As part of our meeting last year in Billund, we expressed a desired to make the learning curve for authoring parts a little less steep. As part of that, I'm working on clarifying the rules for the Official Library. Recently we've had a discussion about complete assemblies and disallowing sticker shortcuts for stickers applied to single, flat parts. As a result of those discussion, I made a draft revision to the File Format Restrictions for the Official Library. Proposed changes in red:
https://www.ldraw.org/hidden-content/dra...brary.html

I also posted about my concerns about documentation fragmentation. I personally feel that the File Format Restrictions for the Official Library document should one single source for all the rules for parts in the official library. With that reasoning in mind, I think "Official Library Policy On Embedding POV-Ray Code" should be cancelled since those METAs are already disallowed. Also, the "Parts numbering scheme for parts with unknown numbers" and "Official Library Specification for Sticker Parts" should be folded into the main document. There are also some pages on the PT that can be added as well.

Basically, I'm opening the entire "File Format Restrictions for the Official Library" document up for revision. How should this document be laid out? What else should be included? I have the ability to separate sections in to tabs and other formatting tricks. I also think a downloadable PDF for quick, offline reference might be a good idea. Maybe even a Quick Reference One Sheet for commonly used info.

I'd like to have a full and frank discussion about this. Remember, if you have a problem, propose a solution. Also, we're not going to break backwards compatibility. Aside from those 2 rules almost anything goes.

I use "SolidWorks" to make parts. Some parts have two colors. I want to import "part designer" with two fixed colors. What should I do?

Boy, my tech skills are so out of date. I thought I might be able to tackle authoring but the learning curve is well beyond me. 

I'm trying to build a MOC of an Indian market and was hoping (someone) could use the existing Cow (64452**) as a basis for a zebu (humped/indicine/Brahman) cattle and maybe an Asian water buffalo or maybe even an Arvin East (frankly more common in the southern regions than the big zebu).

Obviously, realism at minifig scales is (insert Indian head wobble). Main things would be adding the hump, maybe making them a little less well-fed, and changing the direction of the horn pin holes (for the AE).

The singularly uncommon goat (95341pb01) would be totally necessary for this endeavor. Even better if there was a Nubian variant with extra long ears, but beggars can't be choosers. 

Androgynous piggy parent (87621**) could use a drove of piglets. Maybe something similar to the chicken, with just a little solid form, but with a 1x2 base?

Can post pics of breeds of anyone is interested. If it was as easy as clicking and dragging vertices, I would at least try to do it myself.

I finished entering all 526(!) torso assemblies (out of a possible 3700ish) into the cross reference file, I've moved the Set PBG generator out of experimental status.

New url is:
https://www.ldraw.org/downloads-2/pbg-generator.html

My next project is hips assemblies then Minidoll torso and leg assemblies followed by Technic action figures. I may sprinkle in other assemblies as I find them.

As always, If you find bugs or oddities, please post them here. If you find a misnumbered single file that's not part of an assembly, submit a change request at Rebrickable.

The current crossref file can always be found here:
https://www.ldraw.org/common/data/pbg_crossref.csv

I'm going to post two new patterned tiles 1 x 1 which use Metallic Light Blue color.

This color is missing from LDConfig so, for now, I will submit both parts with simple Light Blue color and will modify them as soon as the new color is available.

The TEXMAP meta command allows LDraw files to map images onto the surfaces of a part or model. This image, while part of the part or model definition, could not be included inside an MPD file since it is a binary file. 

The LSB has ratified revision 2 to the MPD specification. This adds the !DATA meta command to allow the inclusion of binary files in the body of an MPD. Roland Melkert, author of LDCad, has said that support for this new meta command will be included with the forthcoming LDCad version 1.7. Other currently maintained LDraw tools should follow.

https://www.ldraw.org/article/47.html

Following the suggestion on this thread of using fade_color:

POV-Ray: Transparency using fade_color

and after plenty of tweaking and testing, I have found a fairly satisfactory solution to transparent colors that approach the real thing. The scene in POV-Ray is setup with an area light and a white square floating above to simulate a studio lamp reflection. The part used is: 92579.dat, in Transparent Black (LDXColor40).

Here is the default values with dark and light surface as background:

       

It is hard to see the internal edges or the surface through the transparency. Compare that to the fade_color version:

       

As you can see, the part is well defined and the edges are darker than the walls (as it should be), it works on both light and dark surfaces and allows you to see what is on the other side of the part. The only downside to using fade_color is that the studs are no longer colorize and appear simply as transparent. This seems to be due to the part not having an LGEO substitution.

My question to you good people is: Is there a way to apply this fade_color technique onto the studs so that they have the same color as the part itself, even without an LGEO substitution? I am not familiar with the whole Ldraw format, so any light you can cast my way (no pun intended) will be greatly appreciated.

If you would like to test the technique for yourself, here is the fade_color modification that I settled on:

This will, I hope, become a discussion for the topic of scripting in Lua programming language. Generally for sharing animations, macros, and the language itself.
There are a few specific conversations on this topic in various other places on the forum, and it would benefit everyone to have a more centralized board to share compare and learn from each other.

with the up-coming 1.7 update this should become a hot thread.

I'll start things off. There are sample scripts available from the scripts menu, and they are open-source, so you can read them and edit them. One of these is the "camera test" which led me to ask if there was a way to lead a camera in animation along a designated path through a model. A sort of walking tour which Roland made for us to play with" https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-23778.html ".

Missing: Minifig (Spec sticker does not render, texmap)

Uploaded model, not OMR compliant (did not add unoffical parts to the file)

Attached Files

  75275 - A-Wing Starfighter UCS.mpd (Size: 105.41 KB / Downloads: 16)

I'm currently making the minifigures for my Flying Dutchman MOC and I noticed that the parts 95401 (Davy Jones' tentacle beard), 95404pb01 (Maccus' hammerhead shark headpiece), and bb0534 (Hand Crab Pincer) don't exist as LDRAW parts...would anyone be interested to take up the challenge? Many thanks


  95401_1.png (Size: 113.55 KB / Downloads: 61)            
  95404pb01_1.png (Size: 56.41 KB / Downloads: 61)        
  bb0534.png (Size: 55.91 KB / Downloads: 62)