Leaderboard

Two years ago, a day after RRU's 6th anniversary and 9 days before my birthday, I first shoved my ugly mug 'ole in the general direction of this site, and joined because - Well, actually I've never said on here the real reason why I joined in the first place. Mainly because it was so downright silly. I joined to look at... a topic with a nyan cat mod for racers. Really. When I first navigated my way here as a member of the LMBs (that stopped very soon after), I was a bit of a n00b to be honest. Okay, I wasn't as extreme a n00b as some members (jamesbrick and delle come to mind), but I wouldn't exactly call my early posting habits outstanding, to say the least. To be honest, my posting didn't really become decent until the beginning of 2014, when I started drawing again for a community project that sorta went nowhere (and I still kinda doubt it would, but I'd be interested to see it go somewhere). It was a bit weird picking up my pencil again after so many years of not drawing, but now I'm really happy that I'm back to drawing again - And yeah, I've sorta gone off on a weird tangent of talking about my history here on RRU, haven't I? Yep, I should do that less. Anyways, I guess the main reason I wanted to make this post was to thank all of you for making the last 2 years of me being here so enjoyable. Yes, every single one of you. Even the spambots and the n00bs and the 20 different accounts that were dellepack. All of you have contributed in your own unique ways to my online life, and helped me gradually through my real one. I've made a ton of mates through here, and hopefully I'll make more over the next umpteen years here. So yeah, here's to another infinity years here. You ain't getting rid of me that easily - Ayliffe/Jay/Bayleef/Mr Phoenix

UPDATE: It turns out that LDCAD is actually what I'm looking for, believe it or not. While trying to design a 1997 UFO themed MOC, I ran into an issue. Particularly, the fact that LEGO Digital Designer is missing several parts needed for the build, such as the 14x14 quarter-saucer segments that make up the hull of the Alien Avenger and the prow of the Interstellar Starfighter. I can't even begin to understand why TLG doesn't include older bricks in LDD. I know LDD is intended for designing models to then purchase the parts for and build, but the thing is a lot of old parts are still available on the resale market. So, I did what any sensible person would do and downloaded the full LDraw suite... only to rediscover why I don't use LDraw. Pretty much every CAD program that uses LDraw is either broken (I might address that in a future entry) or has a very clunky interface that I can either barely use or can't use at all (if there is an LDraw program that lets me move and rotate bricks without having to constantly switch between tools, please let me know). I really don't get why software developers pay so little attention to the usability of the GUI. I'm not talking about GUI complexity, and I don't care how many widgets are on the toolbar. What I take issue with is when you're forced to use every single tool and option to do something as basic as placing something in the workspace. EAGLE, a program for making circuit schematics and PCB blueprints, doesn't force you to do this. Autodesk Inventor doesn't force you to do this. Sony Vegas doesn't force you to do this. So why do the developers of LeoCAD, MLCAD and LDCAD think it's ok to force the user to go through the entire interface in order to get anything done? My bottom line is that there isn't a LEGO design program that can really be considered a viable option, at least for me. I'm sure that other people can relate.