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scottmoore

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Posts posted by scottmoore

  1. Another option is getting a silhouette online and import the image. Enact the trace bitmap tool, clean up the resulting geometry. Add a fill and then extrude by an 1” or so. Don’t forget to rotate them upright and set their feet at Z=0. The advantage is it will show up correctly regardless of rendering type. 
     

    bonus points by assigning the piece of extrusion to a class and set their fill color and texture by class. You can add some text or 2D geometry in plan view and then turn all that into a hybrid symbol. Now you can change the appearance of all your little silhouette people in one step by changing the class texture/color. Want them to be semi transparent? No problem. Want them to be blue?  Easy. Want them to glow?  Why not.  Want them to appear to be on fire?  Ok, but why?  

  2. On 10/5/2021 at 3:26 PM, Ghost Design Firm said:

    Thank you, I applied a texture as you suggested and that will get my by for now. 

     

    So if im understanding correctly, there is no way to actually project anything on the led panel symbols at this time? The reason I'm looking outside the LED Tool is because I am working on a few panel designs that don't have standard aspect ratios. 

    I often use my symbols and then add a piece of geometry in front for the image. 
     

    I am curious about your comment though. The LED tool is kind of ideal for custom aspect ratios. Just type in what you need. You can use the actual tile sizes or just make the display one big tile. 
     

    Is the issue a custom shape or perhaps curved?  

    • Like 1
  3. The advantage to Spotlight fixtures is you can focus them in the software. I am pretty sure that you cannot use ies files as a light source but may be wrong. You can define the parameters of the light object (beam, field, maximum intensity) however.  There is a new (2021) focus tool that would be really helpful for this. 
     

    Creating those symbols is a bit of a process but there are some tutorials regarding that. Lots of steps to follow. 

    • Like 1
  4. It depends on how many projects I am working on simultaneously!  I voted 3-5.
     

    Also, I try to get in the habit of creating new symbols in a blank file, then saving that to my symbol file and then importing into a project file. The blank file helps avoid mistakes and placing the new symbol into the symbol file seems to be a good workflow to avoid frustration later on. 
     

    Sometimes I have to open a reference file to make an update but not often. 

  5. 43 minutes ago, Safak Sari said:

    Hi everyone. We downloaded all backline files, 2020 version. But the file doesn't work in student version?  How can i solve this issue. Who can help me to solve.

     

    Thank you.

    Actually, when you say it doesn’t work, what about it doesn’t work?  Can you not open the file?  Will the symbols not import into a drawing?  Note that the symbols are located in a folder in the Resource Manager.   I’ve had several users that were concerned when the symbols did not simply populate the file when opened. 
     

    Let me know if this solved the issue for you. Otherwise, this will give me more information to try and track down a solution. 

  6. 36 minutes ago, Safak Sari said:

    Hi everyone. We downloaded all backline files, 2020 version. But the file doesn't work in student version?  How can i solve this issue. Who can help me to solve.

     

    Thank you.

    Actually, I have no idea. These are basic symbols with no plug-in functionality whatsoever. I’ll check with service select and see if they have any suggestions. 

  7. It sounds like textures would be the solution to most of this. Textures are simple to create and allow for a ton of flexibility. Client decides to change that shade of green? Just edit your texture. Otherwise you have to go to every wall using that color and change the fill (not cool). You could even go to the point of creating textures for each room. For instance “living room standard” “living room accent”. Even if all those colors are originally identical, (simply duplicate your textures) it would allow you to go back and change things really quickly if needed by editing the correct texture. If you decide later to add a bit of physical texture to your walls, again, this is as simple as editing your RW texture with either the image of some texture or a physical bump shader. Add some sheen for the client who insists on a semi-gloss wall?  No problem. 
     

    Textures can also be used for multi-colored walls. Draw out your to-scale pattern with simple polygons, colorize as necessary, take a screen shot and create your texture. (Make sure to set your texture size correctly) The only caveat is mapping it correctly to the wall. VWX can be tedious in that regard. 

  8. 20 hours ago, Jeremy Best said:

    I've not received any reports of this from users in our market, which makes me wonder - as you are a longterm user - if your Vectorworks preference files or workspace has become corrupt. A clean installation excluding your Vectorworks User Folder would be an appropriate step. 

     

    If these issues are not common to most users, but affect you after a clean installation of Vectorworks (that excludes any of your customised data/settings) then the other variable to consider is the operating system. Many CAD administrators reinstall not just Vectorworks but the operating system annually to minimise the incidence of data corruption that can cause or contribute to oddities or problems. 

    That is a good point and worth considering. That said, there have been a considerable number of people reporting render cache issues for several years now (which seems to have improved perhaps?) and certainly texture issues. 

  9. On 8/18/2021 at 12:04 PM, Andy Broomell said:


    Simply adding a Light and switching it Off can also accomplish this. 
     

    Hopefully in the future Vectorworks will give us more transparent control over the Default Light.

     

    i.e. being able to turn it off even when there aren’t lights, and turning it on even when there are. 

    Copy that. I think at one point that was not the case so the aforementioned black light has been my go to for a long time. 

  10. I would think so. It’s not at all difficult, and I highly recommend adding various types of ambient light to your drawing template. You might have to adjust the Z coordinate per design, but otherwise it will be quite useful and become part of your workflow since you will always know on what class/layer these are located.  If your ambient lights receive color by class it becomes very quick to adjust overall ambient light color and intensity via the class color. 
     

    I also include a “black light” object on its own class which is basically an ambient light turned down to 1% and colored dark gray. Turning this on allows me to “fool” VWX so the app will turn off the global illumination. This is crucial when lighting a scene with nothing but textures. 

    • Like 2
  11. Oh I knew exactly what you meant by “render buckets” but did not know that was the term. Cool. 
     

    My comment regarding the dpi of the design layer (I believe mine is defaulted to 72 dpi) is that the resolution of a render on the design layer at 72dpi is far greater than a render bitmap at 72dpi. This makes render bitmaps even less appealing to me. 

  12. 12 hours ago, markdd said:

    Completely agree. If the render bitmap tool could be modernised so that it displayed the render buckets as they are created rather having to wait for the complete render, that would be a big step forward. 

    That is true.  By the way, is "render buckets" the actual term for that?? 🙂

     

      I've never entirely understood the DPI settings of the design layer.  I believe it defaults to 72 dpi but is also impacted by the display upon which you work.  The end result is that a final quality render on the design layer is typically quicker and infinitely better resolution than a 72 dpi render bitmap.  I typically have to use render bitmaps at 150 dpi which take far longer and still do not look nearly as good.  The only way to get a render bitmap to look anywhere near as good as final quality on the design layer would take forever.  

     

    Just a personal note on my process:  I have the standard keyboard shortcuts for OpenGL and Final Quality Renderworks.  I also have a keyboard shortcut for Custom Renderworks.  I completely understand that Final Quality is not ideal but it is a quick way for me to toggle between low quality and high quality renderworks (custom set to lower quality and final quality) while drawing.  I always output with custom renderworks.  

     

    I should also add that for the longest time (a long time ago), my output renders were just screen grabs of design layer renderings before I understood the SLVP method and never had any issues with it.  Seems like the render cache issue was the first bug but it has since become worse and worse.  

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