Ross Harris
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Posts posted by Ross Harris
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@Flair-Studio re family editor - that's a hard one! I find it fun and challenging.. but that's me!
Essentially you build a skeleton of planes and lines then you snap and lock geometry to them. You make it parametric by adding dimensions to the planes and making them parameters which can function like instance or style. Essentially, families are symbols or plug in objects.
The liberating part is you can make it how you want it to work.
I'm partway through outlining some windows and door suites to make.. it can be a rabbit hole if you let it, but my first one works without any of the issues I have in the VW tools as well as missing features. Plus I can add stuff like latches that move when resized or if too narrow drop to one latch. Also made a manhole with configurable stubs the you can set to real-world inverts with MEP connectors for services modelling under or near buildings.
The time spent to build the stuff you need gets repayed in the fact you only you it once, not model something every time cos it's slightly different. There is a massive amount of manufacturer content available.. you can explore how families are made by having a peek inside those to.
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2 hours ago, ParkerJames said:
What would be the closet alternative to VW Architect?
Revit LT. It's cheap but is missing plugin support (I believe that's being discussed) and in place modelling on the arch front. Also doesn't have any structural or MEP functions.
I know a few people doing large residential and small commercial stuff quite easily with those caveats.
To get around the lack of plugin support for rendering, just export to Twinmotion (I've found that best in VW as well - the datasmith exporter is awful on both platforms). There is a bit of a learning curve with the family editor, but once you have the concepts it's an awesome paradigm and you won't miss in place modelling - just make a generic family and make it parametric for reuse.
The model can still be used in a BIM360 environment if you need to collab with consultants, you just can't manage it or workshare on it.
If Autodesk do change their mind on plugin support, that opens the door for a highly functional platform at a great price point. If I could use enscape, environment and BIM Collab pro, that would cover all of my projects.
Currently VW is only being used on residential projects or quick bulk and location and concept renders for the commercial/industrial stuff. For the latter projects, I am pushed to join the crowd more than anything.. AEC here is dominated by Autodesk.
Just looked at visualARQ... Looks compelling!
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11 hours ago, pschlie said:
I don't believe VW has a clue about how structural members are actually specified and used in real-world designs, for example starting with basics which VW still hasn't gotten even close to correct over more than the past decade
Totally agree... One wouldn't think steel members have end plates, stiffeners,etc or heaven forbid, snap to grid intersections. VW continues to be a collection of tools to do things that don't interact.
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I'll bet money we still can't do a config like This, which is common config in these parts. Windoor is still the better tool for getting the sills right and general congs and sills correct to this part of the world - which is a fight in the standard window and door tools.
I'd hoped this would be a new tool that would dispense with the hangups and super complicated dialogs of the old tools,but just looks like a tool that mashes the window and doors together with a few additional tricks. Not to belittle the hard work that's gone into this, as an end user having to replace Windoor with this and the foibles of the standard doors and windows is not ideal.
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To get around this I create a class for revision clouds and have a data tag that reads the class description that I set sequentially. Hopefully we finally get a revisioning system that ties clouds and titleblock data together with the upcoming renovation system listed to the road map.
One of vectorworks biggest weaknesses is that it's a collection of things that don't work together, leaving coordinating things like this to be a manual labour intensive process with high chances of errors.
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If I was building a machine today, I'd go for the 5070ti for the extra vram over the 5070. Looking at various benchmarks it's not far behind my current 4080 which is excellent.
I'd avoid amd... Bad ray tracing and no dlss if you use renderers like enscape, d5 or twinmotion
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6 hours ago, Martin Stefanek said:
Someone here will tell me you can do that or that way. I don’t need this excuse.
6 hours ago, Martin Stefanek said:Again, don’t sell me BS that “ooh, in Vectorworks we do it this way.” I know it can be done the same way we can draw drawings using paper and pencil. Just catch up with the competition!
What an intro! Full afterburners!
I think you will find that just about all software has fundamental differences... "I've used pro tools for 20 years and just move to Apple Logic. It should have XYZ form Pro tools - catch up !! or I've moved to Affinity - why does it have every tool Photoshop does"
Why did you 'switch to vectorworks? If you are so incensed its not fit for purpose you can always switch back. You'll find some of the things you want are already on the roadmap - so they are highly likley to come. The devs aren't blind to whats going on around them, but the software has to be developed so it enhances existing workflows, not upend them. Like a lot of deisgn software there is old code bases that need updateing before whcking ini new features - buildings a bad foundation won't get you far.
This is an amazing community - you'll get loads of help form the regulars here who have great tips and tricks - you'll also find the developers regularly chip in and find nuggets of info about whats coming.
6 hours ago, Martin Stefanek said:I just started my feedback. I will be as open as possible. These days everyone wants to be politically correct and nothing is done. Nope, let’s get back to work ethics where everything is done. Sorry, but the most honest critique is the best critique.
Is that a threat? And actually - you are wrong. Its about respect. There are better ways to get your point across. Like I said this is an awesome community and I owe a huge debt to how I use VW to the folks here. You're just not gonna make any friends here if you blast in like this all the time. I'm not sure who you think you are.. the things you've asked have been asked for many times over - probabaly why they are on the roadmap 🤔. If you'd bothered to browse the forum you'd see this, so your 'i'm gonna swan in and change the world' approach will just be a collective eye roll.
6 hours ago, Martin Stefanek said:Gutters and downspouts: don’t tell me third-party software.
Just about all profesional software has third party plug ins. If you are any kind of Revit power user, you'd have plugins. I have Environment, pyrevit and DiRoots to fill the gaps. Lots of Archicad users have told me its useless with out the cadimage tools.. Sure some of these things will be nice to have baked in, but I'd say theres a good chance they appear once foundational objects have an upgrade, like the roof tool. And before you start on 'old code', revit is the poster child for ancient code that is slowly being replaced... it affects lots of software..
Anyway, welcome to the forum!
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3 hours ago, PenChiselCamera said:
P.S. On larger civic jobs and commercial, we are oddballs still using VW. Everyone from clients to contractors, our collaborators and even recruitment agencies are pleading with us to switch to REVIT. We still prefer VW as a design tool, but it needs to meet the industry where it's going and FAST.
I'm in the same boat.... much prefer VW. What's been happening since this announcement? Over a year later and nothing further..
I'd love a VW lite that i can model something on site then pick it up and run with it back in the office; right now it's a laptop and a handy power socket. But not at the development expense of the current tools getting some much needed updates.
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What @Tom W. said... it looks like your objects are an insane distance from each other and the internal origin and isnt how peoplework in VW Revit imposes an artificial limit from the internal origin (16km), whereas VW does not... leading to odd behavior when things end up thousands of kilometers away.
As @Jeff Prince noted, good working practices resolve this - try and keep things as close as possible around the internal origin - can't stress this one enough. You can turn on the internal orgin marker in settings to keep track of the 0,0 point and I often use the sheet outline preference to make sure what I'm modelling/drawing in my layer scale fits the page ao when i viewport it to a sheet layer I don't need to change the viewport scale which messes up text/annotation size.
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AF Design's plugin suite which includes gutters and downpipes in the "Install Partner Products" link in the Help Menu - worth every cent, but doesn't negate the fact that this stuff should be part of the program.
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By fidelity I mean clarity and realism - I'm watching closely, so if Visualser ticks that box I may switch too. I've found model elements generally render well, but things like grass, trees,vehicles (mostly enscape assets) look a bit ho hum when compared to Twinmotion or D5 (I never clicked with Lumion). The AI enhancer has massively improved this and I've just upgraded my seat to a bundle so i can give Veras a spin.
I've had Enscape since the VW version came out (had an NFR license since I worked for a VW distro and we heavily promoted it in VW training sessions - especially to the interiorcad/interior designer crowd). When that distro lost VW, the NFR lapsed and for a year I didn't have Enscape...I sorely missed its unique workflow and ability to get excellent visuals insanely quick. I usually dip into Twinmotion when I need something more 'final quality`, but I find Enscapes AI enhancer is pretty darn good now.
I'm fairly ambivalent on the Enscape proxies... it would certainly be a game changer if they hade VW objects in them.. there was talk of that some time ago, which obviously never bore fruit, but if this Maxon product develops this aspect, it would be a game changer!
Everything has a varying trade off at present, for me Enscape has the lowest in terms of work required to acheive a result and for continual reproduction throughout a project.
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On 5/29/2025 at 3:56 AM, Dave Donley said:
When content is added in their app it feeds back to the Vectorworks scene. In that way it is a bi-directional connection. The scene in Vectorworks and in the Maxon app remain in sync. This is using the same mechanism as for other rendering plugins like Enscape, Twinmotion, Lumion, D5, Omniverse, Redshift rendering inside Vectorworks, and 3D scene exporting to Nomad.
This is an odd wording... no disrespect intended, but they all operate at different levels of compatibility and effect on workflow. In terms of bi-directional capabilities, Enscape is the only one currently that does this the best - put an asset in Enscape, it appears in VW - this doesn't happen in any of the others; TM, D5 and Lumion is all one way - add a renderer asset, doesn't appear in VE, move something in the renderer - doesn't move in VW. Enscape's only issue is fidelity when compared with TM, Lumion and D5 and probably why Chaos have bundled up Enscape with Veras.
Redshift rendering in VW doesn't belong in this sentence as you can't create a scene like you can in any of the others, with the ease of use, speed and rendering fidelity.
The one hope I have with Visualiser is that it will have a higher level of bi-directional functionality and compete with TM, D5 and Lumion out of the box without being reamed on 'bundles' to get there.
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2 hours ago, Jeff Prince said:
I like how the table placeholder in Vectorworks looks like an anonymous white block in 3D
Ugh... At least Enscape's proxies actually look somewhat like the object they represent. Hopefully this is just a 'beta' thing..
More concerning though, the comment 'you can send to redshift'. So, another cost on top of visualiser? Sounds like more bundles, more $$. Will be interesting to see how Chaos responds to this once it moves beyond VW - especially with the option to take a scene further in C4d.
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In your wall components you need to have one component set to "core".
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For bulk class renaming I use the Find and Modify command
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Try modeling the shape as a 3d extrude and the use the edge offset tool to create the web and flanges - that's what I did for these tapered welded beams.
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You really need to get to grips with VW before spraying the forum with 'xyz feature from my favorite other software should be implemented.' By learning the software, it becomes apparent which things are fundamental to its operation and will be a big ask to change.
If you spend any time on the forum you'll see many longstanding requests for better functionality across many of the tools. A number of them are getting better, but it's a trade off of allocating engineering time and not upending longstanding existing workflows without a really good reason.
VW simply aren't going to allocate engineering time to requests like these unless the use case is compelling... and it isn't. The fact that there isn't long threads asking for this is proof that it's not going to get any traction before making the assumption that VW are not receptive to customer requests.
There are a pile of things I like and equally hate about revit, just as I do with VW; but i get the job done so much better in VW. I have a grad working for me that used Revit at Uni and this is the first time on VW and she loves it... and no qualms about learning new key commands.
Anyway, wouldn't getting the Environment plug-in have been cheaper than paying for VW if you already have Revit?
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3 hours ago, Dave Donley said:
Who here will be attending AIA?
Super keen to get some intel if anyone is going!
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1 hour ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:
OK, I'll bite, raining here today. How are things Jeff? When are you going to retire?
My career is different than yours or most.
So clearly you, Tom, Line-Weight know what the International Space Station is. Ten years before you ever heard of it, NASA started shopping around for ideas and partners. This was before the first Mac appeared. Canada had three proposals, I did the 3D concept design on a dwg. board for the Government. It did not win as NASA wanted the robot arms which was private sector. Still, they would not have looked at it, if it wasn't feasible.
Just stop.
None of us care about this, and its completely irrelevant to just about every topic on this forum, or why we all hang out here.
Respectfully, those of us in this thread have tried to get you to see why we geek out over the Enscape workflow, you've derailed it into 'what I do with C4D', youtube links and misguided statements like 'you need to be an expert to use hybrid tools'.
Seriously, have a whiskey or something, give it a day then reread this topic and just try to look at it objectively to see why and where the frustration level starts to ramp up. I've seen it time and again where you try to validate your responses by namedropping Nasa, Spade Station etc. We don't care. In fact, there are people on this forum who do mind blowing stuff that touches millions of people - I've not seen any of the spotlight peeps brag about the stuff they do..
It's great that you use VW for NURBS modelling and you have loads of spare time to do it in, but bear in mind that the majority of us here us VW to earn a living for what it was made to do - buildings. landscapes and lighting/set design.
Please read the room before coming in like a bull in a china shop.
So, lets get back to geeking out on the new Maxon thingy and hope that it gives us an enscape on steroids visualizer!
I really hope that VW users get something like an open beta to test it like Enscape did when they developed their VW integration.
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3 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:Enscape is largely the end of the process for Vectorworks
I would 100% disagree with this.
If you are using Twinmotion, Lumion or D4 then yes. The livesync the these products as a partial one way process - you activate the live sync tool and it exports your VW geometry to the renderer - any change you make or asset you place in the render engine stays in that program, any change in VW will sync back to the renderer, but that's all. You then have to save your work in that render engine as its own file. Any further work on the VW model then needs to be live synced again running the risk of duplicate geometry and reapplying textures, so by virtue you would save any work to be done in in TM, Lumion or D4 as close to the end as possible. I'm assuming this is also how send to C4D works.With Enscape you use it any point of the design process to see a rendered view, placing assets puts proxies into the VW model, textures from Enscape get mapped to become Renderworks textures so your workflow does not get split across a VW and render engine file. The VW file is always the single source of truth - which is what makes the Enscape workflow so compelling.
I can open the same project after a couple of days work in Enscape and there are zero issues. It looks the same, 3d assets and textures load every time. It means I can send a render to a client while they are on the phone or on a teams call sharing a screen.
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Good greif.... Just no.
I'm super quick with the key commands I've committed to muscle memory over time, just like you have gained familiarity with the software you are intimating Vectorworks be bent to. It took a bit of time to mentally bed in smart options when it was released, but now I can't live with out it and to be honest, 💩s over a command line because all the commands I need are right under my cursor and is implemented way better than ArchiCADs pet palette.
If you want unfriendly key commands, Revit is prime example with its two letter commands... but i bounce between Revit and VW fine. VW's shift/alt/ctrl modifiers work great; every program has its own flavour of modifiers, just learn them to get the best of the software. As someone who has developed and ran training sessions for a VW distributor, Jeff's advice above is spot on.
As an alternative to the streamdeck, the 3dconnexion spacemouse pros are awesome and configurable.. I'm so hooked on them, I feel like I've lost a limb I don't have one handy for 3d modeling.
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C4d is a completely different animal... If I want an archvis render done in literally minutes, Enscape does this without disrupting my workflow in Vectorworks.
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Real-Time workflow — rendering happens in real-time in a separate plugin window sync’d with the primary Vectorworks viewports. As users work in either updates happen in the other window
This sounds very much like an Enscape type workflow... that would be epic, because it's so quick and keeps the VW file as the source of truth. Let's hope the pricing is competitive.
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Vectorworks abandoning perpetual licences
in General Discussion
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That and never having to update a viewport ever again... That would be worth subscribing to...