign Decoration on the right demonstrates how the perfect Bright Red Frame is now distorted by the border issue with extra lines sticking out on each side.

The second Decoration Size is the Flat Tile 2×4, only made decoratable via recent LDD updates if I remember correctly. What I usually do is create a 1:2 Rectangular Decoration then scale up to 512px times 1024px and rotate if necessary before output. Just like the Flat Tile 2×2 there also seems to be a border issue with its Decoration Mapping, which I noticed when trying to insert the following custom 2×8 Design but split into two halves (Previews are both 400px times 800px but original images here and here are both 512px times 1024px).

For this pair of designs, the outer Black Frame is distorted just like the previous Speed Camera Road Sign with extra lines sticking out on each side. In the middle, the two halves of the text now fail to join up correctly since certain bits are distorted. I even created a full version here (512px times 2048px) which directly equals the two halves combined together.

Hopefully, the issues with these two Decoration Sizes can be looked into and even solved eventually, but for now these slight imperfections will not affect any of my personal projects. After all, they are just merely tiny visual sores which can be ignored and fixed gradually. If anyone wants to test out the Floor Tile Decorations or the Railway Station Sign Decorations for themselves please download this ZIP Folder which contains the original PNG files of the ten Decorations plus the full 2×8 version of the Railway Station Sign. P.S., I tried decorating pairs of Wall Element 1×6×5 (Part 59349, hollow on one side) with custom Commercials and they worked perfectly with the two halves joining up completely, many thanks for making this Brick decoratable!

[ChevyFan440]

Suenkachun, I've found that leaving an empty single pixel-width border around a decoration will remedy the issue. It is also apparent on the standard minifig torso.

[suenkachun]

23 minutes ago, ChevyFan440 said:

Suenkachun, I've found that leaving an empty single pixel-width border around a decoration will remedy the issue. It is also apparent on the standard minifig torso.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried your method by scaling up a Square Decoration to 1022px times 1022px then placing it in the middle of a Transparent 1024px times 1024px Square before output, the blurry and expanded bits were indeed removed but the Decoration now no longer touches the sides of the Flat Tile with a clearly visible gap on all four sides. I guess this could work in certain cases, but most of my custom Decorations must touch the sides of the Brick beneath without the gap, so the real solution here is to possibly find a way to remap the two Decorations and eliminate the gaps on all sides properly instead of having to adjust the Decorations themselves (refer to the Fire Alarm Panel Example where the 1×1 has no gap on each side at all but the 2×2 does).

[legomanijak]

On 11/23/2022 at 6:19 PM, Equilibrium said:

@legomanijak Don't set them all to 0s :)

  <Collision>
    <Box sX="0.01" sY="0.01" sZ="0.01" angle="0" ax="1" ay="0" az="0" tx="0" ty="0" tz="0" />
  </Collision>

"S"s are collision scale and can't be 0 or below. You can leave it like above, this should be small enough. Angle + "A"s are angle coords leave them like this. "T"s are position coords - 0,0,0 will place collision at bricks default point. Depending on brick and its maker it will or will not collide with anything. For example technic beams default points is mostly at bottom/top in the middle of first pin hole - collision would collide with pins/axles. For plates it's mostly bottom in the middle of a stud so it should work. It depends. These are the only values you should adjust. Try to stay inside brick bounding box.

If you have enabled developer mode in LDD you can press V to show collisions. You can also try polymaker's LDD Brick Editor https://github.com/Polymaker/ldd-brick-editor

 

@M2m wrote python script for compiling unpacked files back into one lif file which allowed to use both blueprint for instructions and bluerender(bublible also) for rendering - check my avatar.

Thank you for such a detailed explanation. I finally managed to add some logically placed collision boxes. 

[suenkachun]

On 11/26/2022 at 4:19 AM, suenkachun said:

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried your method by scaling up a Square Decoration to 1022px times 1022px then placing it in the middle of a Transparent 1024px times 1024px Square before output, the blurry and expanded bits were indeed removed but the Decoration now no longer touches the sides of the Flat Tile with a clearly visible gap on all four sides. I guess this could work in certain cases, but most of my custom Decorations must touch the sides of the Brick beneath without the gap, so the real solution here is to possibly find a way to remap the two Decorations and eliminate the gaps on all sides properly instead of having to adjust the Decorations themselves (refer to the Fire Alarm Panel Example where the 1×1 has no gap on each side at all but the 2×2 does).

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read about the issue. I did some additional research and have dug up more information regarding the issues with Flat Tile 2×2 and Flat Tile 2×4.

The first thing I did was to look at existing official Printed Flat Tile 2×2 on the market, and this process soon revealed something important: many of the older existing Printed Flat Tile 2×2 are not printed till the edges of the Flat Tile, such as the Fire Logo shown below. I checked the existing LDD Flat Tile 2×2 Decorations and many such as the Wanted Poster (610655), Pizza Box (609712) and the Old Times Newspaper (604015) were all designed with a pre-existing gap around the Decoration even when using the old standard of 128px times 128px blurry Square, in which the gap is the now affected area. The Treasure Map and Ultra Agents Attack Screen were amongst only a handful of Flat Tile 2×2 Decorations to extend beyond the gap and even touch the edges of the Flat Tile.

Therefore, my theory from this is that the original Decoration Mapping of the Flat Tile 2×2 in LDD was mapped to include the gap by default, not considering that this may cause further issues with Decorations which occupy parts of the gaps. I also found another old topic from 2014 on here (included below), back when LDD was still officially supported and we were not allowed to publically post about cracking open any internal LDD files. The post detailed an alternative method to add custom or then not available official Decorations onto LDD Parts, notice how the Treasure Map in this attached screenshot was already slightly distorted on all four sides which is exactly the same as what I posted in the earlier post, further supporting the gap inclusion claim. For Flat Tile 2×4, I suspect that the same thing happened just like the Decoration Mapping of the Flat Tile 2×2 where the gap was included within the Decoration Mapping when this Brick was recently made decoratable.

Moving forward from this, what should be the next step? After doing further research, I do believe that it will definitely be beneficial if the Decoration Mapping of both Flat Tile 2×2 and Flat Tile 2×4 be updated to remove the gaps on all four sides. The first and most important reason is that existing LDD Decorations of the two Parts will no longer be distorted on all four sides, a side effect which was not intended at all, if gaps are required they can be added to each Decoration image individually. The second reason is that some newer designs now tend to touch all four sides of the Flat Tile, such as this Minecraft Tile, when these are added into LDD in the future edge distortion can be avoided completely. The third reason is just a personal desire to not see distorted Decorations in LDD, both official and custom designs, which can be demonstrated below.

In the above new example, I created a Square Decoration (preview is 400px times 400px but original version is 1024px times 1024px) for the Flat Tile 2×2 using the Paper Bag Texture found in Microsoft PowerPoint, which is essentially using a full photograph as the Decoration to achieve an extremely realistic effect. Unlike my previous examples where a frame is included around the Decoration and thus can be adjusted, the four edges of the photograph are now clearly distorted and leaving a gap will just not work in this case.

Hopefully, something can be done regarding updating the two Bricks without breaking any existing elements and connections. Flat Tile 2×2 can be updated by using Flat Tile 1×1 as a reference since this Decoration Mapping is currently working fully with no gaps present on any side, while Flat Tile 2×4 can be updated by using Flat Tile 8×16 as a reference for the same reasons as Flat Tile 1×1. Thanks to everyone in advance!

[Stephan]

@jester, is the above problem something we can fix in de UV map?

[BrokenEye]

On 11/23/2022 at 9:19 AM, Equilibrium said:

@legomanijak

@M2m wrote python script for compiling unpacked files back into one lif file which allowed to use both blueprint for instructions and bluerender(bublible also) for rendering - check my avatar.

Do you know where I can find that?

[jester]

On 11/27/2022 at 11:38 PM, Stephan said:

@jester, is the above problem something we can fix in de UV map?

It depends on the size of the image. If the drawing completely fills the UV map, then there will be such artifacts.

[suenkachun]

On 11/28/2022 at 4:38 AM, Stephan said:

@jester, is the above problem something we can fix in de UV map?

Two immediate thoughts came to mind: either the UV Maps of both Flat Tile 2×2 and Flat Tile 2×4 were originally designed to not fill the entire surface of the Flat Tile, or gaps were purposely included within the two UV Maps as fewer designs used to extend into the gaps.

For the first case, the two UV Maps need to be redesigned and reassigned to now fit the entire top surfaces of the two Flat Tiles, for the second case simply update the two UV Maps so that the gaps within are eliminated, afterwards the new standard should be manually adding gaps to each individual Decoration only when required. Flat Tile 1×1, Wall Element 1×6×5 (Part 59349) and Flat Tile 1×2 are all similar Bricks in terms of ratio where the UV Map can be filled completely without any issues, so these can be used as a reference when updating Flat Tile 2×2 and Flat Tile 2×4. Until this can be addressed, anyone contributing future official LEGO Decorations for Flat Tile 2×2 and Flat Tile 2×4 should keep in mind that the gaps may cause issues around the four edges if the design is more filled.