Subject:
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part skins (was Re: some thoughts on ldraw parts)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.mlcad
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Date:
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Fri, 29 Sep 2000 03:47:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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314 times
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okay, were going to try and post something without getting anyone angry this
evening. Where to begin? Well first off I'll apologize to all the minifig
torso fans out there. In the original post it was the first thing that came
to mind. So anyone who is annoyed by my mention of minifig torsos replace it
with your basic element of your choosing. i hate for this to sound harsh but
I'm just sick of defending my point in an argument over minifig torsos.
Anyways on to the point of my post. It's starting to seem to me like the best
way in which to condense the menu system within lcad programs while at the
same time allowing facilitation for all current lcad elements within the
community would be to have "skins" for the parts. An example of the
effectiveness of this comes when you look at the beginning of the brick menu
in mlcad. One of the first major groupings of bricks is the alpha-numeric 1x1
bricks. All of these are basicly the same brick but with differing designs.
In a skin type format all of the 1x1 bricks would be represented by a blank
1x1 brick and instead of pulling a graphic brick from the menu you would first
select the the blank brick and then go to modify part and select add skin.
You would then be presented with a screen of availiable skins for the desired
part. Admitedly this does require some advance within lcad programs.
Separating the graphic on a given part has some major advantages over just
creating parts thatstand as one unified piece. One that really sticks out in
my mind is the ability to more easily create new parts. Skins could basicly
be created and edited using an editor. So why wait paitiently for a new
minifig torso to be designed by someone else when all you need to do is sit
down and create a skin for the minifig torso piece. This entire process
reduces creation of a graphical variant of a piece to just basic graphic
editing. This is turn allows those of us who are technically challenged to
contribute on a larger scale to the piece creation process. And the rule goes
the more people work on any given project, the more innovations are made.
This means that graphical variants of pieces would be created at a much faster
rate than they are currently.
There are two possible problems that I can see with this format and future
lcad programs that might include it. The first is that not all graphics are
printed on a smooth and flat surface within LEGO pieces. An example of this
is the 6x6 octagonal domes in aquazone sets. The other problem involves the
logistics of thousands of different skins for one single element migrating
around the community. The best solution around this is to simply release
approved skins as parts along with the updates in lieu of releasing a full
part as is currently done.
Well I think thats about it for tonight. time to be kicked around for 24 more
hours. Hopefully my supposed jyhad against minifig torsos has been nulified.
Have a good one!
Adam
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Message has 4 Replies:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: some thoughts on ldraw parts
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| (...) THIS user of LDraw tools considers decorated torsos of GREAT value. I only wis they were all done or that there was an easier way to do what are essentially bitmaps tiled onto a flat surface. Too bad the LDraw standard didn't allow for tiling (...) (24 years ago, 28-Sep-00, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.mlcad)
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