Ross Harris
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Posts posted by Ross Harris
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2 hours ago, ParkerJames said:
What issues are you finding with structural members? I find it perfectly acceptable
The fact it took 7 years for it to get any attention to fix bugs and give it some basic usability fixes-its basically the poster child for new features being unfinished on release and left to rot.
It's like a lot of tools - siloed. It doesn't interact with any other function (grids for example), you can't attach baseplates, end plates, splices or stiffeners to them. Basically the only benefit over solid modelling is that it gives you a (now fixed for beams) too plan fill and some ifc. Other than that, pretty useless.
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53 minutes ago, MaWi said:
Many users of other BIM authoring tools are still waiting for the correct wall component insertion in the lintel area of windows. We have this feature thanks to the (first part) of the wall reengineering.
I'd prefer stacking, tapered and slanting walls over closures. Those three items are what I've seen mostly requested on the forum over the years. In Revit. The closre is mostly backed into the window/door family and are infinitely more flexible. Dunno about archicad - been years since I've used that.
1 hour ago, MaWi said:For me it works well....attached a short video. Which function do you miss?
I should have said a wall intersection on a corner... I certainly can't move these. You need the T join tool to join them.
I really love Vectorworks, and I have love/hate relationship with Revit, but when you fork out for a sub, you need to see some bang for buck and VW2025 is pretty underwhelming.
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Walls are a bit janky in the joining side of things... Try rearranging a T junctionby dragging walls; you can't unless you disconnect a wall first, then have to use a tool to reconnect them if they misbehave when trying to drag the end to rejoin. In going back to revit, you can move any wall and any junction with out it either breaking or having to dismantle the junction, which I had totally forgotten about... And is just how you expect a modern BIM app to work. Added bonus are helper dimensions that pop up (which you can turn into an actual dimension) when you select a wall so you can punch in a dimension without having to put a dimension in place.
With all the 'wall reengineering'thats been done all we have to show for it is two iterations of wall closures....
The big problem is that new features or enhancements get 90% to being awesome... And are totally forgotten. Looking at you structural member..
There doesn't seem to be a big picture vision for usability and consistancy - development seems very siloed.
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And the kicker is you can make this stuff, but in VW it's all a one trick pony... I make an object in Revit, I can make it parametric, so I can reuse things multiple times across different procjects.
As this post abely demonstrates it's utterly confusing have now have 2d geometry cutting objects.
I've mentioned in other posts that to 'design without limits' there needs to be an environment like the Revit family editor where we can make our own things and have them be parametric so we don't have to rely on the limitations of a tool and mind numbing dialog box based creation that needs to be 'ok'd to see if it's right, be forced to use multiple tools on one thing to make something we want or continually model one-off stuff because what we have previously modelled isn't quite right for a different project... Each time I mention it a VWer will extol the pitfalls of such an environment and that it's 'not where they are heading'. Revit's family editor is extremely liberating .. the only pitfall I've encountered is the time to make something parametric, but that's time you make back in spades by not have to continually model these things.
To do something like the ceiling in that original post - in Revit you'd use a slab topping and a beam system under it with a profile family (tha can also be fully parametric should you want to change the beam size) to include the small recess in the centre of each rib - no faffing about with cutting or voiding out a slab. And it will remail fully tweakable should changes crop up (and they usually do). Can't do that in VW without practically starting again...
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On 12/31/2024 at 1:02 PM, ParkerJames said:
this is a good chore for coders to tackle
The issue I have with VW is that the people who helm the features that direct the coders often completely miss basic/logical functionality, make it convoluted, or just make another tool to make the tool do something the tool should do. Just count how many tools there are to modify walls!
2d geometry for making holes - the 'countertop method'. The problem with this is that it cuts a hole right through the object and wouldn't work for something like the image in the original post. The 2d cutting geometry would need to have some kind of depth of cut control, which could create a number of issues to make work right. The implementation in countertops is almost spot on.. it just needs an offset parameter to adjust the position of things like undermount sinks or drain grooves without having to go into the symbol to modify it relative to the insertion point- a logical function and far more user friendly parameter than the only current option of potentially stuffing up a symbol. To make things utterly confusing the groundwork was never laid to rename the cutting functionality of the 2d polygons... Who would think a sink has to be set to 'insert in walls' to cut the countertop!
What needs to happen is something like Revit's void object that can be nested in a family that will cut things when inserted. Revit has a whacky implementation to get the void to actually cut,or you can set a default parameter to 'cut with voids when loaded'. VW are so close with the 'wall hole component' in that there should be some way to make a void symbol to create that waffle type pattern like that ceiling non destructivly, or an option to have an object have a void type capability, like the polystyrene pods used in on ground waffle slabs, a flush pull recessed into a door leaf, recessed lighting, skylights, etc... All without having to add an additional bit of geometry... But also leaving the ability to add cutting geometry if a particular hole shape was needed. The major achilles heel here is 'wall hole objects' are limited to a small number of elements and to make them work is destructive.
Hopefully this is what the 'openings' feature in the roadmap entails... But that's only for slabs and walls....which would be very shortsighted for the potential uses this can have for roofs and other objects like door leaves, solid modelled objects, etc, etc.
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Look into Enscape if you machine meets the specs for the Mac version. Far superior renderings and visualisation in real time. A sub will pay for itself in the time your machine is tied up waiting for renderworks to churn through it - it also won't bat an eyelid at rendering with shadows and texturing modelled perforated panelling. The attached was a quick'n'dirty render to check how it would render out - it has a fully modelled perforated facade. Enscape didn't break a sweat navigating the model, rendering (generated an image in less than 30 secs) or exporting a hd video of the project that was shown at a Krah conference.
Enscape is also awesome for client presentations -as it's real time, it looks way better than VW ever will. Plus, the new AI enhancer is actually useful for static renders.
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Your 'slab' would need to be a countertop for this to work. It's not good practice to use objects like a countertop for a slab - you'll end up with all sorts of issues with wall/floor interactions, ifc etc. Tom's solution is the best at present, but there is a hope that the functionality of the countertop/hole cutting geometry is proliferated throughout the program.
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You couldn't pay me to waste time waiting for the offline renderer in vectorworks... I highly recommend enscape, as it has the unique ability to put its assets in the VW model - so when you open enscape, everything is there - almost gives you the feeling of not leaving vectorworks... Plus there new ai enhancer is actually darn good.
Twinmotion is also awesome and free - the attached pic is a Twinmotion render.
Enscape and Twinmotion have learning curves, but the near instant results and image quality are 1000% worth it IMHO.
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8 hours ago, homero said:
This forum has saved my sanity, but I'm starting to gravitate to getting a PC and Revit as I'm finding comfort in numbers here in the US.
There's pros and cons to both, but certainly the community here is exceptional - I'm deeply indebted to it! I've not found anything close on the Autodesk side of things.
I'm using Revit now for commercial/industrial projects for the simple reason it's far easier here to collaborate seamlessly with structural and services engineers (electrical, mep, fire suppression) via BIM Collaborate Pro, but it's a love/hate relationship. I'm hopeful that the recent announcement that Nemetschek have an agreement with Autodesk to gain access to construction cloud for easier collaboration with Revit based collaborators will actually come to fruition and work like it should. Won't hold my breath tho...
Now, I mainly use Vectorworks for residential stuff because the visual output is much nicer and easier to achieve in my opinion, and modelling components, assemblies and claddings is so very much easier, rendering nicely in Escape or Twinmotion - which seems to have more impact to that area of clientele. Site modelling is also a cut above - I have to shell out for the Environment plugin for Revit to get anywhere near close. VW is also good as a solid modeller for Revit content or components that don't need to be parametric - Revit has some significant modelling shortcomings and is a beast that constantly needs feeding with 3d objects and families - these can absorb a significant amount of time - both in looking for the right family or making them.
Both softwares have steep learning curves - just consider what's important to you and your output rather than it being a join the masses decision.
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Hi Cristiano
I'll run through how I have set up my workgroups:
- First I set up a folder in Dropbox creatively named 'Vectorworks' and make another one called 'Workgroup 2025'
- Open Vectorworks and in Tools>Options>Preferences>User Folders and click 'Add' and browse to your your new workgroup folder location and click 'Select Folder'.
- Vectorworks will populate the folder with a file structure the resource manager can read and add additional folders for plug ins and workspaces
- You can move files to this new set of folders like library files (I put mine in 'Favorites'), custom door hardware files, wall style files etc into their relevant folders - this way the RM will see these files in style pickers and other dialogs.
- You just need to point your other computer to this cloud folder and you will now have fully synced libraries, templates and workspaces across machines.
For interoperability between PC's and Mac's I would have separate workspaces and have a good font substitution table in play - fonts are the biggest cross platform issue I struck when I had a Macbook Pro and a desktop PC.
Workgroups are also easy to migrate with the migration manager when it comes time to jump to the next version.
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I reported this bug (others probably did too). I believe the fix is coming in update 3. In the meantime, you can roll back to update 1 and published pdfs will open in acrobat as expected.
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@benkrall.art good that it's working. I seem to recall that the redshift issue was resolved with the subsequent updates. I'm on a PC, so have not had any issues - haven't had a Mac for some time now.
I can confirm that the Au/NZ tech support is also top notch 👍
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@benkrall.art have you tried downloading a fresh installer with update 2 from the customer portal and reinstalling after a full uninstall and manually deleting any folders that might be left behind?
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It seems really unusual to have a A:/ path to the faulting modules... (back in the day A:/ was reserved for the floppy drive) Windows expects programs to be on the C drive - are you pointing the installer to a different location other than C? If so try the installer again but use the default install location to the C drive. Also don't set up custom folders on the C drive for the installer either - just let it installer do its thing and should install the main program directory to C:\program files\vectorworks 2025.
It's possible executable file (what the vectorworks icon activates) is looking for files in the above location and can't find them.
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I'd highly recommend a class based workflow - the layer stacking order visibility issues with layers can create a number of problems when trying to create a top down view order for objects on site plans. Plus,classes give you so much more granularity for visibility options.
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I believe the OP is wanting one of these as a PIO.
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Try workgroups - set up a workgroup in your cloud service of choice and put your workspace file in the workspace folder the workgroup will generate.
This may only work in 2025... I think VW2024 copies a workgroup workspace to the user folder, this stopping its ability to sync - I could be wrong!
Workgroups rock for syncing your library/favorites files as well and have added benefit of not being uninstalled if you ever need to uninstall VW.
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Its painfully slow - and why on earth are there all these fonts with @ in front of them to have to scroll past??? No other application has this mess.
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Revit has done this sorta thing with sheets (sheet layers in VW parlance) withthe new collections feature - its very cool and it lets you have the same sheet numbering, so you don't have to uniquely number sheets when in collections. they've also tabbed their 'OIP' the Project Browser whcih is pretty cool also.
This sort of thing for layers and sheet layers would be awesome.
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Set up a title block class and sub class you logos under that. Add you logos to your title block symbol and class them accordingly, so you only need one titleblock. Works great as I have a similar scenario.
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Take VW's system requirements with caution... They relate to vectorworks only and don't factor anything else in your workflow that may suck up ram with VW open and actively used - browsers, acrobat, twinmotion, etc.I'd take a system recommendation and double it.
Go big with ram. It's never wasted; unfortunately with apple. Ram and hard drive size is a rort.
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I think talking about ZH workflows is going way off beam. What we want is a tool that is easy to use and gives an array of useful features and stair types. Currently it's like getting a tooth pulled. I know designers who still use the simple stair tool because it's quicker to iterate with.
Vectorworks are seemingly sticking with a dialog heavy process for just about everything and it's a massive overhead of tweaking settings,OKing them, tweaking again, rinse, repeat ad infinitum... until it errors out. What we need is something like revits family editor where we can make a parametric thing or bricscads parameterize function to make a 3d model parametric. No tool is ever going to be truly flexible to suit every situation, so there needs to be a solution. Making dumb solid models is not it in 2024. Hence why ZH likely use revit - they can take something created in maya or rhino (rhino inside?) and make it parametric so the design can be iterated with out having to endlessly model/remodel stuff. They probably have a basement full of people and budget that just feed that machine ‐ I'd wager not many of us here do not and can't justify a day on a handrail in a project. We just want tools that feel like they were designed for designers not how developers think. There are something like 4 or 5 tools just to do things to walls. How inefficient is that? It seems to be the VW mantra 'we'll just make another tool!` Like i said, the roadmap is packed with spotlight and landmark features and enhancements... not much for the arch tools.
V-Ray also works in revit asa plugin, and revit between maya, so I believe there is a reasonable amount of interoperability in their softwares.
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Safe to say nope. Looking at the road map, you can count the things on there on one hand that relate to architecture. It's mostly Spotlight followed by landmark features.
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How could I forget materials! Another feature half baked on release with promised development left to rot.. Which I was reminded of after a user got a smacked hand in the ai visualiser forum for daring to question it's existence in lieu of... Actual enhancements to neglected tools.
Dev time wasted in an ai visualiser... A curiosity... In lieu of actual enhancements. No doubt this tool will also suffer the same fate as others...
Marionette - let's reinvent the wheel! There was lots of big talk on collaboration with other vendors and being ahem... 'open'... Grasshopper and Rhino? No? OK!
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More photo realistic renders
in General Discussion
Posted
Truer words cannot be said. So many people expect a rendering package to be a magic wand of some kind...