Friends Figure Shortcuts?

[Magnus Forsberg]

We are beginning to see a lot of new parts for the Friends Figures. These are the ones Philo have made so far.

   

We made Shortcuts for all the Fabuland Figures, but don't make any for a regular minifig. How about these?
Brickset lists today 87 different Friends figures and 10 Disney Princess Figures

We make shortcuts for the "Minifig Hips and Legs" but don't make one for "Minifig Torso and Arms", even though that is how it is delivered.

How about a "Minifig Friends Torso and Arms" shortcut? Do we need, or want, one?
Brickset lists 62 different.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Thanks for asking, Magnus... I was about to do so
The good point of making shortcuts is that they would provide direct relation with official LEGO parts (Brickset lists only those torso/arms and hips/legs design IDs), but that's true also for minifig torso shortcuts...

[Steffen]

I would love to see the Friends figures as shortcuts, similar to the Fabuland figures.
They are kind of "hardcoded" characters by LEGO like them, and it - like the other physical color shortcuts etc. -
does not really harm our library if they exist.

We should discuss the issue of the hips+legs or torso+arms assemblies separately,
I cannot yet make my mind up for that, as there will be LOTS of combinations.

[Magnus Forsberg]

One reason for making the minifig hips and legs- shortcuts is to group the three parts of the same pattern together.
IMO, we should at least do that with the Friends figures. Create a shortcut for each torso+arms or hips+legs combination of a pattern.
Which patterned torso goes with which patterned arms?

btw,
There is now a need for regular minifig arm with patterned surface. 973cXX.dat "Minifig Torso and Arms with Toy Soldier Pattern".
Should we create shortcuts for them too? With or without hands?

[Steffen]

the more Friends parts I see appear on the PT,
the more I feel the desire to have the full figures available as Shortcuts
the same way as the Fabuland figures we already have.

If LEGO has unique IDs for the torso+arms and hips+legs assemblies,
we should also have these I as shortcuts I think.
This way an easy mapping is possible, and we do the same approach for physical color or alias shortcuts.
In fact, we use our library as a mapping system from LEGO IDs to our implementations.
In earlier days, there was a discussion, if a separate database should be used for that, and at that time,
the decision was made to use the existing LDRAW mechanisms to implement physical color or alias shortcuts.
I think we should reapply that decision here and add torso+arms shortcuts and hips+legs shortcuts for the friends
figures. And yes, we could do the same for minifigs in future, even when there are many such combinations.
But we need not to do that now I think, let's finish the Friends first...

...putting Philo's picture from this post http://forums.ldraw.org/showthread.php?t...5#pid13605 here:...



to make a long story short: can we PLEASE have shortcuts for each of the Friends characters of the official sets?

[Philippe Hurbain]

the more I feel the desire to have the full figures available as Shortcuts
the same way as the Fabuland figures we already have.

The more I progress with Friends figures, the more I agree with you... though we already have 90 Friends + 10 related Disney Princess listed on Bricklink!

If LEGO has unique IDs for the torso+arms and hips+legs assemblies,
we should also have these I as shortcuts I think.

I agree even more on this one. One problem, some of these shortcuts don't appear on Brickset/LEGO replacement parts so we are missing a few design IDs. What we do have from building instructions is the item number.

But we need not to do that now I think, let's finish the Friends first...

The task remains daunting to "finish" job: the relatively easy task is creating the remaining shapes (eg. the full length skirt http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?q=15875* or the wrap around skirt http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=11407c00pb01) but creating torso patterns is an enormous task. And many of them wrap around the torso, making them yet a bit more difficult to create, and we generally miss photographic data from back...
As for the shortcuts themselves... a collaboration with someone as we did for Fabuland would be greatly appreciated

[Magnus Forsberg]

The picture and the compilation above are now updated.

I made this little file as a test. Is this were the origin should be in the hip+legs shortcut?
If it is accepted I could start to make more like it.

Were should we place the origin of the torso shortcut? I find it difficult to choose one.
Both the head on torso, and the torso on hip, aren't placed on the main grid, compared to a complete friend figure shortcut.
I guess the best perhaps is in the middle of the neck, but then it would be difficult to put a torso on a hip.

   

[Sergio Reano]

As for the shortcuts themselves... a collaboration with someone as we did for Fabuland would be greatly appreciated

Hi,

you should be able to create the required shortcuts using SR3DBuilder. Now it support snap-in connection for Friends parts, at least for those released up to August 22

Sergio

[Steffen]

As for the shortcuts themselves... a collaboration with someone as we did for Fabuland would be greatly appreciated

I'm sorry I cannot be of big help here as I do not own even one of the friends :/,
and additionally, I have nearly zero time for LDRAW right now, I can only sporadically check the PT...
I remember very well the fun we had with our Fabuland figures!

[Philippe Hurbain]

Everything in Friends figures is more or less off grid, so there is no really good solution (except using SR3D builder when connectivity is fully debugged
For what it is worth, my suggestion: use baseplate reference as much as possible. This gives:
Legs assembly:

Code:

0 // Legs
1 16 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92252.dat
0 // Hips
1 16 0 -47.4 2.7 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92248.dat

Torso assembly:

Code:

0 // Girl Torso. Use 92243 for woman
1 16 0 -12.8 3.9 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92241.dat
0 // Left arm
1 16 11 -12.8 3.9 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92244.dat
0 // Right Arm
1 16 -11 -12.8 3.9 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92245.dat

Figure:

Code:

0 // Legs Assembly
1 16 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92252c01.dat
0 // Torso Assembly
1 16 0 -64 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92241c01.dat
0 // Head
1 16 0 -110 3.9 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92198.dat
0 // Wig
1 16 0 -110 0.9 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 92255.dat

Only the head and wig are off grid...

[Magnus Forsberg]

I like that.

But, the Minifig Hips and Legs shortcut is numbered after the Hips. 3815pXX.dat becomes 3815cXX.dat with added legs.
Should the Friends Hips shortcuts all be 92248cXX.dat ?

IMO the leg+hip and torso+arms should be like this:
92252p01.dat should be 92252c01.dat when the hips are added. The shortcut without pattern would be 92252c00.dat

92241p01.dat should be 92241c01.dat when the arms are added. The shortcut without pattern would be 92241c00.dat

[Philippe Hurbain]

Mmmhhh, I didn't pay attention to part number in your example. Yes, I think that the legs+hips shortcut should be numbered from legs parts number. But there is a possibility that the same torso gets differently patterned arms (I have not checked if such possibility already happens). To get maximum flexibility such assemblies should then be named 92241p01c01.dat, 92241p01c02.dat and so on. Blank shortcut could still be 92241c00.dat (is such blank shortcut really useful btw?). Then for the sake of homogeneity, legs shortcuts should be named xxxxxpyyczz too.

[Magnus Forsberg]

The first complete shortcuts are now at the PT.

[Steffen]

very, very lovely.

However, I haven't checked anything about it yet (file numbers etc.), just wanted to say that I like it

[Magnus Forsberg]

Have you got a minute for these, Steffen?
I want to go ahead and make more.

[Steffen]

yeah, I'll have a look

[Max Martin Richter]

I really like Philos idea about the numbering scheme. In my opinion we don't need the uncoloured shortcuts, because all information is available in the other shortcuts.
I also like the idea of Philo for positioning on the grid we have (or go off grid in some cases).
Furthermore I think we should create the shortcut for the hips and the torso and then the complete figure shortcut.
Maybe we should think about a library especially for figures in the future? So that we can create all minifigs in the future...

/Max