Look what I did!

Not Lego but still Lego.

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Semaj Nagirrac
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Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Fri Jul 05, 2013 9:41 pm

Hey you ugly chicken chasers, check this out!

Image

Looks like custom decorations can be created in LDD. Here's what to do next:

1. Be Patient
2. Eat Ice Cream

Here's what NOT to do:

1. Ask for the torsos and faces you want. I have a huge file I'm putting together with hopefully dozens of decorations.
2. Tell me that I suck at this. I already know.
3. NOT eat ice cream.

Once the file is completed, I'll upload it to the internet and provide a download link. Credit will be given to those that created the images.
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Silverdream » Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:25 pm

So what did you do?
This sig is too fucking large: show anyway
Image lol j/k

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Semaj Nagirrac
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:47 pm

The torsos I used above your post are not available in LDD. I finally found a way to add minifig decorations from old LEGO sets. Custom decorations for toros, legs, faces, shields, and flat 2x2 plates can be added as well. As soon as I learn what the surface ID for a flag is, I'll be able to add flag decorations as well.
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by dilanski » Sat Jul 06, 2013 5:34 am

OOoohh. Any chance of custom sky boxes?
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Semaj Nagirrac
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:09 pm

I've been out of the loop for a while. What's a sky box?
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by dilanski » Sun Jul 07, 2013 6:07 am

Semaj Nagirrac wrote:I've been out of the loop for a while. What's a sky box?
The backgrounds that load in the view mode. The standard space background isn't the prettiest thing ever.
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:04 pm

I don't know if I can change the sky boxes. Try Googling it?

I'm going to make a .lxf file with custom torso, face, pants, shield and banner decorations. So far I have only 91 torsos added. This will take awhile, so please be patient.
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by dilanski » Wed Dec 04, 2013 2:25 pm

I've sat patiently and well, Is it possible you can post how to do this? I've been wanting to do LDD based soap-box tales since seeing this post. Google has found me nothing on how to do it.
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Kaplan » Thu Dec 05, 2013 6:51 am

Yes it would be great if you explain how to add custom decorations.

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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Thu Dec 05, 2013 2:50 pm

I'll put a document together soon. Keep in mind that in order to add the custom decals, you have to "hack" the software which breaks the GNU for LDD. Or is it GLU...? Hmm..
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Kaplan » Thu Dec 05, 2013 4:02 pm

Semaj Nagirrac wrote:I'll put a document together soon. Keep in mind that in order to add the custom decals, you have to "hack" the software which breaks the GNU for LDD. Or is it GLU...? Hmm..
Honostly I don't know what GNU or GLU is but for me its important that program LDD to POVRAY continues working. I heard beafore that these type of modifications sometimes makes the rendering impossible.

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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Sun Dec 08, 2013 11:10 pm

First you'll want to go to this website and download the LIF Extractor that someone was kind enough to make: http://www.rockraidersunited.org/topic/ ... extractor/

Read the instructions on how to use the extractor. They'll tell you how to do it, but not where to do it. For Windows to RUN. Type in %appdata% and your .roaming folder will pop up. Select LEGO COMPANY. From there, you'll need to drag and drop the db.lif onto LIF Extractor (it's an Application file type). You'll then see a black window pull up with some technical mumbo-jumbo. Let it do it's work. It's not a virus so don't freak out.

You'll then see a new folder pull up in your LEGO Company folder. It will say db which stands for Data Base. If you see that, you have successfully extracted the LIF files.

Now the fun begins. And by fun, I mean minutes or hours of very tedious work.

There is a folder named DECORATIONS and an XML file named DecorationMapping. These will allow you to add new decorations to LDD. We'll come back to this later, but it's good to know now.

To create a new decoration, I prefer to use Adobe Photoshop because I can choose what size I want to save my projects. That's not easily done in paint. ALL IMAGES IN LDD NEED TO BE SAVED AS .PNG AT 128 PIXELS BY 128 PIXELS. Never forget that.

Edit your image(s), save them as a .png at 128 pixels by 128 pixels and save them in a location where they can be accessed easily. Do not name them something like "Cool Torso" or "Mega Death Violence Face". Save them as a five digit number that has not already been used. Do not begin the number with a zero. I prefer to name them in this manner: 10001, 10002, 10003 etc.

Open the Decorations folder in your LEGO Company folder that you accessed earlier. You'll see that all decorations are named with numbers. If you use the same numbers on your own images, then you will replace the existing decorations, so don't do that unless you truly don't care. Drag and drop your properly named images into the Decorations folder and close out.

Now you need to open that DecorationMapping XML file. You can do it with Notepad, but Notepad++ is much better and it's a free download. This is where the tedious part comes in. Right click DecorationMapping and select "Edit with Notepad++". You will see a lot of code pop up and it can seem a little overwhelming at first, but it's actually very simple.

Here's an example line: <Mapping decorationID="54580" designID="3626" surfaceID="1"/>

Mapping decorationID means which decoration it is in the Decorations Folder. When you find 54580 in the decorations folder, you'll see it's a face.
designID means which piece will be decorated. In this case, it's a minfig head.
surfaceID means which side of the piece will be decorated. 1 always means the front. 2 always means the back. 3 can mean the sides and I don't recommend playing with those unless you're up for some adventure.

Copy and paste an existing line of code and place it at the bottom of the list just before </DecorationMapping>. (Make sure that all of your spaces match up or LDD will crash when you open the decorations in extended mode.) Change the decorationID to the number of one of your custom decorations and make sure its for the correct designID. Save the file and close out. You'll probably want to make a backup of the orginal Decorationmapping first.

Open a new project in LDD. Go to extended mode and select the piece you'll use for your new decoration. Select the decoration tool and you should see your new decoration in the selection area. Congratulations, you've successfully added a new decoration!

In LDD 4.3.8 (can be downloaded here: http://cache.lego.co...DD-PC-4_3_8.exe), the decoration area in extended mode now has a scroll bar, so you can view all of the decorations. These decorations are from the Decorationmapping.XML that we played with earlier. In older versions, the scroll bar is not available and you'll see that the some of the decorations are not view-able. What you'll need to do is add about 10 decorations to the Decorationmapping.xml, open LDD, use those decorations and save them. Then use the .lxf that you saved your project as to create a user palette. To create a user palette, go back to the LEGO Company folder in the .roaming folder and create a folder named "UserPalettes". Drop your .lxf with new decorations in there.

Here's the tedious part, if you don't use LDD 4.3.8. Reopen the Decorationmapping.xml, remove your previous custom decals and input another 10. I usually do 10 at a time because it's a manageable number. When that it done, reopen LDD, open up your .lxf with your custom decorations and add the new decorations.Then save the file and copy and replace it in the Userpalettes folder in your .roaming again. If you want to avoid all of that tedious work, then get LDD 4.3.8.

Now that you've added the decorations, you can create some pretty cool MOCs.

I know this is a very long and confusing tutorial, but it works. If you have a question, don't hesitate to ask. I'll upload some pictures soon too make this easier.

Also, do not go on Eurobricks.com and ask how this is done. They will inform you that it breaks the General Users Agreement or something like that and it is illegal, which is true.
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Kaplan » Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:07 am

Semaj Nagirrac wrote: If you have a question, don't hesitate to ask. I'll upload some pictures soon too make this easier.
Thank you for the tutorial. Do you know if this changes affect the Pov-ray rendering negatively?

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Semaj Nagirrac
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Re: Look what I did!

Post by Semaj Nagirrac » Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:48 pm

I'm not sure if it does or not. Sorry.
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