Andy Broomell

What sorts of things have occurred for you? (I should note that it's a bit more complicated with Solid Subtractions because you could inadvertently switch which object is being subtracted, based on the stacking order of the objects.... but I've never had an issue with Solid Additions).

In the meantime, a workaround you may be aware of is once you've added two solids together, you can double click to go inside the Solid Addition and just keep adding solid objects there. A single Solid Addition container can actually contain numerous objects that you can continue adding to. But I do see ways in which your wish is different...

I've had this happen to two files over the past year. In each case the file was just completely stuck in that view and there was nothing I could do about it, including completely restarting and even trying to open the file on other computers. It was simply screwed. Thankfully auto-backups came to the rescue, and I only lost a few minutes of work. Hopefully you're able to retrieve your work. The last resort would be starting a new file and importing your model via New Design Layer < Import [though you wouldn't be able to retrieve any Sheet Layer objects this way].

Thanks! Figures are all from renderpeople.com, which is a bit pricey but I like the results (plus I'm building up a library to use from show to show). One of the available formats is SketchUp which is easily imported into VW. You just have to make sure mesh smoothing is on, plus I do a bit more cleanup such as reducing the resolution of the texture to suit my needs. File size is around 350 mb, and maybe a quarter of that is the figures and their textures. Render time was maybe 2 hours? Can't remember exactly. Grass shader also added time. Final render is 16"x9" @ 300dpi with quality settings all Medium or High. Nothing set to Very High (I've never once needed Very high on anything). 3 bounces Indirect Lighting. Keep in mind I "work" at super low DPI and quality settings, and only pump it up at the last second. Yes, stone has bump and parallax on. I ended up adding some displacement mapping too in order to get the deformed edges. Uplights are .ies lights. Background is just a curved surface with a texture on it. In fact the real backdrop was from https://www.jcbackings.com/ There's a bit of post in Photoshop, but just accentuating what was already there: Hope this helps! Happy to answer more questions.

Here's the rendering I was working on when I made the above post. It's actually an older project I was touching up before adding the images to my portfolio, including adding the grass shader. I'm actually really happy with how the grass turned out, compared to how it looked before with just an image shader. Subtle but effective. http://www.andybroomell.com/#/hgn/

Now that you mention it, I do remember having issues with image-based transparency maps in the absence of an Image-based Color shader. Is there a technical reason square images are required in certain instances?

I'm trying to create an area rug based on a rectangular image, and I want to add the "grass" effect to it to add some realistic dimensionality. (I swear I remember seeing this done once with the Vectorworks logo, but can't seem to find that example.) My problem is that whenever I use an image in the grass shader, it "squishes" the image to be square. I don't see any documentation of this limitation in the Help files. So is this working as intended or a bug? Is it impossible to make a rectangular rug? The workaround of course is adding blank areas to either side of the source image to make it work out properly:

I didn't think there were built-in "Hide" and "Show Objects" commands within Vectorworks, at least not in recent years... I thought it was only done via a third-party plug-in/script? Or is there an international version that has these baked in? Because I don't see them in my program.

Same bug, yes. I assume those are Image Props?

@richardavatar - check under Document Settings whether you have "Cropped Perspective" on or off. The SpaceMouse does work in either method, but it's possible that if Cropped Perspective is turned on and you're accidentally zoomed into the crop box, everything will seem to be rotating around a point off screen. So uncheck the "Cropped Perspective" box if it is currently checked and see if that affects anything.

Bump. Strikethroughs are useful when you want to update information in a note, but still show what the previous information was.

Not currently, but I definitely think there should be!

I mentioned it previously in this thread, but I can now more confidently that every time the error occurs, Image Props still show up (without their texture) and still respond to Lights:

Just emailed you that file. Hope it helps!

I guess compared to the bug where viewports render as black a few times per hour, this bug is much more rare 😉 (at least it seems so when you're working in Vectorworks 60 hours/week, haha)