[KEY TOPIC] LDD feature requests

[RubeusHagrid]

EVERYONE: Fill in this.

[legolijntje]

EVERYONE: Fill in this.

I clicked the link, and I get a message "your response has been submitted". I think you got the wrong link

Edited March 13, 2011 by legolijntje

[RubeusHagrid]

I clicked the link, and I get a message "your response has been submitted". I think you got the wrong link

Well anyway: It's 'Tell Us what you think' on the right hand sidebar of LDD

[Lalror]

Here is a big list that I made from what I hear other people saying, and what I want to see in the future of LDD. I am hoping that if we make a nice list that a bunch of people agree on and vote for the really mandatory features, that we could send it to Lego and possibly have our opinions heard. Anyway, here it is.

Feature List:

Better UI

User made collections of bricks, as seen in Lego Universe

Better color pallets, organized by new/old etc

More export options to other 3D programs

More decals, all shirt designs etc

Free movement of pieces, not limited to the Lego studs

Gravity simulator, for dropping coins into boxes etc

Able to rotate multiple pieces along the same vertex at the same time

Terrain mode, for making realistic looking ground

The ability to organize your templates into groups, minifigs, animals, etc

More shortcuts for tools, color picker tool etc

Better rendering in view mode

The ability to create a minifig that you can use to walk around and explore your creations with

Behaviors, as seen in Lego Universe

[Superkalle]

Here is a big list that I made from what I hear other people saying, and what I want to see in the future of LDD. I am hoping that if we make a nice list that a bunch of people agree on and vote for the really mandatory features, that we could send it to Lego and possibly have our opinions heard. Anyway, here it is.

Feature List:

Better UI

User made collections of bricks, as seen in Lego Universe

Better color pallets, organized by new/old etc

More export options to other 3D programs

More decals, all shirt designs etc

Free movement of pieces, not limited to the Lego studs

Gravity simulator, for dropping coins into boxes etc

Able to rotate multiple pieces along the same vertex at the same time

Terrain mode, for making realistic looking ground

The ability to organize your templates into groups, minifigs, animals, etc

More shortcuts for tools, color picker tool etc

Better rendering in view mode

The ability to create a minifig that you can use to walk around and explore your creations with

Behaviors, as seen in Lego Universe

Good ideas there Lalror. About them can you explain some more about the following three, which I'm not sure I understand:

1) Better UI.

2) User made collections of bricks, as seen in Lego Universe.

3) Able to rotate multiple pieces along the same vertex at the same time.

[Lalror]

The user interface seems slow to get around, and takes a lot of clicking to get the tool that I want compared to other programs. It would be nice, if I could view all of my tools at once without all those drop-down menu's. This could also be fixed by simply adding shortcuts to all the tools which would probably work for most people, but it would be nice (I am not completely sure how) to make the UI easier, and faster, to use.

LDD already has its own special groups making it easier to find the pieces that you are looking for. These groups hold specific pieces such as slopes, minifig parts, minifig tools, etc. One of the nice features that is incorporated into Lego Universe (the game not the mode) is that I can create my own collections of pieces. This allows me to create groups for what I need most. In the LU beta, I made groups titled castles, ships, and space, that included the pieces that I needed to build in those areas. I think this would be a simple way to decrease the time that it takes to find a piece, and I really hope to see this in a future version.

As you can see bellow, I have both of the clip pieces attached to the same piece, along the same line/vertex. I would like to, after selecting both of these, to be able to then click the hinge tool and rotate them both at the same time. This would save me the time of having to see the angle that the other piece is turned to, and then type that in the other angle box, and would ultimately make everything easier!

[prateek]

As you can see bellow, I have both of the clip pieces attached to the same piece, along the same line/vertex. I would like to, after selecting both of these, to be able to then click the hinge tool and rotate them both at the same time. This would save me the time of having to see the angle that the other piece is turned to, and then type that in the other angle box, and would ultimately make everything easier!

Doesn't the group function work like that?

[Lalror]

Doesn't the group function work like that?

I just tried that a few minutes ago and couldn't get anything to work.

[SpiderSpaceman]

assign bricks to light up, have more lighting options, turn off lights for glow in the dark mode

especially if they were to have a walk through view, it'd be good to put some torch effects, tube lights.

Doesn't the group function work like that?

not with hinges. I often have to cheat connections and then I find myself wishing I could spin an area around as the hinge, but you'll always run into that floating part, or leave it behind. same principle here.

Edited March 18, 2011 by SpiderSpaceman

[Lalror]

Those effects are a good idea. In my opinion they should probably be included with some other features in the view mode which would then make nicer renderings. I have always wanted to make torches and things, so that would be really fun if they decided to add these features. A while back they had some pieces that would release smoke for the trains, but I haven't seen that in LDD 4.0 so far.

[Trainee]

Just thought of this idea.

After importing or free building a model you could make LDD disassemble that model and layout all the bricks used by using the items ID number so all the colours of the same brick are together, with just a click of a button.

With me atm I'm doing this by hand so I can see which bricks I already have, delete these and what's left I can import into LDD Manager to make the parts list of what I need.

[Dilvish]

Street or pedestrian view.

Multiplayer (as in 1-8 players at most) over a local network.

Edited March 28, 2011 by Dilvish

[Brickdoctor]

Street or pedestrian view.

I don't get why people want this. Just add a minifig and right-click his head.

[SpiderSpaceman]

I don't get why people want this. Just add a minifig and right-click his head.

Ok, but you gotta hide the fig's head to see, and you're right, that makes sense and I just never made the leap.

ALL THE SAME

It'd be good to have a number of manually planted camera/observer views you can just flip between like security cameras OR be able to walk through a model and see the interior in a way that just doesn't happen outside of "honey I shrunk the kids"

it would be a perk that makes the digital experience truly unique.

My opinion.

Edited March 29, 2011 by SpiderSpaceman

[Lalror]

Definitely need a positionable camera, and maybe a camera fly mode. Currently the navigation method for LDD isn't great, but isn't terrible either. 1st person view would be nice as a fig, or 3rd person view and you could actually control the fig. Either way, it anything could always be improved. Just wait and see!

~Lalror

[Brickdoctor]

It'd be good to have a number of manually planted camera/observer views you can just flip between like security cameras OR be able to walk through a model and see the interior in a way that just doesn't happen outside of "honey I shrunk the kids"

Oh, okay, I see what you mean. That would be nice to have.

[alienwar9]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned any of these, but it would be nice if the "view mode" changed to the higher quality render (or have the option to). That way we could easily see a pretty version of our model without crashing LDD (since the program doesn't have to run a lot of calculations in this mode), and then return to building (instead of having to restart the program, and pray it doesn't crash).

It would also be nice to have a realistic outline of bricks option. I noticed the major problem with the current outline is that with darker bricks, it decides to make the outlines with a light color, making them stand out much more than in real life. But with outlines turned off, everything looks too smooth. Just making the outlines all dark would be a simple first step.

Also, it would be fantastic to be able to turn the outline feature on without turning on the high-quality render features. I gain so much in terms of visual clarity on my models with it turned on, but I just can't run the larger models with high-quality rendering. I'm sure this is a problem for "normal sized " models for many people too.

[Lalror]

I am working on what is basically a compilation of feature request. The rendering is already on there, and in my opinion, its a good idea. I also agree with you about the edge lines, sometimes they look too big, or to small, or are not the right color.

Edited March 30, 2011 by Superkalle

[The Mugbearer]

Hello!

The only things that I wanted to add for now is these two parts:

1)

2) HF 1.0 torso.

That's all.

Maybe I had any more suggestions, but I forgot.

[___]

What I really need in LDD right now is DIRECT EXPORT TO .OBJ FORMAT pleaaaaaseeeeeeee, because exporting to .ldr, then loading to LeoCAD and exporting back to .obj introducing some real problems of missing parts (!!!)...ah :(

And editing/adding those missing parts directly in LeoCAD before exporting to .obj is not solution at all: I will probably never understand why these sw except LDD do not have such highly expected function thing like AUTOMATIC BRICK SNAPING? Gee, and ppl are wondering why so many choose LDD instead of LDraw...well, now you know and it does not help that LDraw have probably the best db of LEGO bricks and has much more editing options than LDD because it really lacks that one essential feature above: like in real LEGO most people want to open it up, select bricks and start building, not thinking 2 hours in nerves about why and how do I need to aligning every single brick by hand like in some laboratory and still not have expected result, most of them grab LDD just for this reason alone, sorry for that but I had to say it being completely frustrated with LDraw compared to LDD - result I make in LDD like to 10 minutes takes me in LDraw whole day and still not there simply because of that strange workflow...LDraw really is not for average people, and THEREFORE I PLEASE FOR THE DIRECT .OBJ EXPORT FROM LDD.

P.S.: sorry I did not want to sound rude but I needed to descript my frustration with LDraw (MLCAD) workflow cos if it would work like normally expected (if I move brick in some close distance it snaps pins to each other automaticly, that's it)... :(

P.S.2: reason is for importing into Blender3D, I did try technik using .lwo mentioning elsewhere here in the forum ( http://www.eurobrick...ic=35736&st=250 ) but compared to .obj results it was much worse and mainly much much complicated with unpleasant color/material result, to me .obj import is the best way but yes you have to edit materials manually, but that is normal I guess.

Edited May 5, 2014 by bublible