Life after LDD. What do you use? (MacOsX Catalina)

[NathanR]

@RoxYourBlox That's very interesting... So they have at least changed their stance and are open to the possibility of updating LDD.  

However, with Lego having just bought Bricklink, I'm not sure what that means for Stud.io. Will Stud.io become the official replacement of LDD? 

 

[RoxYourBlox]

3 hours ago, NathanR said:

@RoxYourBlox That's very interesting... So they have at least changed their stance and are open to the possibility of updating LDD.  

However, with Lego having just bought Bricklink, I'm not sure what that means for Stud.io. Will Stud.io become the official replacement of LDD? 

 

Given that Lego would not have acquired Bricklink with the purpose of dropping the AFOL designer program or pulling the plug on Stud.io while not updating LDD, I think it'd be reasonable to conclude that either Stud.io or LDD (but not both) will continue to be updated with Lego's standards for quality and ease of use.  Hopefully, this would mean better camera control in Stud.io or a new LDD to replace Stud.io.

[NathanR]

14 minutes ago, RoxYourBlox said:

Given that Lego would not have acquired Bricklink with the purpose of dropping the AFOL designer program or pulling the plug on Stud.io while not updating LDD, I think it'd be reasonable to conclude that either Stud.io or LDD (but not both) will continue to be updated with Lego's standards for quality and ease of use.  Hopefully, this would mean better camera control in Stud.io or a new LDD to replace Stud.io.

I agree. But since Lego have not updated LDD properly fo some 7 years, and they have just acquired Stud.io and bricklink, I suspect Stud.io will be viewed as the replacement of LDD. However, Stud.io (now Lego property?) is based on the fan-maintained (and currently independent) LDraw parts library. So I wonder what that means for the future of LDraw, will this also be taken over by Lego? There would need to be significant reworking of the software to use an alternative library of bricks, and huge compatibility problems if the .io format moved away from what is essentially the LDraw format.

[TheNerdyOne_]

Definitely betting on Stud.io being LDD's "replacement."  LEGO can finally make money off of their digital model builder, and doing that under the Bricklink name allows them to avoid confusing younger audiences by linking to a secondary market in an official LEGO program.

My bet is they'll end up re-working the software to use their official library.  I'm sure they've kept their LDD library updated despite not making those updates public, if only because the program is used in the development of models for things like their movies, video games, and promotions.  Even if they aren't able to program a converter, it really shouldn't be all that hard to complete the entire process manually.  I've already done it myself with most of the LDD parts Stud.io is missing, though it's obviously not the exact same process that LEGO would be using.

The biggest task, I think, is going to be optimizing Stud.io and making it a bit easier to use.  While it's a fantastic program, it is missing much of the polish that I'm sure LEGO is going to want.  It will be very interesting to see how this all develops, if they are able to make Stud.io easier to use it may be what finally convinces me to uninstall LDD.

[SylvainLS]

Quote

7. What about Studio and LEGO Digital Designer – what will happen with the two digital building experiences since they’re quite similar?

The LEGO Group is planning to support and evolve Studio and will review opportunities for both services following the closing of the deal.

https://www.bricklink.com/r3/announcement/lego_bl_faq.page

[Seasider]

Started to convert all my LDD into Stud.io files last week and I've also started my first Technic build from scratch using it.

The only issue i'm having so far is placing items on axles. If I have an axle going through a connector and then try to place something else on the axle (eg a 1/2 bush) it's not giving me a "snap" to have it flush against the already positioned part and it's allowing the parts to intersect too.

I guess I'm missing a trick here ?

The workaround I'm using is to remove the axle and use pins (inc axle pins) to position the items and then reposition the axle afterwards

 

[mfeldt]

I've played around with studio 2.0 recently, attempting to generate some instructions, but it still feels like alpha stage software. I'm running under wine on Linux, where LDD does an excellent job. Studio is dead slow, incredibly heavy on the CPU even if doing nothing, buttons that can be clicked but show no effect... unusable for anything productive.

[supertruper1988]

On 12/2/2019 at 6:25 AM, Seasider said:

Started to convert all my LDD into Stud.io files last week and I've also started my first Technic build from scratch using it.

The only issue i'm having so far is placing items on axles. If I have an axle going through a connector and then try to place something else on the axle (eg a 1/2 bush) it's not giving me a "snap" to have it flush against the already positioned part and it's allowing the parts to intersect too.

I guess I'm missing a trick here ?

The workaround I'm using is to remove the axle and use pins (inc axle pins) to position the items and then reposition the axle afterwards

 

I have found that there is a "snap" at the end of the axle so I will move it there and then set the grid step to be the medium and used the translation tool to move them into place. If you have multiple to do this way, I use helper bricks to copy with the technic parts and used the more workable brick based snaps for positioning.

Hopefully that makes sense. 

2 hours ago, mfeldt said:

I've played around with studio 2.0 recently, attempting to generate some instructions, but it still feels like alpha stage software. I'm running under wine on Linux, where LDD does an excellent job. Studio is dead slow, incredibly heavy on the CPU even if doing nothing, buttons that can be clicked but show no effect... unusable for anything productive.

I know that it will run the CPU and hog memory on my Mac and PC so your experience is not unique. I know that wine introduces its own CPU load on top of other. Have you tried LDCad? It takes a little getting used to but it has a lot of graet features similar to Studio. If I recall correctly, it is available natively for Linux.

[BennyT19]

On 11/28/2019 at 12:38 AM, RoxYourBlox said:

Given that Lego would not have acquired Bricklink with the purpose of dropping the AFOL designer program or pulling the plug on Stud.io while not updating LDD, I think it'd be reasonable to conclude that either Stud.io or LDD (but not both) will continue to be updated with Lego's standards for quality and ease of use.  Hopefully, this would mean better camera control in Stud.io or a new LDD to replace Stud.io.

I agree, no way TLG would pull the pin on Stud.io and hopefully TLG will polish up the edges of Stud.io and iron out some of the bugs.  Some snap placements and axles are painful but I have got used to most of the quirks and just when I think I can live with it I find another 

Edited January 27, 2020 by BennyT19

[RoxYourBlox]

Bricklink’s AMA:

“15. How will Studio continue under the LEGO Group? And what are the plans for Studio vs. LDD going forward?

The future looks great for digital building and we want to do more! Our vision is to make Studio the ultimate building tool for both professional designers and all entry-level builders. We are planning new features and upgrades to the Studio Desktop App to bring in an influx of new or existing MOCs that can be more easily fulfilled by BrickLink market. In this regard, The LEGO Group is planning to support and evolve Studio and will review opportunities for both services (Stud.io and LDD) as part of developing the business plan. Please stay tuned in the months to come!”

[thelegoaddict]

If you're running Catalina on your Mac, you can put High Sierra or another OS on an external drive and boot your Mac from the drive and then continue to use LDD.

[XAxles]

Meanwhile, I can barely even use Stud.io at all

"Studio+2.0.pkg can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software."

That's what it says whenever I try to install it.

[div4scpro]

okay, tried to install stud.io on my MAC and get the message Cannot open because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.

Crap, I'm not even a designer. I just want to be able to open .lxf files to build some MOC's and alternate kit builds.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks

[supertruper1988]

Open the security center and say "open anyways"

[Lexi2014]

Hi everyone,

After upgrading my Mac to Catalina OS, besides not being able to use LDD, I can't seem to download any .lxf file format any longer. The downloaded lxf file is forced to be zipped and outcome is a file with .lxfml extension. 

Any help?

Thanks

[SylvainLS]

I don’t know anything about Macs so I can’t help on that part but for the LXF:

LXF is actually a ZIP archive of two files, IMAGE100.LXFML (the model) and IMAGE100.PNG (a thumbnail), so what’s happening to you seems to be that your browser automatically unzips the LXF.
So you should look into your browser’s options to stop that.  (Look at file format (mime type) / application associations.)

Or, you can simply rezip the LXF: get a dummy image in PNG, be sure both files are named IMAGE100.PNG and IMAGE100.LXFML (in caps), zip them together in whatever.zip and rename the zip in whatever.lxf.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by SylvainLS
100, not 001 :D

[XAxles]

Bloody hell, this is almost impossible. There seems to be no way to open the .pkg for Stud.io on Catalina.

[jaegerroughton]

@XAxles can you sent me your lego worlds models please from ldd

[ultrabricker]

Studio 2.0 is cr*p, it's so slow and bugged that it can hardly be considered a serious LDD replacement.

Still way faster and more stable to run LDD in a Linux VM with Wine than Studio 2.0 natively on Windows or Mac!

I really hope the intrinsically better software LDD will be updated to 64 Bit. It wouldn't even demand additional features since it's perfect as it is.

Just needs to support the newer pieces.

Edited December 8, 2020 by ultrabricker

[thelegoaddict]

On 12/8/2020 at 1:40 PM, ultrabricker said:

Studio 2.0 is cr*p, it's so slow and bugged that it can hardly be considered a serious LDD replacement.

Still way faster and more stable to run LDD in a Linux VM with Wine than Studio 2.0 natively on Windows or Mac!

I really hope the intrinsically better software LDD will be updated to 64 Bit. It wouldn't even demand additional features since it's perfect as it is.

Just needs to support the newer pieces.

Let's hope this happens in 2021.

[M2m]

I did a test-install of macOS Big (Bug?) Sur on an external SSD to try out a view things.

So what I can confirm is that I got Window LDD running via https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover

Crossover is some Wine Fork I guess which you have to pay for. Kind of funny to have a Win32 Application running and that no mac32 application wrapper exists on macOS

I also could start LDD with https://github.com/Gcenx/homebrew-wine but I have no clue where the installation files went, and you have to be quite terminal aware to get it running. So Crossover seems to be more normal-user ready.

Update:

After some digging I found out that homebrew-wine uses the hidden USER_HOME/.wine directory and below there all of the Windows LDD files get installed. Still not straight forward to use and you need to be terminal-comfortable. But it's free and LDD works as far as I can tell.

Edited January 10, 2021 by M2m

[MY1]

I have a MAC which I always keep updated. I use mecabricks and I really like it. while some people dislike the fact that it is online I think thats the best part, plus u can import stuff from Ldraw and LDD. 

[M2m]

On 1/9/2021 at 6:43 AM, MY1 said:

I have a MAC which I always keep updated. I use mecabricks and I really like it. while some people dislike the fact that it is online I think thats the best part, plus u can import stuff from Ldraw and LDD. 

I find Mecabricks super impressive ! Specifically the quality of the render outputs. Building-wise I still prefer LDD, just because I'm so familiar with how snapping works and the whole UI.

[MY1]

 

On 1/9/2021 at 9:22 PM, M2m said:

Specifically the quality of the render outputs.

im still trying to figure out how to do animations and stuff but I at least can build stuff 

[bricknerd]

Been using LDD for more than 10 years on a Mac, but finally decided to switch over to Stud.io due to the lack of native 32bit support on Apple's recent OS versions.

Experience with Stud.io so far has been mixed; I do appreciate the up to date part lib and the custom parts designer, and the renderer is just great, but usability appears less intuitive. It simply takes me MUCH longer to build things.

Furthermore, the SW seems to be terribly resource hungry, at least on my 2016 MBP 3.1GHz i5: around 90% CPU load when active, with the fans running all the time, and draining the battery like hell (a stark contrast to LDD which would run smooth & fast at 10% max load while barely moving the batt needle).

Anybody know if upgrading to Apple's new M1-based hardware would help?

Thanks!

Edited March 26, 2022 by bricknerd