[Bricksmith] Tip to customize color palette

[Jim DeVona]

Lots of colors are defined in ldconfig.ldr, but in any particularly model I typically only use a small subset of the available colors. As I build the model in Bricksmith, this means a lot of scrolling or searching through the color palette to pick the same couple of colors. Even using the keyboard, this can get tedious. (Too bad there's no "favorite colors" mechanism...)

In fact, you can create custom palettes with just the colors you need by swapping out the ldconfig.ldr file in your LDraw folder for a copy containing only the relevant color definitions. (Keep the original!)

For example, here's the entire ldconfig.ldr I used to build this model:

Code:

0 // LDraw Solid Colours
0 !COLOUR Black                                                 CODE   0   VALUE #05131D   EDGE #595959
0 !COLOUR Light_Bluish_Gray                                     CODE  71   VALUE #A0A5A9   EDGE #333333
0 !COLOUR Dark_Bluish_Gray                                      CODE  72   VALUE #6C6E68   EDGE #333333
0 !COLOUR Red                                                   CODE   4   VALUE #C91A09   EDGE #333333
0 !COLOUR Tan                                                   CODE  19   VALUE #E4CD9E   EDGE #333333
0 !COLOUR Blue                                                  CODE   1   VALUE #0055BF   EDGE #333333
0 !COLOUR White                                                 CODE  15   VALUE #FFFFFF   EDGE #333333

0 // LDraw Transparent Colours
0 !COLOUR Trans_Yellow                                          CODE  46   VALUE #F5CD2F   EDGE #8E7400   ALPHA 128
0 !COLOUR Trans_Black                                           CODE  40   VALUE #635F52   EDGE #171316   ALPHA 128
0 !COLOUR Trans_Clear                                           CODE  47   VALUE #FCFCFC   EDGE #C3C3C3   ALPHA 128

0 // LDraw Internal Common Material Colours
0 !COLOUR Main_Colour                                           CODE  16   VALUE #7F7F7F   EDGE #333333
0 !COLOUR Edge_Colour                                           CODE  24   VALUE #7F7F7F   EDGE #333333

The Bricksmith color palette just shows you what's defined, so it looks like this:



Tidy and convenient! Don't forget to include the generic main and edge colors. I'm not sure what happens if you don't.

(I'm almost certain I've posted this tip somewhere before, but I can't find a link, so I figured I'd just share it again.)