James Russell

@LeeElston I stumbled upon this whilst teaching a new class a few days ago. I agree it seems like a step backwards compared to the side-by-side previous layout! +1 for a change back to the previous layout.

If you're using VW 2019 and have created this curved travel path from Save Views you should be able to grab the slider in the Edit Path Animation dialog and drag it all the way to the top, creating a smooth transition line; No problem. I'm currently using Spotlight 2020 for the examples in my previous videos - however Create Animation is available in all versions, including Fundamentals. Just be cautious if you have transitioned from VW2019 into VW2020 and used the Migration Options to keep your old workspace then you may not have the new 2020 Create Animation set in your current workspace. Head to Tools > Workspaces > Edit Current Workspace and look for the Create Animation subset in the left hand side. Firstly I appreciated the work you and your team have put in so far in VW2020. As with my second video I have tried to use this new speed slider to alter the path and transition speed between keyframes. A) The slider and context doesn't seem as intuitive nor flexible as the previous Edit Path Animation dialog (at least in my mind, this timeline interface has worked quite well for years). B) There doesn't seem to be the ability to hold on keyframes for a duration of time. C) Reducing the speed of one or more keyframes does not slow the path movement down, it seems to instead reduce the video duration and ignore speed altogether. Increasing the speed (as shown in my video above) also doesn't seem to have any effect - just incase your context of -99% to +100% refers to inverse movement speed for some reason. D) Field of view variables should be inherited from the Saved View they were created from to avoid tedious tweaking of FOV after creation. Should you have solutions and specific methods which can replicate, solve or guide the points above I'd love to see a video showing this in action. Otherwise alternatives might include reinstating the old toolset, at least in another menu or depreciation type effect as with other new experimental tool releases. Again I respect the efforts to improve this tool, and enjoyed creating my first 360º video output which is a new function - however without the ability to pause in place the user in this experience has no time to appreciate the efforts put in. Cheers, James

Hi, I'm no expert when it come to scripting (just like to dabble) however I'm also intrigued by the batch tool allocation you're referencing in the menu structure as I struck it yesterday when looking at Model>Create Animation (which is similar to your 4 submenu items.. As noted in your first post the menu item 'Site Model Processor' add 4 new menu items - including your desired 'Site Model form Source Data...'. I also like you cannot call the menu item; by name, by a subset of Terrain, by a subset of Site Model Processor. I recall vaguely some of the functions were available in the DTM section of the Vectorworks Function Library but I can't find them anymore listed there. Additionally I suspect this subset of scripts references a Python Library set (most probably Site-Packages in your python local folder) and therefore Vectorworks probably has a little trouble accessing it without a few other elements - probably activated within the same menu set. I'm sure some script wizard will have a work around however I'm wondering in what context you're planning to call this function as I don't know how you're going to traverse the pop-up dialog which appears - unless you're planning to power through with defaults in some sort of automated Multi-Site Model creation environment (which is cool, just outside the norm). Interested if someone finds a Menu call which works. J

Animations Examples-1.m4v Thanks for the replies thus far. Videos are a little easier for showing these examples (considering we're talking about Animations I should actually animate I guess!) Let me know your thoughts! PS: Added labels to the videos, they worked out better along the bottom, not down the side as mentioned in the original record.

2019 Vs 2020 Animation-1.m4v Hi all! Please see my attached (and hopefully embedded) video regarding the changes made between 2019 and 2020 Create Animation functions. I'm just a little disappointed/confused/interested. Any feedback, advice or opinions are welcome! Cheers, James

@Kane In relation to your question regarding SMB vs AFP they are two different types of connectivity protocol; (Microsoft) Server Message Block [SMB] and Apple Filing Protocol [AFP] This is primarily used when talking about a hosted LAN structure of Project Sharing and is normally dictated if your office is Mac or Windows based. Commonly people who are unsure will preference the SMB format as Mac support both SMB and AFP connections nativity. As for the second query regarding Dropbox and Google Drive integration sitting on the fence between the two *is* possible if you get all the shared permissions settings correct and more often than not have a dedicated server machine which can be used to bridge the divide between the platforms acting as a shared base. It would however be highly advised that you attempt to stick with one cloud sharing platform with all users have read-write capabilities. Best of luck with your adventures down Project Sharing. It's a rocky yet rewarding task - if you can collectively get all participants onboard (this is normally the harder part for me!) J

@BrandonSPP 2019-OZ-SP4 Designer, Renderworks for Mac on a 2017 MacBook Pro - High Sierra. I'll test it on an 2019 SP4 Windows tomorrow and see if I'm going crazy!

Hi all, So I'm having a little trouble with Spotlight beginnings prior to Braceworks analysis. Please see image and example file attached. I believe I've made the simplest example I can; 1 x Truss, 2 x 0.5T Hoist, 1 x Lighting Fixture. When I choose to calculate my system my Hoist Workload seems to give me this error of Suspension Point? I've tried to put house points in, I've tried to make bridles to other points in the roof. It doesn't seem like I can just say these Hoist are allowed 500kg each, my system weighs Truss+Lights (in this case ~40kg), give me the green light and no warnings please. This youtube video ( https://www.yout [DONT EMBEDD PLZ] ube.com/watch?v=RKQ3k78EwR8 ) seems to make the process quite easy however I haven't made a rig which is error free yet. Does anyone have a guide, video, anything which shows Braceworks from start to finish - particularly for those of us working in Spotlight preparing models for Braceworks calculations? Or let me know what's wrong with my basic example and I'll apply it across my advanced rigs. Hope you're all well. J Please test me - Braceworks without Braceworks.vwx

I'd be interested to know if you're getting a result here - if so what. Probably also if you could expand it to; Message( 'X: ',pControlPoint02X,CHR(13), 'Y: ',pControlPoint02YY, 'Sx: ', Sx, 'Sy: ', Sy); Just so you could see if those two values are being put / converted in correctly. The minor problem I can kinda see coming is once the user moves the "End Here" control point pair there's the potential you'll overwrite that data fresh when you make any other refresh to the POI, in anyway (I could be [probably am] wrong here) - as such you might want to put a comparator, something along the lines of (presuming the reference for control points is 0,0 in this context - syntax will be wrong); If((PControlPoint02X<>0),Sx:=Num2StrF(Rx),'') Like I said syntax aside that *might* be a thing worth doing. Someone here surely has dealt with floating control point boxes which aren't by default at the start of a polyline... J

*I never said this was the right way... but it is working quite well so far...

So.. I got angry at VW. =SUBSTRING (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't apply for this case where there is mismatched upper/lowercase characters - which I can accept. So then I decided to write a script - (with the help of my good friend Dan); --------- Copy below this line into a script of your choosing with Python ------------ #!/usr/bin/env python3 def removeFixtureId(v): obj = v.WSScript_GetObject() fixtureId = v.GetRField(obj, 'Lighting Device', 'FixtureID') fixtureMode = v.GetRField(obj, 'Lighting Device', 'Fixture Mode') # Locate the starting position of the Fixture ID within the Fixture Mode fixtureIdPos = fixtureMode.lower().find(fixtureId.lower()) # If the position is 0 or more then it is present (-1 = not present), so we # should remove the Fixture ID from the Fixture Mode if fixtureIdPos >= 0: # We want to take letters from the end of the Fixture ID onwards readFrom = fixtureIdPos + len(fixtureId) fixtureMode = fixtureMode[readFrom:] # Remove any spaces that might be left over from the left+right fixtureMode = fixtureMode.strip() # Return the processed Fixture Mode v.WSScript_SetResStr(fixtureMode) return fixtureMode # Uncomment the following line to activate this script removeFixtureId(vs) ----------------- Above this line only ---------------- Now's where things get interesting. (see attached) It looks as though the coding in the Lighting Device is swapping to fields around 'Lighting Device'.'Fixture Mode' and 'Lighting Device'.'Old Fixture Mode'. Calling these independently as column headers we get this .lit result (Dan presumes a key matched pair of the overall fixtures list or similar). I have to tap out and continue with some real work however I would like the Mode field of the lighting device to populate with the Substring of the real Fixture Mode oneway - as the Num Channels currently does. Enjoy the read. J

Hmmm. This doesn't happen for me - just the one Y. Made a second Control Point set and they labelled as expected; 'ControlPoint02X' and 'ControlPoint02Y' I've just finished battling Control Points for one of my recent scripts. Snippets attached below (where relevant) - I can send you the full script via email if you need to break it apart (few relations would have to be made for forum posting!). But never had to write back to the control points... ------ cpx,cpy,ctx,cty,control_round :REAL; {Collection of Control Points} ----- cpx := PControlPoint01X; cpy := PControlPoint01Y; control_round := PControl_Round; ----- {Creating the Control Point Box and Text} IF show_title OR show_descr OR show_cat = TRUE THEN BEGIN { set the text properties } TextSize(10); TextRotate(0); TextJust(2); TextVerticalAlign(1); TextOrigin(cpx,cpy); label_concat:= ''; IF show_title = TRUE THEN BEGIN label_concat:= Concat(label_concat,title_descr,CHR(13)); end; IF show_descr = TRUE THEN BEGIN label_concat:= Concat(label_concat,body_descr,CHR(13)); end; IF show_cat = TRUE THEN BEGIN label_concat:= Concat(label_concat,category_descr,CHR(13)); end; CreateText(label_concat); cptext := LNewObj; { get the bounding box of the text } GetBBox(LNewObj,t1x,t1y,t2x,t2y); RRect(t1x-control_round,t1y+control_round,t2x+control_round,t2y-control_round,control_round,control_round); HMoveForward(cptext,TRUE); {message(Concat(t1x,' ',t1y,' ',t2x,' ',t2y));} END; ------ It's dirty but seems to work for me and my floating info box. #SorryNotSorry (bad codes are what I do!) J

Hi all, I'm attempting to use =SUBSTRING, a function I've been waiting forever for to help me obtain the MODE of a fixture. See the screenshot attached for more reference. Ideally I would like the mode data to the right of the string in Column B with the delimiter being the content in Column A. Therefore I thought I could use something like; =SUBSTRING(('Lighting Device'.'Fixture Mode'), ('Lighting Device'.'FixtureID'), 2) Which I had presumed would give me the string '18ch mode Emissive' in Column C. However I end up with 's'. Even as a single cell with manual strings I seem to only get random characters. Anyone have a little more light to shed on this? Cheers, J

@Jim Wilson thanks for the reply. I checked their paths, nothing foreign there - a simple Users/Name/Documents structure. One of them overnight has done a re-installation and the problem is solved. I'll keep you posted should it happen again on this machine and will attempt to get a report for review. More the fact that it's currently a 2 from 7 hit rate is kind of interesting. I don't know if this is isolated to the demo or 2019 overall - I would suspect the former currently. Cheers, J

Hi all, Hope you're enjoying the VW2019 release...(ish). I'm teaching a series of classes here in the world Down Under. Most of my student get the 30-Day trial in order to partake and then choose their purchase path post-classes. I currently have two students who mid-way through the day are now unable to save work. Here's a list of interesting things happening; Autosaving still works on files they were able to save previously (5 minutes apart - 10 iterations worth as my advised settings) The Save, Command-S and the Save As dialogs don't function, just result in a full program crash instantly. Restarting the computer has no effect. It's as though 2-3 hours into the class their computers now refuse to save documents - new or old! One of them is going to do a re-install tonight although as you can imagine it's incredibly frustrating for them. Has anyone encountered this in any form? Any ideas of things to try? They're both using relatively new MacBooks (2016/17) High Sierra - super standard specs. Let me know! *Sigh* - J