Bruce Kieffer

The drop down list when you control click on an object.

VW 2010... When control clicking an object, at the bottom of the list is a command titled "Blank item". What is that?

I made a new color palette. Now I want to add colors to that palette. Is there a simple way like drag and drop? Going through the Color Palette Manager is painful and slow. Lots of screens and clicking.

Jonathan, I will accept your offer. Can you do something for the group via Skype or iChat? It appears that it would be about midday your time.

I will be hosting a FREE user to user VectorWorks training session on Tuesday evening November 17, 7 pm to 9 pm, in Edina, MN. I will limit the attendees to the first ten people who RSVP. Reply to: bruce@kcfi.biz. Three presenters will offer their expertise in a certain area of VW. Each will speak for 20 minutes, and a 10 minute Q&A specific to the presenter's topic will follow. The remaining time will be spent on general Q&A, including suggestions for future training sessions. The topics for this first training session will be: Basic Drawing Setup, Solid Modeling, and Rendering. I will speak on Solid Modeling. Please offer your expertise if you can speak to the other topics.

That's the problem I'm having. Fortunately, I think it's only with one of my files.

I did go from VW 2008 to VW 2010.

It appears that layer linking is dropped from VW 2010. Is this good or bad? The VW help says you can add it back in a workspace, but it also suggests other options. I'm curious how you have dealt with this change.

I called tech support on this today. The answer is the drawing info for layer and object quantities is gone from the About VW splash screen. You can get the object quanity by doing a Tool/Custom Selection of all objects. To get the layer quantity, you have to count them in the organization window. Not a big deal.

Is there a new place in 2010 to find the document info like was in the splash screen of previous versions?

That was fast! I found it. If you don't know about this, it's under the Tools menu, Organization, click the "references" tab, and do one of the listed operations.

How does one go about removing referenced files?

Thanks for the info. I have VW 2010 arriving tomorrow. Will install that on my iMac. Seriously considering selling my PowerBook G4. I have very little space left on the HD for a VW 2009 install, so I may hold off a bit.

I know this installation is not recommended, but does VW 2009 work on a G4?

Yes and no. It's cool that Shift-Command-Arrow moves an object one grid increment, something I never used before, but will in the future. I grab and drag objects, that's what I'm use to doing.

Sorry to jump in here late, but I can't move a complex object and keep it on the grid without turning off snap to object. Disabling smart points does not help. My solutions have been to turn off snap to object while moving those objects, or make the move by entering data in the floating data field, or use the move command, which I dislike because I can never remember which way the object will move based on + or - entries. Any other options you can think of?

Grant, I tried turning off the reflections in the renderer too. Problem there is that other objects in my scene need that on. I also messed with the shader vs. render reflections, that's something I need to keep in mind in the future. I think I have my rendering of my drawing as good as it's going to get for now. Thanks.

Ahh! So why are the lines in the design layer purple and blue, and in the sheet layer they are black?

Bill, I finally got mine to look like yours! Unfortunately, I can't say for sure what I changed??? Thanks for all of your help. I'm sure we will visit this subject more in the future. I never knew VW had "Cabinets," but I do now! I have a few questions about your work: 1) The class pen and fill colors you use, are they personal choices, or do they have some significance? 2) Your countertop is a floor. Why is that?

Bill, I must have something set different in my VW prefs. I open your file and update the VP and I get something different than you do. Please look at the attached PDF.

Bill, I can't seem to get my file to render like yours using your Background-43. My file is attached. Please look at it and see if you can tell what is missing. Thanks.

billthea, I just tried your setting suggestions. I had most settings already set as you suggested. My ambient light was at 10%. No significant difference from what my last PDF looks like except a shade darker.

billthea, I switched to rendering as FInal Quality Renderworks, and that solved most the problems. I will try your custom settings too. The resources and HDRI backgrounds you and others have suggested have helped a lot. I attached a PDF of my rendered kitchenette.

Can someone please change the length of a day to 26 hours? I need more time to learn about RW lighting! I'm trying to understand why my scene gets darker when I add lights? It's kind of like what happens when I add light to a photographic scene. There too the scene gets darker. I understand that's a function of the camera trying to balance the overall light. In my VW file I have the lighting background set with a HDRI background, and one directional light. I'm rendering Fast Radiosity. Increasing the ambient light and/or adding other lights only darkens the rendered image. What else can I try?

Is there a RW lighting tutorial available?