michaelk

Matt How many scenes? What are the fade and hold times? Michael

Buzz I see. Cool idea. I usually break trusses down so I can specifiy that a unit is to be hung on the upstage or downstage side of a truss. (Or top or bottom of a truss) 1. Don't change it to a Lighting Position. a. Draw a 2d line and a 3d pipe or extruded line for each of the truss' "pipes". (4 for a box trus, 3 for a triangular truss) b. Group each set of 2d/3d objects. c. Make that group a lighting position. d. Give each one a height. Each one will live "inside the truss tube". e. So each box truss will have 4 hanging positions. Each triangular truss will have 3 hanging positions. Now you can leave the truss as a truss object and still have lighting positions that can be labeled as that truss. 2. I've never tried making a spreadsheet from a truss OIP. Good luck.

The truss and the hanging position don't need to be the same object. You can create a 2d/3d hybrd object for hanging positions on each truss run and use those to help generate paper work. For example you can have a lower downstage, lower upstage, high downstage and high upstage hanging position for each truss. Then the truss can stay a truss. Does that make any sense? Michael K

Thanks Kevin I've always wondered about that. Just curious: Why doesn't that data show up outside the edit mode? Like in the Object Info Pallet? Michael

Kevin This is something I've never understood. Where is actual record for a particular instrument? I can find the record format, but not the actual data that Eric was looking for. Thanks Michael

Very interesting. If you look in the data tab of the OIP, the only data in any of the fields is Device Type: Light Beam Angle: 0.0? Field Angle: 0.0? All others are blank. Even though the correct wattage, frame size, beam angle, and field angle appear in the Shape Tab. I think Eric is looking for the "Candlepower" (same as peak candela?) of an instrument. If I remember, the formula is footcandles = Candlepower/distance squared. So you could figure it out the old fashioned way. But I seem to remember that on symbols I created myself all the correct information stays in the Data Tab. Am I just dreaming that? I just tried to compare the photometric performance of an instrument in Spotlight against the information in in my very dog-eared copy of Mumm's Photometric Handbook. (Found an old Field Template in the book!) I compared a S4 36?. The field angles agreed to within 5/8" (for a 10" throw distance), but the footcandles at a given distance are way off. For any given distance they show a value only 81% what Mumm says it should be. But the Altman 360Q was dead on. So was the Altman Shakespeare. Could be the vagueries of which flavor of HPL 575 was used for the calculations. Hope that helps. But I also wonder where the data went. Michael

Gary I often have a problem with Lable Legend fields locking up and not repositioning. I especially have problems if I go back to edit the plot and add a field to the Lable Legend, say after the show has been circuited and I want to add patch information. Somewhere between the Lable Legend and the Editible Worksheet very bad things happen. The only way out that I've found is to delete the Lable Legend, create a new Lable Legend, and assign it to all the instruments. btw: There has been a really wild discussion about Lable Legend problems on the VW Theatre Discussion List. MK

Thanks Andrew. That is going to save me HOURS. Michael

This is probably really stupid and obvious, but... Is there a way to set the viewports so they don't need to be updated every time I close and reopen a document? The rendering time is no fun. Thanks Michael 12.5 Designer Mac PowerBook G4, 10.4.9

Chris I just got it to work. How did you build your cyc? Michael

You can't shoot sideways or up with an instrument. You can work around it if you use the light tool to create a directional light with the same beam and field angles as the instrument you want to use. The directional light will focus in any direction. You can approximate a color, but it won't take a gel color.

Ken I can tell you how I've done it in the past. It sounds weird, but I put everything on one layer. (Or create a new layer that will have all the perment elements like stage, seats, masking, etc. linked to it.) I make everything, including the flats, 3D or hybrid symbols. (make the hinges of the flats be the insertion point. They can have the same xy coorinate position and you can easily change the rotation) Then I make a class for every scene. I always use numbers first ie 01 Pre Show 02 Act 1 Scn 1 etc. It's easy to keep them in order that way, and easier to insert scenes later. Then set all the scene classes to invisible. I keep the stage, theatre, seats, whatever else in a class that is set to visible. (Like None. This is almost the only time I use a lot of different classes.) Then I got to the first scene class, ie. 01 Pre Show, place the furniture and scenery symbols. I select all the pieces that don't move in the next scene, dupilcate them into the next class, go to that class, add the elements that have moved, etc, etc. It makes it easy to move the views around because there is only one layer to deal with. And you can flip through the scenes really quickly by using the keyboard shortcut to go to the next class. It does mean that you will have the same chair drawn as many times as you have scenes, but if the chair is a symbol it's easy to modify it, and the files don't get that huge. Hope that makes sense. MK

Still stuck in the same airport........ Maybe it's not the label legend manager: I duplicated the document and, on the copy, tried the following: 1. deleted the lable legend 2. created a new lable legend 3. assigned it to all the instruments They refreshed without any prompting or encouragement, and the dimmer field appeared as it should in the units where I had entered dimmer numbers. Still had the same problem in the editable worksheet, however. I tried to create a new editable worksheet by moving all the fields out except for the channel. It wouldn't let me creat the worksheet with only the channel field. I had to move another field (position) into the worksheet, tell it to sort by position, move the position out, tell it to sort by channel and then it created a work sheet with only the channel field. Channel 1 didn't appear first, it thought it was channel 117. The rest of the channels seemed to appear in that crazy alphabetical order. Then I deleted that worksheet, and created another, more useful, worksheet. And presto.... all seems right in the world. I seem to recall having this problem off and on since forever, or Version 9, whichever came last. Any ideas? michaelk VW 12.5, PowerBook G4

I've had this problem before, but today I'm stuck in an airport and I have time write about it. The show is open, I'm updating the plot to make it an "As Hung" document. I would like to add Dimmer to the Label Legend. It previously was not included in the lable legend. It won't appear. I've tried: refreshing the instrument, giving the dimmer text field a color, making the font size 36, quitting and restarting.... nothing. I get a handle where I placed the dimmer field in the lable legend manager, but no information appears. In the past I've deleted the lable, made a new one and assigned it to all the instruments. For some reason, this time I decided to create an editable worksheet first and enter the dimmer numbers before going back to fix the lable legend. And this is where I noticed the wierdness: In the editable worksheed, the CHANNEL column doesn't appear. In the column headed DIMMER are all the channel numbers EXCEPT for the units where I had entered a dimmer number. In those units the dimmer number appears, but in the correct alt-chan order. So the first column in the editable work sheet listed the channels in their alt-chan order under the DIMMER column (It did not list a CHANNEL column) as 117 2 3 4 etc 117 is the dimmer in channel 1 that I entered while trying to fix the lable legend. In the drawing, that unit still has "1" in the channel field and a blank space with a handle in the dimmer field. In the object info pallet, all the information is correct and in the correct field. Is this a bug? Is there something about the lable legend manager that I'm messing up? Thanks michaelk VW12.5 Designer, Powerbook G4

Very cool. How and when does the background get generated? My Renderworks Background folder had 6 unnamed lit fogs. Is there a way to control which fog is assigned to which instrument (or drawing level)?

I can't find it in Help or in the manual.... Is it a type of background?

Anyone figure out how to adjust the denisty of the lit fog in 12.5? I've looked up old posts for versions, so I know the fog density is set by layer, but I can't find any way to adjust it. VW Designer 12.5 G4 Power Book MK

Move the instrument layer above the position layer in the layer stack. Or, if you have them in the same layer, select the pipes and "Send to Back"

I just updated from 12 to 12.5. Has anyone else noticed that the keyboard shortcuts for layer and class views are gone? Is there a way to get them back? mk VW 12.5 Desiger PowerBook G4

Klinzey Does the Class A/Class B technique screw up the paperwork? ie, does it double the number of units on a boom in the Channel Hookup or Instrument Schedule? michaelk

I made one I can send you. Can we attach files here? Too bad Rosco doesn't put one on their website. michaelk

Thanks, Kevin! I'll try that. Is there a way to change it now, or do I have to start over creating the symbols? michaelk VW10.5 Mac OS 10.3.9

I've finally gotten efficient at creating new instruments, (for which symbols don't exist) and getting the beam and photometric info into it. But here's a weird thing: If I create a new instrument, i.e. a Strand 2216 or 6x16, it works great until I tell it to draw the beam. When I draw the beam the Instrument Type switches from "Strand 6x16" to "Light". Sometimes it will let me change it back in the Object Info pallet, but most of the time I can only change it back by creating an Editable Worksheet. Even then it will switch to "Light" again if I draw the beam. michaelk VW 10.5 Mac OS 10.3.9

I'd also like to know if you can choose which instrument symbol is used in the Active Label Legend. Sometimes is chooses a reasonable fixture, but sometimes it chooses the symbol for a practical or an inkie.

I'd like to add an item to the Spotlight wish list: There is no good way to handle units that have more than one control channel. For example, when you use the symbol for a High End Systems AF1000 DataFlash you can give it a channel and dimmer for the first control channel (Intensity), but the only way I can figure out to make the Duration and Rate appear in the hook up is to create accessories called Duration and Rate whose symbols are just 2D short lines or small circles so they can be hidden on the DataFlash symbol. Has anyone else found a better way?