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Mattheng

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Everything posted by Mattheng

  1. Have noticed various people talking about SP2 for 2012. All my computers show SP1 and say that they are up to date when I check for updates. Am I going nuts?
  2. I have read all the info here and it all sounds good to the point where my site models are now not a complete mystery to me. However, I have read in a point cloud from a survey and cannot get the edges to go to new heights. ie I want to flatten a chunk right up to the edge but VW will only let me go to that infuriating couple of microns away which then leaves a weird spike where the edge of the site model is. Here are a 3D and 2D PDf to show what I mean. They are a bit small but I pushed the detail up so you can zoom in. Anyone know how to fix this?
  3. So, just to be pedantically clear, this will never work on a MacBook. That's disappointing... Apart from pressing return as mentioned above is there any setting you can tweak or other workaround that can get me out of this?
  4. Jeffrey, Thanks but I have done all those. Problems are: 1) The canned Renderworks presets are a good start but they need a lot of tweaking. In this particular case indirect lighting and anti aliasing grind to a halt on the complicated 3D objects I'm rendering so I use no bounces, minimal anti aliasing and crank up the environment lighting. 2) Can't use fast renderworks as I also have curved surfaces that require at least High on the Curved Geometry setting to look normal 3) I had no problem with the old lighting tool in 2010, 2011 etc with the solar animation to show the shadows. I have actually hit a bug with the Heliodon where I added seven or eight point lights and in Top/Plan view the screen just flashed and wouldn't let me select anything for a couple of minutes. Deleting the point lights removed this problem. Anyway. I digress. I'm doing a Move along path animation. Have done a few before, OpenGl is always quick but I have mirrors and OpenGl can't do them. This default lighting really ticks all the boxes, I'd love to know what it is.... Matt
  5. Is there a minimum screen resolution recommended to actually see all the controls?
  6. Tamsin, this is all about rendering speed. I am trying to create a quick animation and each of my environment lit renders was taking the best part of half an hour to finish. Looked great when they were done but would be practically useless for an animation so I was trying to get the best effect from a render that I could do in no more than 20 seconds. Turning off the HDRI lighting gave me this default lighting that took about 15 seconds to render. I have some very complex shapes in the render that mean that environment and indirect lighting take a very long time to render so I can't really use either. I will try that Glow texture idea though, it sounds pretty good. Against that I wasn't a massive fan of constant reflectivity in 2010, the shadows seemed to disappear but perhaps that's a small price to pay for speed. Thanks again, Matt
  7. I use several Macs to work on and one is a white MacBook. I had been working on an external monitor with a higher resolution than the screen on the MacBook. I had to unhitch the MacBook and work on the small screen. When I tried to put a wall into a model I noticed that I couldn't see the ok button at the bottom of the preferences panel (see below) I checked the screen resolution and it was at its max (1280 x 800) and the dock was hidden for maximum screen space (see below). I finished the work on a different Mac but is there no way you can see the bottom of the Wall preferences panel on a MacBook or am I missing something...?!? Matt
  8. That's a shame. works very well for a quick render.
  9. I just spent ages trying to get a file to run quickly without environment lighting but still show some texture. Environment Lighting is great but too slow. Had no luck at all, ambient just makes things brighter without adding definition and adding extra light sources starts slowing you down again. Catch 22. By mistake I turned all the lights off and the program seemed to default to some preset lighting that was perfect. Bright and with plenty of definition. Only problem is that it's nothing to do with me. What is this default lighting that you get and how can I duplicate it? Matt
  10. Ian, It's a MacBook Pro core 2 duo 2.33 ghz with 3 gb of Ram. 150 gb hard drive partitioned 50/50 for Mac OS 10.6.8 and Win XP SP3 32 bit. I have an external FireWire 400 500gb G tech hard drive that I use as a Time Machine backup and a 1Tb Western Digital Passport USB 2.0 hard drive that I have partitioned mainly as Mac journaled that I use for additional storage. I also have Fusion 3 for running Windows under Mac OS but it's too slow for words and MacDrive to enable me to read the Mac partition files when I am running under Boot Camp. Vectorworks 2012 SP1, Mac office 2004 and 2011 and Win office 2003. Struggling a bit with the screen dump under Windows but Win XP is definitely recognising both cores in the task manager. And I think that's about it. Matt
  11. To be clear it's 32 bit Windows XP SP3, Mac OS 10.6.8 (64 bit?) and both OS's recognise both cores. Thank you both but unfortunately, even though I have learnt a lot from your erudite answers, I still can't completely see why it's so slow and how to fix it. I have spent days updating all the drivers and it still runs like treacle. I feel like I'm going nuts... Matt
  12. Sorry, it's the rendering that is slow. Have checked all XP updates, Boot Camp drivers etc and Office runs as quickly as I'd expect. I really can't see why it's so slow on exactly the same computer...? Matt
  13. I do occasionally have to work in the perfidious world of Windows so I have XP SP3 on a boot camp partition when I do. I have Fusion but it runs like treacle so I never use it. I read reviews that windows on macs was one of the fastest experiences you could have in the wintel world. Well it doesn't seem to be the case with Vectorworks. I downloaded a Mac and a Windows version of 2012 so that I could continue working no matter which partition I was in and the Windows version is about 5X slower. Is this normal? Matt
  14. Anyone know what this means?
  15. Aha, it does work! Many thanks Tamsin et al! I just need to click and drag first and then press option/ALT. Weird, I could have sworn I had done that twenty times already. Obviously not. Looks like you only get one crack at the "hold down ALT and drag" option though. ie. If I draw a circle on a rectangular extrude and do not immediately push it down whist holding ALT to subtract it, I can't come back and do it in 5 minutes. Seems that then I have to do as suggested above as VW creates another extrude inside the rectangular extrude and you have to select both of them and subtract them. That does work but it seems a bit clunky... OK final question, does anyone know if there is supposed to be something in VW help on the Push/pPull tool explicitly? When I search for it it isn't there...? Thanks again, Matt
  16. Looks great but it doesn't seem to work. The intial Push/Pull to create the 3D Retangular extrude is fine. The automatic plane seems to then work fine to help me find the top and draw a circle on it. But then pressing option on my Mac just tries to pull me out of push/pull and start drawing another circle. And if I don't press ALT it just puts a solid cylinder inside the rectangular extrude, not subtracted from it Does anyone know how to make this work? Cheers, Matt
  17. I have been trying to get a decent selection of plants together for my renders. I looked at the Xfrog freebies but they just melted my computer when I tried to look at them in Vectorworks. So I scaled back my expectations and went to Google's 3D warehouse, downloaded a few from there and had a moderate amount of success. They weren't perfect but when it's free you can't really complain. All was fine until I downloaded a 3d Hydrangea that looked great but again the model slowed to a crawl. Can anyone tell me what a reasonable limit in terms of polygons/mb/whatever the relevant measurement is might be? Thanks . Matt
  18. Nil desperandum, the answer is do not use roads, nurbs, stake objects or polyLINES but use polyGONS. And just draw a line clicking on all points that you want shown and it works.... Oh and do not create a closed polygon or it still won't work... Matt
  19. Ok, desperation call here have a massive file with a DTM in it that I need several sections of by tomorrow. Only snag is that I want the heights given at irregular horizontal spacings. Tried Roadways, polylines, stake objects you name it, either it didn't work or it just gave regularly spaced station points which just won't cut it. Have done normal sections instead but they are causing massive headaches with precision and getting accurate measurements in by hand. Attached is a simple file with a Nurbs roadway where I would like the section with Stations where I would like to see the heights but I cannot make it work. Any ideas? Matt
  20. Ok THE ANSWER. VW checks for Default Content in three places and in the following order. Firstly in your USER folder which you can specify in Vectorworks>Preferences, Secondly in a series of Workgroup or Project files that you can rank in order of preference. Thirdly in the Vectorworks folder in your Applications directory (I'm on a Mac), You MUST have the following directory structure in the folder you nominate for either USER or Workgroup folder [Named top Level eg VW]/Libraries/Defaults/ or it won't work. At least it didn't on my computer I set up my Dropbox folder as a Workgroup folder (you select Dropbox/VW and the program then looks for /Libraries/Defaults underneath this. Don't select Dropbox/VW/Libraries/Defaults as the folder or it just sends help messages every time you log on) and it WORKS! Did try to set Dropbox up as my USER folder but VW "migrates" all content from the default location and I ended up having to reactivate the software and then restore from Time Machine. I'm sure it does work but it didn't for me. Matt
  21. What IS TA? And I mean what do the initials stand for not a primer in investment banking.
  22. Thanks. On the basis that you mean "Yes it does" instead of "Yes I know but I'm not telling you" I will be able to use my family pack disk (which I now wish I hadn't bought) forever. Cool. I kind of get the feeling that Apple is having a Vista moment with Lion and Snow leopard could be their XP...
  23. Farookey, What is a "Workgroup" folder? We are on a wireless network at two separate locations but have no server. What I would really like to know is the same as you, has anyone tried it and what are the issues, if any? Matt
  24. Bit more "general" than usual this one. I can't run Lion due to Office 2004 requirements and it requiring Rosetta (did buy office 2011 but it says my pages of VBA code are corrupt even though 2004 has no problem with them and was, if anything, even slower. Well done Microsoft) so asked if I could buy new kit with Snow Leopard installed. Short answer was no but, unbelievably, my local Apple representative informed me that Snow Leopard System disks don't require serial numbers to be entered so they can be used an unlimited amount of times...! Which makes me wonder, 1) why did they charge more for the 5 user "family pack"? 2) if it is really true. Anyone know?
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