TomWhiteLight

Just tagging in @Lightwright for this.

I find this method easiest.... Notice how the rotation values apply to the orientation of the fixtures. Rotate Truss.mp4

You could use the lighting pipe tool to act as a rigging object?

Hi Ron I am not sure if Educational users can download previous versions in the portal, If you contact tech support they may be able to help. The A3d plugin was developed by ETC, Have you contacted ETC for help? Have you tried importing the patch data as CSV or ASCI? Best wishes Tom W

Hi Anttti If you are coming at this from a scenic perspective you should look at twin motion as you can move and rotate objects add lighting and have characters moving along paths and routes. Getting a model into twin motion is easy and looks great. Is the previsualisation to create visuals to pitch and communicate ideas? Or is the Previsualisation purely technical and for you and the technical team to work things out? If the latter then Vision would be your ideal tool. Blender is free and is a great modeling tool but I would not recommend pre-vis with Blender. The answer is you will need to use Vision in conjunction with a lighting console if you wish to move Scenery. You cannot animate or drive scenery without a console telling a DMX address over ArtNet or SACN giving it values. You might be able to export cues and timings to the automated flying system as a text file (possibly ASCII if it is supported by the console but CSV would likely be more successful). Most consoles also support CSV export again this workflow is outside of Vision and would pertain to what console you were using.

So you need to select the geometry and define a DMX transform Address (X Y Z), You will likely find the answers within this forum. You probably want to make the scenery's home position (when exported) at the location in should exist on the stage then use the DMX transform mode to fly or truck the scenery out of the way, You can Revolve objects also. In Vision there is very little in terms of interface as you need a console to 'drive' the lighting and the DMX transforms over Artnet/Sacn Most of the Automated flying technology out there such as Nomad and Kinesys use their own unique control interface which is not compatible with Vision. You can use Vision to work out speeds and Trim/Dead heights but that information will need to be reprogrammed into the flying system.

I would recommend repairing your user folder, resetting your plug ins and in the resource manager refresh all libraries. See if that clears it.

OK so a wishlist for my design work would be.... 1. Ability to choose what view is shown within the legend (Front,Right,2D). 2. Ability to display any instrument data from the light info record into the legend (I am thinking about DMX footprint) 3. Greater freedom of text layouts (Would be great if it could be more like the edit title block layout dialogue) 4. Data Visualisation integration. It would be good to start to put together a wishlist of what you also think it should do?

Thanks Sam, I think we agree the instrument summary tool should be more flexible in its appearance.It would certainly be good to avoid the 'copied by hand' part.

This came up in tech support recently. the culprit was inadequate light info record data from the users own symbol collection. Some symbols had dropped the light info record or it had been inadvertently removed. so please contact tech support. interestingly @Sam Jones We have a number of users using the instrument summary tool to create the legend then they convert to group to then edit it to show the appearance they want. a good workaround if you don’t like what the instrument summary creates, you do unfortunately loose the connection with the inventory at the point. all the best tom w

I recently bug reported this, In document settings uncheck Save VGM Cache then restart Vectorworks and keep me posted. All the best Tom W

p.s. Instead of redrawing a viewport you could convert it to lines.

Have you contacted Tech Support? "We have tried section clip and can navigate with this way but as soon as we try to create a viewport of this the software crashes or freezes for hours with spinning balloon of death. It strikes us that vectorworks is just not suitable for large scale BIM projects and should remain a tool of the domestic architect. We have resigned ourselves to manually drawing all sections at all levels of detail, we're just disappointed with the reality of what is possible." Please contact tech support who can resolve your issue. Also please avoid derogatory and rude comments on a forum where people are just trying to help you. Lastly did you want to tell KBNK Architects that they are just a 'Domestic Architect' or should I? https://www.vectorworks.net/customer-showcase/a-telltale-introduction-to-open-bim

Ah with you. let me ask internally if not I will add it as a feature request.

OK so... The scale doesn't really matter aside from fitting it onto the sheet, you can adjust levels of detail via detail level but it depends on how the symbols were created. Planar objects apply if you have them in the model same goes for objects that are 2d. Render settings are personal to the type of appearance you are after. It's best to make loads of section viewports set to a small scale (1:100 - 1:200) and keep the DPI of the sheet low. Use this sheet as a test page to get the look you want before increasing the DPI for the final results. We keep the DPI low at first to see results quickly. I tend to not use extents settings as I have normally specified the extents with the final click of the create section viewport I very rarely (never) want the viewport to look beyond that. However it's really up to you and I design Lighting for Entertainment shows (not buildings). We have this training course on the University (service select content) which might help... https://university.vectorworks.net/mod/page/view.php?id=632 Best wishes Tom W

Also you might need Braceworks? for 'System Check'.

Yes, you are correct, select system objects only exists in the OIP. The main reason I suggested system check is because the system check will ascertain as to wether all of your connections are properly connected which is what I assumed you were using select system objects for? If this is not the case let me know what your end goal is and I can make some suggestions. All the best Tom W

Hi Hamilton. So the Lumion and Enscape Live Sync does not require anything to be re-drawn/rendered, You can apply different textures in lumion if you wish. Changes will track between the programs. Rendering improvements are definitely on our road map so watch this space. I take your point with regards to training. I can assure you that new content is being added to the Vectorworks University on a daily basis and the choice of content will only improve. With regards to Vectorworks UI/UX, you are witnessing years of developments and improvements, I understand it is complex compared to alternative modelling software but the bespoke toolsets and myriad of options allow so many different users to tailor their own individual workflows and not be restricted or constrained. Almost all of the settings in all of the dialogues can either be saved or pre-set and then save the file as a template.

HI Hamilton, there is a simpler way to create a section viewport, did you know that you can use the clip cube to create an instant section viewport? In terms of the settings, yes there are lots of options and some more advanced users have requested these options. Unfortunately the 0,0 point is important, not just in Vectorworks but the exactly the same origin issues exist in Sketchup, Autodesk products and pretty much any CAD software design program. Creating viewports is about quality. Your workspace DPI is 72 your sheet layer DPI can be literally as high as you want. If you exported views from within the design layer they can look fuzzy. You shouldn't need to manually update a viewport on a sheet except to clarify the end results. You can update all of your viewports on export through the publish menu. If you are looking for instant real time rendering have you tried any of our plug-ins with Lumion and Enscape? You should check them out!

Well, if using 2021 you could just type 'F' and then type 'sys' and it will come up in quick search and then hit enter. Or could customise your workspace and place it in the right click. It will be in the Braceworks Menu Commands. Let me know how you get on. All the best Tom W

This should help... https://university.vectorworks.net/mod/scorm/player.php?scoid=898&cm=1006&currentorg=articulate_rise

https://university.vectorworks.net/mod/scorm/player.php?a=449&currentorg=articulate_rise&scoid=898 Check out Marks amazing webinar!

Hi Monkeypuzzle I will let me colleagues respond about the non functioning gobo wheel and zoom functionality. I will share this link with them internally. Also I will add your DMX footprint (column) display feature request. The Vision.Lit file takes precedence over the GDTf file so when a GDTF is not present it should be using a Vision.Lit file. Right click on the selected fixtures to assign a GDTF mode. To make sure fixtures are using the correct GDTF fixture type you can right-click a fixture type in the scene graph and select update fixture, this will take you to the GDTF builder from within vision. Best wishes Tom W

Easiest would probably be a texture over a single extrude. The best way would be to import/draw a 2d line drawing, clip surface the shapes of the glass required and then select them all and extrude them (then rotate them 90 deg whilst in a left view to get them the right way up). Ungroup and apply coloured translucent textures. The second way would take awhile but would look the most realistic when backlit.

I have just bug reported this. Many thanks!