Universe mode in Lego Digital Designer

There are many people out there who build from virtual bricks. The feeling is different but it has some pros: you never run out of bricks and spend less time searching for that brick too.

If you would like to design your model on a computer you can choose from several programs. Nevertheless, the alpha and omega is Lego Digital Designer (LDD), the official free designer tootl from the Lego Group. It has many advantages but its biggest limitation was that the available bricks and colors were very limited. Not any more.

Many LDD fans were already suspicious that LDD knows many more bricks and colors than available in one of the DesignByMe, Mindstorsm or Creator modes. Now with Lego's blessings the activation instructions has been published.

The new mode is called Universe Mode. The image below shows the bricks available before and after. The new mode does not show separate colors because there are so many bricks:

Detailed instructions are available here. It disallows me explicitly to include it here but it's all very easy, just a one line change in a config file. (Source: Eurobricks.)

Technic fans have started building immediately - this is an offroad car from parts never seen before in LDD:

| Image: zblj | album | Source: TechnicBRICKs |

Creations built in Universe mode cannot be ordered in the online shop of Lego but I hope that is not an issue for anyone. One excuse less why not start building right away!

Build your own Mustang!

I wrote about the mini Ford Mustang on the blog several times. The video is on YouTube and it is one of the most popular videos. Many commenters demand that I provide building instructions so that they can have their own.

Since I am not an LDraw pro, I could not do something as beautiful as _lichtblau_ does. You will need Lego Digital Designer (LDD), but you will have a way to build it.

1. If you did not so far, go to the LDD website and install Lego Digital Designert.
2. Download one of the Mustang models (or click a picture below) and open it in LDD.

Once this is done, you can use LDD to pimp the car as you like it: new colors, roof, spoilers, anything.

When ready, you can do the following:

• In "View / Building guide mode" you can create your own building instructions and click it through. If we have all the bricks then this is it, you are ready.
• In "View / Check Price" you can check how much it costs to order all bricks from the Lego company..
• In "View / Send model to LEGO.com" you can upload it to Lego.com (and make it viewable by anyone) and also buy it. You can design your own box, instructions, I do not go into details now.

If you compare the LDD model to the original red Mustang you will find some differences:

• LDD does not have all the bricks in all colors. Because of this neither of the downloadable LDD models are red. If you are brave enough you can try to order the bricks in all your favorite color from Bricklink.
• The hood of the car on the video is made of this part. Unfortunately LDD does not have this at all. If you would like to have this hood you can order one on Bricklink.

I have put a couple of new images here and these are the old ones from the red Mustang.

Lichtblau Cobra in the cyberspace

We already mentioned the Cobra from _lichtblau_ on the blog and since he also did wonderful building instructions, everyone can build his own. As long as he has enough orange and light blue bricks :) I think an average Lego builder usually does not have, even in other colors. So I thought I improve the situation a bit.

Voila, the virtual Cobra, built in Lego Digital Designer:

http://depot.bricksngears.com/ldd/Lichtblau_Cobra.lxf

It is not exactly like the original (wheels, body lines, etc.). But it can be loaded into LDD with a click and ordered immediately (approx. $37.47 in the US, EUR 28.14 in Germany). It has 137 pieces. Or you can pimp it on your computer :)

I plan to upload other LDD models too.

SR 3D Builder improvements

Sergio Reano has added new features to his  SR 3D Builder CAD program (see our earlier coverage). Version 0.4.58 is able to model complicated linked hinges as the video shows.

The program for Windows can be downloaded freely from the homepage of the author:
http://staff.polito.it/sergio.reano/

Lead Sled reverse engineer

I am a big fan of miniscale cars like the ones built by Mad Physicist or the Arvo brothers. The challenge is entirely different compared to building large cars: instead of simply putting bricks on top of each other they require a lot of attention to the details to put everything in place. A special piece or a tricky solution has great impact to the model but it may need a lot of experimentation.

I considered building a replica for myself several times, for example one of the cars made by the Mad Physicist or the Porsche from the Arvos. Our friend the reverse engineer who helps to build the whole thing by looking at the end result only. From Lego bricks, of course.

So far I never got past a couple of thought experiments because apart from obvious details I had no clue how to continue building. But now I have decided to go on with the matter. Mad Physicist has built his '51 Mercury Lead Sled. On one hand looks very desirable, on the other hand it has several detailed photos so that I can have some hope. On top of this Ralph is very helpful and did not object and even gave some clues when I had questions about the details.

I started with Lego Digital Designer. Some bricks are unavailable and even more so some colors, but at least I have infinite supplies. Compared to other virtual building tools it is an important advantage that it models the physics of the bricks and does not let me build stupid things. This is how far I got (click on the album):

The colors are not quite right and some other details like the wheels are different too. But it looks promising. I am truly uncertain about some invisible areas but the external feels right.

When I am done with all details the next step will be Bricklink in the New Year.

Fresh version of Lego Digital Designer

Virtual builders have probably noticed that a new version of Lego Digital Designer available, which is the free builder application from the Lego company (see our previous post).

Version 3.0 brought these improvements:

• There is a new user interface. Instead of the grid we are now building on a transparent baseplate and there are other small changes.
• Round bricks can now built in between four other studs.
• The hinge tool got a bit more usable and there is the new hinge align tool.
• Bricks can now be organized into groups and templates.
• The building guide mode is completely new and more usable.

The main advantage of the program is still the same: you run out of virtual bricks much later than from real ones... Happy building!

Mustang project

Although I am a Technic fan, these days I run into many realistic models. I like cars and aircraft most especially if they are not too large like the mini-Technic models from the Arvos or the cars from the Ralph.

I got so enthusiastic that I started thinking about how I could build something like that. First I considered replicating the excellent Porsche from the Arvo brothers. I did not drop the idea completely but so far it seems to exceed my capabilities. It would take a lot of time to find out how the invisible parts are done and it would take many special bricks like the windscreen ($26 used) or the a rear windows ($15 new), making it expensive.

Building small models leads to different challenges than large ones where the scale gives you much more freedom. With small ones one has to brainstorm about putting each brick to its place, considering different alternatives in many cases. It needs special pieces in unusual colors to return the characteristic features of the original. I have no clue about how pros do it but it seems impossible that they have all the bricks on their shelves in advance in the desired colors (it is worth to take a look at the color chart).

Finally, I have made up my mind. I have decided to try a Ford Mustang convertible (the current one, not the old one). Decisions so far:

• I have many bricks (ask my wife) but not enough. The car will be built solely from newly bought bricks not to limit building. I am also curious how much it will cost. Also, I would like to keep it in one piece forever.
• This makes designing a bit difficult. I have built prototypes for certain parts from the bricks I have but the final car is modeled in LDD because I do not know LDraw very well. LDD also makes some sanity checks like checking if all the bricks are connected.
• The car will be 6 studs wide. This is small but it allows me to use some special parts like the mudguards.

This is where planning is at the moment. There will be some parts that will look different and I will use other colors too. But the basic shape can be seen.



It seems like $40 will cover the financial side. Ordering was a bit complicated because there are some part I could find only at one merchant, so I had to order from 4 different shops to cover everything.

So far so good. When it is ready it will go to brickshelf and of course I will tell you about it on the blog too!

Lego Digital Designer

We already discussed how one can play Lego with a computer instead of real bricks. We mentioned LDraw and SR 3D Builder. Let's go back to the alpha an omega of virtual building now: Lego Digital Designer (LDD).

The most important difference is that LDD is Lego's own official product available for free from ldd.lego.com. Unlike the other apps mentioned LDD is not open source. This is a drawback because there is no way to hack it and insert new bricks for example. This is also a plus because hacking is not required - you just need to download and install it. Another plus is that it is well integrated with other services from Lego. What you build can be uploaded into a public gallery and even bought as real bricks (depending on your country).

Key features:

• You get a photorealistic view while building.
• LDD models the physics of elements. You can put bricks only where they fit. They can be rotated or selected based on connections. It does not model rotating gears, though.
  
• The ready model can be rotated or viewed between different backgrounds. Since this is built into the app it is convenient, but our images will not be as nice as with the LDraw - Pov-Ray duo.
  
• After a click and some thinking it presents you with building instructions too. Handy if you are about to order physical bricks.
  

I am sure free software believers will not like me but I think LDD is more intuitive and easier to use than say LDraw. If you would like to try virtual building for the first time I recommend LDD.

After starting it you have to choose whether to build from Factory, Mindstorms or Creator bricks. Building from the Factory bricks allows you to order your creation online from real bricks. If you made up your mind, you can choose from half-ready models, starting from scratch or from your own earlier models.

On the left hand side you can choose the bricks - not all of them are available in all colors, this limits building a little bit. Technic elements are very rare, the selection support City-style building most (in case of the Factory bricks).

You can place new bricks with the mouse and rotate them with the arrows. The program helps you to attach new bricks to existing ones. In the Tool Box there are the following tools available:

• Select. Selected bricks can be rotated and moved the same way as new ones. You can select single bricks, bricks within a rectangle, connected bricks etc.
  
• Clone. You can copy without limits.
  
• Hinge. You can rotate parts like propeller, arms and legs of minifigs, etc.
• Paint. If the selected part is available in other colors, you can re-color it.
  
• Delete.
• Screen shot.
  

With a little bit of practice you can easily get this far:

Once this is done you can go to view mode, rotate it and make pictures:

In Building Guide Mode it even creates building instructions that can be saved as HTML:

When done you can upload your model to factory.lego.com (after registration). You can even order your own or others' sets - it is not more expensive than a factory set with the same number of bricks.

Some experience:

• LDD does not let you build if the bricks do not fit. There are some borderline cases though that fit in reality but not according to LDD.
• With larger models it happens sometimes that small errors accumulate and some bricks do not fit unexpectedly. For example I have managed to save a design that LDD could not load the next time because of this.
• Bricks available in the Factory change a little bit over time. It is possible that you could order a set yesterday but not today.
• Create building instructions may take minutes if the model is large.
• A "Mirror building mode" would be very useful - SR 3D Builder is better here.
  

As usual we have more pics in the album. Have fun!

SR 3D Builder

If you like to deal with bricks on your computer, you must know LDraw. There is another less known but very interesting builder: SR 3D Builder was covered by TechnicBRICKs this week. It is also free and the result of several years of work of Sergio Reano.


And what is it capable of? The incomplete list:

• support for popular file formats like .dat, .ldr and .mpd (incomplete)
• it knows about connected bricks, it is possible to select and move them
• it recognizes rotation axles and models the rotation of connected gears
• support for mirror building in the case of symmetric models

Five things you may not know about LDraw

As a kid my dream was to have so many bricks that I never run out of them during building. As time has passed I have realized that this is never going to happen. But there is a small hope - you always have enough when building from virtual bricks.

This post promotes LDraw. This is a free program that can be used just like some serious piece of 3D CAD software - to build models from Lego bricks. For example like that:


Matt Wagner, a famous Lego builder had a guest editorial on the Brothers Brick blog titled Five things you may not know about LDraw . It is worth reading, I think it is a great intro to LDraw.
Besides LDView you can also learn how to make raytraced images using Koyan's tutorial on how to render LDraw images with POV-Ray.



Now, if you happen to browse Brickshelf and find some .LDR files - you should know what it is!

(As a sidenote, Lego has their own official building program: Lego Digital Designer. I'll write about it another time.)