LDD Analysis Thread

[M2m]

Recently I created an couple of custom decals and while doing so I made some interesting discoveries in LDD.

Missing / Unused Decals of LDD 4.3.11

LDD 4.3.11 contains a couple of decals / decorations which are however not used or referenced in the DecorationMapping.xml file. This are 72 of the overall 1992 decorations:

601500.png
601501.png
601502.png
601503.png
601504.png
601506.png
601507.png
601508.png
601509.png
601510.png
601511.png
601512.png
601513.png
601514.png
602875.png
602876.png
603721.png
606301.png
606303.png
606304.png
606305.png
610479.png
610480.png
610481.png
610482.png
610970.png
610971.png
610972.png
610973.png
610974.png
610975.png
610976.png
610977.png
610978.png
610979.png
610980.png
611803.png
611804.png
611805.png
611806.png
611808.png
611811.png
616065.png
64352.png
64353.png
64354.png
64355.png
64356.png
64357.png
64358.png
64359.png
64360.png
64361.png
64362.png
64363.png
64364.png
64366.png
73157.png
84759.png
84760.png
84761.png
84762.png
84763.png
84764.png
84765.png
84766.png
84767.png
84770.png
94271.png
94272.png
94874.png
99594.png

There are also decorations for the faces for the Lego Friends Minifig heads but the Geometries do not have the relevant data to be able to be textured.

On the other hand DecorationMapping.xml also references some decals which are however not included in LDD 4.3.11. This are 45 of the 2086 mappings:

decoID	designID
601676	3070
601680	3070
601681	3070
601683	3070
601684	3070
601685	3070
601688	3070
601689	3070
601690	3070
601691	3070
601692	3070
601693	3070
601694	3070
601695	3070
601696	3070
601697	3070
601698	3070
601699	3070
601700	3070
601705	3070
601709	3070
601721	3070
601722	3070
601725	3070
601727	3070
601733	3070
601734	3070
601735	3070
601736	3070
601737	3070
601738	3070
601739	3070
601740	3070
601741	3070
601742	3070
601743	3070
601744	3070
601745	3070
601746	3070
625352	25114
625423	28716
625585	25113
626388	28716
626390	25740
95114	27059

Most missing decorations are for part 3070 'Flat Tile 1x1', but also for the Hammerhead Shark Hat, the 'normal' Shark Hat, part 25740 (which isn't included in LDD) and part 27059 (also not included, but this seems to be an Alias for part 90541 "STOCKING CAP", which interestingly has all necessary code to be decoratable in the primitive xml file as well as in the .g, g1 files).

Unrelated sidenote: DecorationsMapping.xml was introduced after LDD 4.0.2. The earliest version I found to include this files was LDD 4.1.7. Before the decal information was included in the Primitive xml for each part I guess.

DecorationMapping.xml is included in definitions.lif in earlier LDD versions (starting from LDD 2.0 up until LDD 4.0.2).

Edited December 22, 2020 by M2m

[M2m]

Some other tidbits:

• Text strings (c:\GIT\ldd_fan\DCL\Source\Render/OpenGLRender/OpenGLTexture.h) in LDD.exe of 4.3.12 indicate LEGO used GIT to manage the source of LDD, which is called ldd_fan and sometimes LDDFan inside the sources. I assume this is to distinguish between the LDD Version for public (LDDFan) and the internal LEGO LDD (maybe LDD pro ??). Additional fun fact: LEGO has corporate GitLab - https://gitlab.corp.lego.com
• There exists an <Author name="aaaaa"/> tag which is a subtag of the <Meta> tag. Before release the author information is usually removed, but it was forgotten in 1 part in one old LDD release. @polymaker Maybe you could add this tag to parts designer, so we can use this in custom parts.
• LDD 4.0.2 came with UnityWebPlayer.exe. This is the only version that had this included. Maybe they were working on a Webviewer ?
• The infamous LDD 4.3.12 Version comes with exactly the same Decorations as LDD 4.3.5. There are 434 decorations in both versions and they are the same. For comparison LDD 4.3.11 has 1992 different decorations. So someone really messed up with 4.3.12.
• DUPLO Parts are referenced since LDD 2.3 (Part: 23065, Ball 52mm), meaning that most likely LEGO internally has digital versions of most of their parts since a long time. Other DUPLO parts which are referenced are 71956 (DUPLO BRICKRUNNER, AXLE - which is part of an Assembly I guess), 95109 (LIPSTICK, CORE - also part of an Assembly I think) and 10888 (DUPLO TURN BRICK 2X2)

Edited December 22, 2020 by M2m

[SylvainLS]

1 hour ago, M2m said:

The infamous LDD 4.3.12 Version comes with exactly the same Decorations as LDD 4.3.5. There are 434 decorations in both versions and they are the same. For comparison LDD 4.3.11 has 1992 different decorations. So someone really messed up with 4.3.12.

Brick version 777 didn’t come with 4.3.5 too?

My guess: they just wanted to repackage LDD, used 4.3.5 as a base but didn’t care to check it wouldn’t update its bricks.

[M2m]

9 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

Brick version 777 didn’t come with 4.3.5 too?

My guess: they just wanted to repackage LDD, used 4.3.5 as a base but didn’t care to check it wouldn’t update its bricks.

LDD 4.3.5 has brick version 835

LDD 4.2.5 has brick version 604

So it must be some version between those 2. My guess is 4.3.0. But I don't have this file and I also couldn't find it on the internet. Not sure it was ever released publicly.

Edited December 22, 2020 by M2m

[SylvainLS]

I don’t know why they didn’t start with 4.3.11 :|

I’m about sure the third digit isn’t just linked to the brick version / release: there’ve been modifications to the programme in 4.3.10 (or 9? I’ve forgotten) so that flex parts don’t export anymore.  And there was the brick version 2248.1 for 4.3.10 that didn’t change the version.

[M2m]

Another interesting finding. The following 28 parts IDs are listed in DecorationsMapping.xml of LDD 4.3.11 but these parts are not part of LDD 4.3.11

11025
11027
11028
13733
13923
14396
18635
18849
19993
22878
25740
26160
27059
29066
29251
54704
54705
59218
59219
88686
93227
93566
94589
94590
94593
99141
99151
99257

Also for all of these parts, the decorations (.png) exist except for these 2:

25740
27059

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by M2m

[M2m]

And of those parts being decoratorble  and missing in LDD 4.3.11 the following are part of the Unity pack:

• 18849 "KC MINI HIP"
• 19993 "KC MINI UPPER PART" (a minifig torso - without arms)
• 22878 "KC MINI HEAD" (a minifig head with a whole in the top stud)
• 93227 "CHIEF BRILLIANT PLUMAGE 2" (For this only the xml is available but no geometry)

KC seem to be "Key Chain" parts by judging from the geometry of 18849:

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by M2m

[SylvainLS]

Food for thought:

In pure LDD, there are Friends legs (skirts).  Without hips.

Adding 16530 (Friends mermaid tail) as custom assembly adds 92448, the hips.  Hop!  Magic, lone skirt 20377 becomes assembly 20379 with the hips.  Indeed, the assembly file is in LDD but 92248 was missing.  But the other Friends legs don’t have the assembly files.  And there are other assembly files that reference 92448 but the legs are missing.  LDD….

[M2m]

On 12/25/2020 at 1:54 AM, SylvainLS said:

Food for thought:

In pure LDD, there are Friends legs (skirts).  Without hips.

Adding 16530 (Friends mermaid tail) as custom assembly adds 92448, the hips.  Hop!  Magic, lone skirt 20377 becomes assembly 20379 with the hips.  Indeed, the assembly file is in LDD but 92248 was missing.  But the other Friends legs don’t have the assembly files.  And there are other assembly files that reference 92448 but the legs are missing.  LDD….

I think you refer to 92248 not 92448  But yes. I guess LEGO decided to omit Friends parts on the last minute. As I just recently learned how to do UV texture mapping in Blender I may add relevant texture data to the friends heads, so the decorations like 96503.png (Female Friends Face) and 96577.png (Male Friends face) the come with LDD 4.3.11 maybe used.

[SylvainLS]

2 hours ago, M2m said:

I think you refer to 92248 not 92448  

I got it right 33% of the time 

[M2m]

Slightly related to LDD Analysis. I recently re-watched "The LEGO Movie" including its making of and I made a list of difference from stock LDD 4.3.11 to LDD "Hollywood Editon" (this is from where Adam Ryan - Modeling Artists shows how the Double-Decker couch is made):

• the Windows Title bar reveals the LDD Version to be named "LDD Hollywood Edition"
• the Menu Bar has an extra "Developer" entry
• there are 4 additional icons in the tool bar.
  • a second selection Icon
  • one icon seems to be for moving bricks (judging from the icon itself)
  • the next blueish icon seems just random lines painted
  • the icon at the most right is the same icon as the 'selection to group icon' (located in the groups tab in stock LDD). Maybe some kind of shortcut ?
• The standard selection Tool has one sub-option less - it seems the "Connection Selection Tool (V)" is missing (maybe its the second selection Icon in the main toolbar)
• at the far right there seems to be a send button. The send button used to be in earlier versions of public LDD, as part of LEGO Design byME I think. So I guess "LDD Hollywood Edition" was based on some earlier then 4.3.11 code. Does anybody know when the Send button was removed in stock LDD ?
• the version shown doesn't have a stud ground indicator, but instead an origin xyz indicator
• all the bricks in the brick palette bar are colored in grey and not in red in Extended mode
• Bottom Status bar which shows the number of bricks isn't there (but this is a preferences setting in stock LDD and I presume the same in LDD Hollywood)

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by M2m

[M2m]

Upon checking the "LEGO Batman Movie" Making-of they seem to have used a slightly updated "LDD Hollywood Edition" - but its still called like this in the Batman Movie (you can glimpse it from the screenshot below at the top)

Changes from "The LEGO Movie":

• The blue Icon seems to be some kind of a snowflake icon now
• The studs ground is back (but maybe this is a user configurable setting)
• Bottom Status bar showing the number of bricks used is back (but this is a preferences setting in stock LDD and I presume the same in LDD Hollywood)

Others:

• Parts in the palette seem to hover quite detailed information

• Color palette seems to be different to stock LDD

• Improved decoration tool (seems to be attached to the top of the screen) and not aligned to the brick you want to decorate

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by M2m

[SylvainLS]

• Note that the developer menu and the origin+axes are available in our poorman’s LDD if you activate developer mode (DeveloperMode=yes in preferences.ini).
• The extended tooltips are also in developer mode.
• The palette must be limited to the production palette.  They are not FOLs trying to recreate old models 
• “Snowflake” or “wireframe cube” icon?  Developer mode allows to see bounding boxes and zones (type 1, 2 or 3, or h, v, c, r, m, o, p, q, or k).  Maybe a button for that?
• Also, I don’t get your surprise on the parts colour: you can select the colour in Extended.  Or are you saying they show LDD being started and the default colour is LBG and not Red?
• It’s not obvious that the decoration tool is different from the one in Extended.  It just may be that the dialog is bigger and takes all the height (note that there’s no scrollbar).  Do you see the mouse pointer?
• Did you see there’s two select icons on the left?

[M2m]

And the clearest picture of LDD Hollywood Edition from Forza Horizon 4 - LEGO Speed Champions Behind the Scenes Part 3 which is from 2019 !

Findings:

• This shows that there is the "Connection Selection Tool (V)" is missing (maybe its the second selection Icon in the main toolbar) - this is similar and also in the versions shown since the "LEGO Movie".

• The LDD Desktop / Application Icon color seems to have changed from blue to light brown
• “Filter bricks by boxes” icon between the palette filter and parts zoom slider at the lower left has been removed in the "Speed champions version" of LDD Hollywood Edition

 

 

On 12/31/2020 at 6:46 PM, SylvainLS said:

• Note that the developer menu and the origin+axes are available in our poorman’s LDD if you activate developer mode (DeveloperMode=yes in preferences.ini).
• The extended tooltips are also in developer mode.
• The palette must be limited to the production palette.  They are not FOLs trying to recreate old models 
• “Snowflake” or “wireframe cube” icon?  Developer mode allows to see bounding boxes and zones (type 1, 2 or 3, or h, v, c, r, m, o, p, q, or k).  Maybe a button for that?
• Also, I don’t get your surprise on the parts colour: you can select the colour in Extended.  Or are you saying they show LDD being started and the default colour is LBG and not Red?
• It’s not obvious that the decoration tool is different from the one in Extended.  It just may be that the dialog is bigger and takes all the height (note that there’s no scrollbar).  Do you see the mouse pointer?
• Did you see there’s two select icons on the left?

Thanks for the feedback. Icon looks still like snowflake to me. Not really surprised about the color, just listing our differences to stock LDD (it looks to me they defaulted to grey). Indeed I missed the 2 select pointers - sharp eyes !

For me the Decoration tool looks different (better).  On my LDD on macOS at least the Decoration selection window has a maximum height (which is smaller then what would be available) and the scrollbar is also always present, even when not needed. See below from my macOS LDD 4.3.11 (plenty of unused room at the top and bottom + scrollbar):

Is this different on Windows ?

Edited January 1, 2021 by M2m

[SylvainLS]

The box can be smaller, but the scrollbar is always there, and it can’t be bigger:

I was just saying it may only be a size difference, not different workings.  Depends on what you put under “workings” 

And I’m not sure it’s better: having too many possibilities makes it harder to find the one you want.  On the other hand, having to scroll (and with a cache bug that makes it that if you stay too long on a page, the next pages show the same decors, and you need to start afresh, losing where you were when you reopen the dialog) isn’t ideal either.  And the decors are way too small! 

 

For the default colour, I think it’s hardcoded somewhere: 21 (Red) is also the colour that is shown in extended tooltips (whatever the colour the palette is in, whatever the .xml/.lxfml files say in db.lif).  In the picture below: default colour is LBG and the assembly file says 26 (Black) for the parts in the assembly, but the tooltip still says 21:

[M2m]

21 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

...

I was just saying it may only be a size difference, not different workings.  Depends on what you put under “workings” 

...

For the default colour, I think it’s hardcoded somewhere:

Yeah its different size, maybe not different working, but different And I think bigger size is an improvement.

Would you know where / how to change the default color of the Bricks palette ? I couldn't figure it out

[SylvainLS]

1 hour ago, M2m said:

Would you know where / how to change the default color of the Bricks palette ? I couldn't figure it out

Nope, always Red at startup.  And if you change it, go to normal LDD and back, it’s reverts to Red 

And did you notice there’s no “Filter bricks by boxes” icon between the palette filter and parts zoom slider on their Hollywood version?

[M2m]

16 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

And did you notice there’s no “Filter bricks by boxes” icon between the palette filter and parts zoom slider on their Hollywood version?

Wow. Another good catch. I did miss that. But this filter has only been removed in the "Speed Champions Version" of LDD Hollywood. The filter can still be seen in "The LEGO Movie Version" and in the "Batman Version". I think this is an interesting finding, because it means that TLG continued to develop and change LDD Hollywood at least until 2019.

[SylvainLS]

I never had any doubts TLG continues to update LDD.  It’s the poorman’s LDD that’s too much work for them.  They can’t just give away the pro version to everybody.

[CorvusA]

I honestly would pay 50-80€/$ for a PRO version. I dont need any exrta tool (Stud.io for those uses), I JUST WANT!! a modern LDD with all the pieces and upgraded graphics/performance... (And support for future updates as well). I dont see it so complicate and dont understand why LEGO doesnt want to give that to us, I consider myself a LEGO professional/artist and I need a good software. I wonder if we maybe started a massive petition...

[M2m]

I would be happy with a 64-bit update for macOS. Anyway I digged around LDD 4.3.11 a little more.

On macOS if you extract this file (and rename Assets.lif afterwards to for ex #Assets.lif), there are a couple of quite interesting files in the resulting Assets folder

/Applications/LEGO Digital Designer.app/Contents/Resources/Assets.lif 

On Windows 10 its:

C:\Program Files (x86)\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer\Assets.lif

One file of particular interest is (top macOS, bottom Win10):

 /Applications/LEGO\ Digital\ Designer.app/Contents/Resources/Assets/Scripts/EditMode/MenuLayout.xml

C:\Program Files (x86)\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer\Assets\Scripts\EditMode\MenuLayout.xml

This file basically controls the Entries in the Menu Bar (File  Edit  Toolbox  View  Help) when you are in the normal mode (called EditMode internally but accessible by View -> Build Mode ) in LDD. LDD internally distinguishes also to ViewMode (View -> View Mode) and I think BIAutomaticMode (View -> Building Guide Mode).

Anyway the file ..../EditMode/MenuLayout.xml has couple of interesting entries:

        <MenuItem text="Export BOM" key="Command B" command=".LDD.commands.editMode.exportBOM"/>  
        <Access>
          return base.GetBuildType()=="RELEASEQA"
          <MenuItem/>
          <MenuItem text="Save log" command=".LDD.commands.common.saveTraceLog"/>
        </Access>

You can enable a "Save log" entry if you remove the <Access>  return base.GetBuildType()=="RELEASEQA" line (and the closing </Access> tag). Then you can save a log file (which I couldn't have to contain any contents so far).

At the very bottom there is a conditional check to enable to Developer Mode Menu if developer Mode is enabled:

      <Access script="return LDD.GetDeveloperMode()">
        <MenuItem text="Developer">
          <MenuItem text="Create model of all bricks" key="Command T" command=".LDD.commands.editMode.createTestModelAllBricks"/>
          <MenuItem text="Create model of filtered bricks" key="Command Alt T" command=".LDD.commands.editMode.createTestModelFilteredBricks"/>
          ....
          <MenuItem text="Lua console" command=".consoleToggle"/>
        </MenuItem>
      </Access>

So you can enable this Menu Item also if you remove the <Access script="return LDD.GetDeveloperMode()"> line (and the closing </Access> tag) without enabling developer mode in preferences.ini. In that case however I wasn't able to get into Wireframe mode or view bounding box mode. Disabling physics check however works.

There are a couple of other xml and lua files in the Assets/Scripts folder and subfolders. With some of these you basically control some parts of the UI Layout like for example where buttons are placed or even which buttons are shown. The lua files are Lua scripts I guess. More analysis is needed on if something usefull can be done there - I would be interested in tweaking the decorations Menu to make it bigger for example

Edited January 3, 2021 by M2m

[M2m]

Another LDD Hollywood Edition picture. This is from "The LEGO® NINJAGO® MOVIE The Making of the Movie" book (Page 16/Page 17):

Except a confirmation LDD also has been used for that movie, nothing new can be gathered. They even cut off the top Windows Bar in the screenshot (so to not show LDD Hollywood Edition I guess - but it shows the familiar "special" icons).

Only slightly interesting to see quite a lot of 'un-grouped' parts in the lower left.

Side Note: Has this robot building been used in the final version of the movie (it remind me of the Jetsons Cartoon Robot) ?

Also any clue how the round eyes were made ? Talking about the red parts.

Edited January 3, 2021 by M2m

[SylvainLS]

This thing is huge.  If I’m counting correctly, the eyes are 16 studs in diameter.  The “rivets” on them seem to be 2x2 round tiles.  There’s 10 of them, so the rings are icosagons.  More than that, I can’t say….

[M2m]

16 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

This thing is huge.  If I’m counting correctly, the eyes are 16 studs in diameter.  The “rivets” on them seem to be 2x2 round tiles.  There’s 10 of them, so the rings are icosagons.  More than that, I can’t say….

It is huge. I wonder if they did the whole building in LDD (or just parts). I found it in the movie at timecode 10:56 and 15:34 - so its definitely an asset used in the movie

[Zerobricks]

Found more info about this LDD version here:

And here:

Edit at 2:11 you can see there are 12694 bricks in the assembly!!!

Edited January 4, 2021 by Zerobricks