scottmoore
-
Posts
673 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Articles
Marionette
Store
Posts posted by scottmoore
-
-
The preference bar is what I was thinking. Something along the lines of the “light objects” drop down.
-
This is probably a simple enough add-on.
I find myself self constantly switching backgrounds depending on what I may be working on during the design process in the entertainment industry. I typically jump between a single color black, single color white, and a single color black with lit fog enabled. Occasionally I may also include a single color blue. The background choice is dependent on what I want to see and what render mode I happen to be using. OpenGL with or without colors/textures, Hidden Line, or RenderWorks.
Anyone else find themselves swapping backgrounds during your design process?
-
I have to say, the past few days have been infuriating due to this issue. I’ve never had to restart the application so many times. Multiple times per day. Sometimes multiple re-starts in an hour.
-
Symo, it can be a bit of a time saver if you go ahead and set up your first inserted fixture exactly how you want it; turned on, lit fog (or not) correct gobo, set intensity level, color, class, etc., and then duplicate it. At that point you only need move it into place and re-focus.
-
3
-
-
On 5/11/2018 at 2:00 PM, PVA - Jim said:
This bug, referenced in a few other threads here as well, has now been replicated simply and reliably in house. Fixing it has been given top priority by the rendering team.
So what happened to the “replicated simply abs reliably in house”? I haven’t seen this problem in a while but it has shown back up in the past few days causing multiple restarts. So very frustrating. I’ll try the arbitrary resetting of Custom Renderworks settings.
-
16 hours ago, frozenwaffles said:
@scottmoore can you explain your second thought about workflows? is this something i have to decide or the software developer???
That is actually a very loaded question. I try to minimize my usage of a lot of the functionality that Spotlight provides. That functionality is very useful and powerful, but it also is the major culprit in what slows the application down.
My priority, with my typical work load, is to spit out information as quickly and efficiently as possible while still maintaining a consistent look to my drawings. It is always a question of whether I want to follow the Spotlight process or use my personal workflows. That involves an entire library of custom symbols, a ton of unique saved views, design layers, sheet layers, etc. It’s just a question of how you want to work.
The VW world in general has decidedly opted for a “Spotlight-centric” workflow; basically using it as a plug-and-play solution. I suppose I am one of the dinosaurs that is marching to the beat of a different drummer. Where I really run into problems is when I have to start mixing the two workflows by either dragging in a Spotlight symbol or collaborating with someone outside of my workflow.
-
2
-
-
There is a reality that much of the way that Spotlight works is based on theater lighting design. This is a prime example. The way the label legend works is another. Nothing particularly wrong with that, but you have to decide if you are going to completely stay in the Spotlight mindset or move forward with workflows that are more suitable to one’s particular discipline.
-
I’ve not thought enough about this to really make a recommendation to the engineers, but perhaps when one checks a box, it should automatically highlight as well, assuming this is the next item you would want to modify. If you simply clicked on the item text and not the check mark it would highlight the selected item allowing for modifications as needed for any item.
-
Agreed on the falloff settings; both of which are mildly dismal.
I highly recommend setting up a new file and just spend a bit of time working with lighting. Keep the geometry simple so the renders don’t take forever. Experiment with floor surfaces you might want to use such as high gloss. Experiment with intensity, falloff (again...ugh, but you should know how those work and what effect to expect). Experiment with ambient lighting which often means turning it off but can sometimes be useful in a dark color and/or at low intensity to fill some shadows. Try gobos. Create your own gobos. Experiment with turning on reflections which dramatically increase rendering times but also increase realism. The more time you spend doing this, the more intuitive the process will become. It is very similar to theatrical lighting, but there are plenty of techniques to improve the look, reduce rendering times, etc.
-
1
-
-
As James said, raising intensity beyond 100% is often necessary. I’ve had plenty of instances where I was well above 300% for that matter.
Nice modeling by the way.
-
I generally use the interpolated surface for those kinds of “organic” 3D shapes. Sean O’Skea has a great YouTube tutorial for this.
-
I am not sure I follow Sam. DLVPs and SLVPs are not used exclusively. Often, they are used together.
-
I see. So still presenting paperwork of some sort. I do understand that process. That is my argument for using DLVPs; you only draw once and can present anything you want however you want. Thanks for responding. Much appreciated.
-
On 7/28/2019 at 6:01 PM, Sebastiaan said:
Draw it in 3D and present a font view of it on your sheet layer. Maybe OpenGL or hidden line if you need it to look more clear.
Use 3d labels or data tags if you need numbers in your plot.
I have not drawn a 2d plot in years. There is no need to anymore
I am curious as to how you present information to vendors without a plot. I can imagine a world where all we need is a 3D model, but thus far, I’ve not seen that workflow in actuality.
-
This is a great example of why lighting fixture symbols need at least a plan instance and a “yoked out” instance. I know it is too late to consider adding this to existing symbols, but perhaps moving forward? I do that with all my symbols and it’s not that time consuming.
-
Evan,
I’ve not yet viewed the tutorials, (I will at some point) but I would imagine they are stellar. For anyone that has limited or no experience direct modeling in 3D, I would HIGHLY recommend learning to do so and I can only imagine that Evan’s tutorials are fantastic as he is really quite talented. Having someone walk you through the process is typically a much quicker method to learn than figuring it out with a manual on your own.
-
1
-
-
Since the beginning of using 2019 I've had a recurring problem. I typically keep my navigation, visualization and resource palettes docked together on a second monitor. Occasionally on launching the program, the navigation palette will take up my entire window on whichever display I try to move it to. When I say the entire window, I mean all of it; to the point where I cannot even grab the vertical bars to resize it. I can drag the window to one side and see my other palettes, however, as soon as I let go of my mouse, it snaps back and takes up the entire screen, basically, rendering the application useless. I am on service Pack 3 on Mac os 10.12.6. Any thoughts?
-
On 7/12/2019 at 2:15 AM, Mauro Pujia said:
One thing to take into account:
I first put the focus point (in this case I used two) referenced to the original design, this way doesn't work. You must put the focus as if you were focusing the "DLVP Fixtures"
Mario,
For what it is worth, you should assign your focus points to the layer you normally use for these. There is nothing special about the DLVP when assigning focus points other than the points generally would NOT be on the DLVP layer.
-
1
-
-
The seating tool does allow for raking. I frankly don’t use the tool as I generally need something quite accurate and I find the tool gives me something “close” which leaves me spending far too much time adjusting parameters when I could have just drawn what I wanted. Someone else might be helpful with that tool.
For me, I would draw a simple polygon for each flooring level and then duplicate them in place. That way you can extrude one instance and leave the other for creating a hybrid symbol. Of course, you need to set your elevations correctly. Then add your seating symbols, move them to the correct elevation and you are done.
Once you get the hang of it, this kind of direct modeling is pretty simple and extremely worthwhile.
-
2
-
-
Seems like the question might be, what is it you are wanting to accomplish with your drawings? When I’ve encountered this in the past I’ve modeled the seats in the “out” position in one class and then “retracted” in another. Takes just a few minutes to do and would accomplish pretty much anything I would think you would need to do. Perhaps I am missing something?
-
When I was doing a lot of visualization, I created textures that were images of truss and applied those to simple pieces of geometry. Worked really well and put no strain on the processor. If I was doing something that used illuminates truss, I would light a piece of truss in VW, create a texture from that, apply the texture in the visualizer and then assign RGB illumination properties to it. Basically the piece of geometry lit up and it looked an awful lot like an illuminated truss and again, no draw on the processor.
Maybe that that could be of use to you?
-
2
-
-
My process is to 1) highlight, 2) check mark 3) make adjustments. The new numbering system works well, but I do miss being able to see everything I was doing at one time as we did previously.
The challenge for the developers is including all the all the various options for “numbering options” and “numbering directions” in the GUI. Some of those options are fairly wordy and require a lot of screen space. Not sure there is a good way to rectify that and still allow users to understand what they are trying to do and still include all that functionality.
One of these days days when I have time to stop and just work on VW skills I am going to integrate Joshua’s and Sam’s tools into my workflow. At this point that might have to be retirement though.....
-
1
-
-
That is good to know. Thank you sir.
-
Oh..... well that does sound tedious. Thank you Wesley.
On a similar topic, does one have to continually drag and snap Braceworks truss together to attain the BW functionality or can you duplicate by distance?
Why you no put chairs there?
in Entertainment
Posted
What Evan said. Then you know it’s right as opposed to assuming the tool did it right.
My experience is that seating is often just “another thing we do” in the design process. Once you get on site, it can often become “the most important thing” when either your drawing is wrong or the facility crew did not follow the plan. Once that happens, everyone starts asking questions when you have something more important to be doing. Spending a few minutes to get the drawing right can be crucial.