WillR

Hi, I am a long time VW user. Using 2009. When I click on the line weight in the attributes palette to get to the drop down, I can no longer see the various dash options. As a result, I can't make a dotted line. I have never had this happen before and don't know if I accidentally toggled some preference, but it seems like a glitch. Any one else had this happen or have any ideas? I will literally have to do a work around of doing a duplicate array on a very short line. Thanks.

I have always found texture mapping in Vectorworks to be difficult- now its getting impossible. Count me among the frustrated. In all versions after 12, I have found the mapping tool gives a different result with Open GL than final VW- in other words it wasn't working- now its been eliminated entirely. I been forced to use trial and error. It takes forever. Why can't a map just automatically map to the object at the size of the object like 3D max? Why is this so difficult?

Vectorworks mapping is a joke.

Hi Jonathan, I was in Napier a few years back. Wonderful Art Deco town. I was in New Zealand- designed news for TV3 and the first set for Campbell Live. But I'm off topic. Did use VW, though.

To speed up converting 3D to 2D, try using the "Convert to Polygon" tool. Go to the view you want and select the 3D object. Go to Modify/Convert/Convert to Polygons (or "Convert Copy to Polygons" if you want to save the original). Then select the rectangle and add the hatch. This will work in any view, including iso and perspective. For those views, make sure you select "Hidden Line Rendering" in the dialogue box. The model will be converted into a bunch of parallelograms. I use this tool often as well as the "Convert to Lines" tool since I design in 3D a lot, and want to simplify for the construction drafting.

Yeah, I just spent 20 minutes looking for this. They certainly have done a good job of hiding it. "Smart cursor settings"? How counterintuitive is that?

I think its important to point out that this is a new problem in VW 2009. VW 2008 didn't have this problem. This makes me think that it's definitely a bug. Does anyone know if VW is aware of this problem, or what is the best way to bring it to their attention?

Mark, I am having the exact same problem and have been forced to use the same solution- entering values in the object info palette and then using trial and error to map the objects. Needless to say the mapping is very imprecise. What we have is an already clumsy mapping capability made virtually useless. Also for the life of me, I have never understood why VW doesn't map an object to its extent by default like 3D Max. In other words in a simple scenario, say you want to map an image on a number of different sized boxes (like TV screens for example). Why doesn't VW just stretch the image or compress the image to fit exactly on the box? This alone would eliminate 90% of the mapping time for me. Materials would be independent of the objects they are associated with. In other words the textures are not in scale- their size changes with each object that they mapped to. If you want them smaller, you simply tile them.

Okay, that works. It took a little fooling around, but I got it. I wanted a large pane of glass with what appears to be an image projected on it. I created a wall 1" thick. In the OBI palette/render, I selected part and gave the right side my texture, which has an image map, a constant reflectivity and some transparency. I created a completely transparent texture for the left side. I also made the objects color a dark gray so the edges look like glass edges. Thanks again. (Of course this would have been much simpler to do in Photoshop after the rendering.)

Thanks, its a vertical plane, so I'll try the wall, since that seems the easiest. I think you jogged my memory- I think that is what was lodged in my mind somewhere- that you could apply textures to different sides of a wall, and I guess I thought it was a little more sophisticated than that.

I think you can do this, but I don't know how. I want to map a texture on one face of glass only, but it maps to all sides by default, so I get a double image, with the back seen through and flipped over. Can I select the plane of the object I want to map to?

I've been having the same problem. It looks fine mapped in open GL, and then in Final Renderworks, it shifts position. Maybe its a glitch? Generally, mapping in VW is a pain. I wish they would improve this part of the program.