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Ryan Seybert

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Everything posted by Ryan Seybert

  1. Another user has brought to my attention that on several occasions there have been issues with truss missing from a specific hanging position, leaving an empty hanging position object with just the text. The file was originally built in 2019 but converted to 2020 when we all upgraded. The file is also a project file, however, none of the other users that have been in the file have reported any issues with it. I recommended they discard their working file and create a new one. So far, that seems to have worked but I'm curious if this is a potential issue with 2020 that we need to look out for. I think I came across this when I was first testing 2020 back in November before we made the switch but I can't remember exactly. Thanks in advance.
  2. We often use screen surrounds with openings smaller than the screens we use to avoid any of the screen frame border from showing. It would be great to be able to use the correct screen size and then specify the opening that will be projected into and have the cone represent that. For instance, we use a 9'x16' screen in a hard surround with an opening of 8'x15'. I don't want to display the cone for the 9'x16' screen as is would displaying on the scenic elements outside of the opening.
  3. @JustinVH Thanks for the prompt response. What's the timeline that users can expect on this functionality being a reality and working as advertised? This was voiced as an issue when 2020 was first released. We're at SP2 and it's still a huge pain. We appreciate all the hard work you guys do but, frankly, most of the avid users of the software are getting tired of releases featuring functionalities that only sorta work. While the workaround that you provided does in fact allow the hinge to "act" as a horizontal hinge, it forces all truss you connect to it to roll 90º to mach the gusset plates. This means that the orientation of the truss is incorrect. If you try to connect the rotated vertical hinge to an existing run of truss it snaps back to vertical. If you try to roll the hinge as you suggested, its offset 6" to align the insertion points. Moving the hinge 6" to eliminate the offset yields the connection to be broken altogether. I don't see this a being very practical. Thanks.
  4. I'm becoming more and more frustrated with these hinge blocks that came with the 2020 release of VW Spotlight. The only ones that seem to work out of the box are the Eurotruss models that they used in the marketing content. If I try to use a Tomcat hinge, it prompts me to input all of the data. After I find the associated data from another TC1212 truss object or try to replicate the data from one that works, the geometry completely disappears. The only way I can select it is to marquee over the area its in. I've attached a file for reference as well as a screenshot. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Its really frustrating that cornerblocks have been a request for years and now that we finally have them, they don't work. Screen Recording 2019-12-09 at 1.55.35 PM.mov Tomcat Hinge.vwx
  5. @BSeigel - Thanks for the reply. I'm really confused about what resources VW uses for which processes. I've found posts that support it would be more beneficial to have a CPU with low core counts and high clock speed as VW does not utilize more than 3 or 4 cores... Granted almost all of these posts are older and I'm not sure just how relevant they are. I cannot seem to find anything that touches this subject that are current to 2019/2020 and the recommended specs on the VW website does not get very granular when it comes to processor. Do you have any links to any official resources that support the claim that more cores is beneficial? That would really help my fight when I present the needs to the money people as well as help other users who are in the same boat. @herbieherb - Thanks for the recommendations. I will look into those specs. I'm Mac based personally and on the road, but I'd be happy to rock a windows machine in the office if it means I can bang out some high quality renders in a timely manner. The i9 processor I have in the MBP seems to do this pretty well but I have to drop the overall size of the final render down quite a bit while keeping the DPI high as well as sacrifice some of the finer details such as light bounces.
  6. @Dave Donley I was testing out an Intel NUC (NUC8I7HNK) as possible new render machine since we had some not on a show and the powers that be want me to look into all options available before making a purchase. I downloaded 2020 SP1 on the machine and opened a 2019 file that already had renders set up and I knew how long it would take to render on my MacBook Pro. After it failed to render correctly, I restarted VW and it rendered fine, save for a few settings that were lost in translation. Not sure if it was a minor hiccup or the problem you describe. I would share the file but its very proprietary. I've also completely restored the NUC as I've ruled it out as a rendering machine so any further tests are not an option at the moment.
  7. I'm currently in the market for a new machine for that will take on the rending work loads. The research I've done so far has lead me to believe that the CPU specs are what matter to rendering in VW and that a CPU with less cores and higher speed would be the best purchase. Can anyone recommend some desktop machines that make light work of complex renderings? MAC preferred but Open to Windows. Thanks.
  8. @Stephan Moenninghoff Thanks for the reply. I created a new viewport and the issue continued. I restarted VW and it seemed to fix it. Once it did finally render, the lighting definitely looked different compared to the original renders I did on my MacBook Pro. Your suggestion might fix that but I'm thinking it could be some lighting settings in the viewport I lost when I recreated the viewport.
  9. I'm demoing a possible new render machine. I'm currently running 2019 but using 2020 for the demo. The test file I'm using was created in 2019 and it rendered the files correctly. When I opened it up in 2020 and the usual "this file needs to be converted to 2020 blah blah blah" popped up. Everything converted correctly and showed up as it should. I made a minor change so the viewports would need to be updated. Upon trying to update the viewports with fast or final quality Renderworks, the viewports go blank. If I switch the viewports back to Open GL or Wireframe, they display geometry. Is there an issue going from 2019 to 2020 or does any sort of Renderworks quality not work in 2020? Not sure where to start with troubleshooting this problem.
  10. Thanks @markdd, I kinda figured the blue symbol was going to be the best solution, just thought I throw the question out there to see if anyone has a method that works for them. I'm going to look into the Custom Tool/Attribute command... and I'm sure it'll open up a new rabbit hole for me to climb down. Thanks again.
  11. Hi All, I'm a recent AutoCAD to VW convert looking to replicate some of the functionality that came with AutoCAD. Most of them I've been able to part with but one of the ones I cannot seem to find a better way of doing is a dynamic line block. This would allow me to create a polyline with livetype and layer information and save it as a dynamic block. When I dragged it from the tool palette it would start the polyline command. Once I finished the command, the polyline would have all the appropriate attributes that it should. We commonly used this feature with items we always wanted to the same such as Centerlines or object outlines. Is there any way to replicate this in Vectorworks? Thanks in advance.
  12. Hey All, I have a show coming up where the the room is split in two and has the same rig in both, just mirrored. This means that the fixtures in room 1 have a rotation of 0º and the fixtures in room 2 have a rotation of 180º. My challenge is the label legends. The text is showing up in the correct locations but rotated 180º on the design layer. Once I go over to a sheet layer, they are fine. Is there a way to change the way the text reads in design space? It's no biggie, just a little annoying to look at data that is backwards as I've created a saved view that rotates the room 180º so we can be in the correct orientation as we detail the show out. Thanks in advance.
  13. Well said CETLV. Our firm purchased braceworks to aid in keeping track of weight as the system is being designed as well as helping to challenge the in-house A/V companies when they come back and say that some points are overweight and need to add 5 motors at $900/day. We've never assumed that the calculations are 100% accurate and we understand that there are forces/physics in play that we don't pretend to understand. When it really matters we get rigging companies and structural engineers involved. That being said, we're rather disappointed with how the features don't work without causing issues and how long it takes for the Dev team to rectify the issues. Not every show is comprised of straight trusses or box grids so not being able to calculate mid span connections or hinge blocks is a huge deal. 2020 did introduce hinge truss objects to fix this issue, however, I've not found one hinge we use consitantly that works the way they advertise. This and a list of other items are keeping us from fully committing to 2020 until SP1 or even SP2. I understand that there needs to be some level of "user" beta testing on the software before all the bugs are worked out but this is a little out of hand. Don't get me wrong, I personally love the software. Its leaps and bounds better than AutoCAD in most categories, which is what my firm converted over from. However, with the price this software carries, we expect it to not be so broken and continually have to find work-arounds for things. AutoCAD was very slow to introduce new tools or methods of handling the software but it was robust. It also seems that many of the tools and the way they work were developed by many people who have never really experienced the day to day operations of this industry. I for one wouldn't mind if Vectorworks took a year or two off to get the current tool set up and running 100% before launching any additional new features. Thanks again for all the hard work, but we need to see the quality that we're paying for.
  14. Hi All, Is there a method to getting the viewer to open a project file or will it only open a .vwx file? I have a user in the office that only needs to get into a drawing every once in a while to confirm some measurements. Would kinda hate to have to waste a whole s/n on it. Thanks in advance.
  15. My understanding on this is that most of the truss manufacturers do not support mid-span connections on their products without a solid structural object such as a corner block. The majority of the manufacturers are not releasing the engineering data on truss objects to VW as it's proprietary data. When I spoke to a few truss manufacturer reps at the last LDI and it was pretty much the same response. This is why Braceworks is only calculating data along the center/center of truss objects/hanging positions and does not account for uneven distribution across all chords of the truss. The only manufacturer that seems to be forthcoming with their data is Eurotruss... which is useless for most of us in the industry. I too would love for us to be able to plug grapples into the program as they're used quite often in my work flow.
  16. An update on this: I went back to look through the criteria I had applied to the filter. Found a rogue filter item that was causing issues. Also discovered that you cannot rename the perimeters. In my example I had renamed "1" to "Universe 1", "2" to "Universe 2", and so on. It sees that as another item to look for. At this point, everything works for that particular Data Visualization filter.
  17. Tried out the Live Data Visualization feature. At first I was impressed but then I was let down. I created a Data Filter to color code the fixtures based on Universe. It seemed to work fairly well, although the filter building was a little complicated at first. Knowledge of building worksheets and databases comes in real handy here. Once built, the filter colored everything accordingly except for Universe 1. I messed around with it some more with no luck. I closed the file and opened it again with the same results. When I restarted VW, none of the universes were colored, despite reactivating the filter again. The filter worked in a view port as well, still missing universe 1. the key that is imported on the annotation layer of the viewport showed all the correct data but the viewport did not display any of the color code. Hopefully its fixed with SP1.
  18. Currently, still on 2019 SP5 for real work but installed 2020 to test it out before integrating it into my firms workflow. Pretty sure I'm not the only one thats discovered this, but I also have not found anything in any other forums discussing this: The hinge corners do not work as advertised... if at all. All the marketing shows cool grab handles and easy manipulation of the object. The reality is that they do not work like that straight out of the resource manager. My first attempt was pulling a 12x12 Tomcat Hinge straight from the resource manager. It came in as just a 2d/3d symbol with no edits possible. I tried using the "Insert Truss" tool, same results except that the object now identified as a truss object. I opened up the "Customize Truss Symbol Data Wizard" (which they've moved from the OIP to the menu that pops up when you right-click on the truss object) and found none of the information was applied. I filled it out to best of my knowledge, exited the wizard, and all of the objects 2D and 3D geometry disappeared. Because Tomcat refuses to give their truss data to anyone except for engineers, my second and third attempts were with different manufacturers, thinking that was part of the problem. I found the same results. My forth and final attempt was with the exact truss they used in the marketing videos, Eurotruss. It work like a champ, exactly like the marketing videos. Imagine that. As with the rest of the new features added to VW Spotlight 2020, I was super excited for this feature. It's something thats been asked for for years and years. Really hope this gets taken care of in SP1, otherwise its a complete waste of time. So far the only new feature that I've found that works great is the DMX Patch tool. That'll for sure save some time.
  19. Not sure what the step by step process raking truss is now that have the ability to change the angle, rotation, and roll of truss. What I've found so far is that hanging positions do not work like this, only individual sticks of truss. I tested this out with 3 sticks of truss and some vipers. If I select all three sticks together and say they have a hanging angle of 30º they each change independently of each other. The fixtures on each truss stay with their specific truss. Now for the really goofy part - If I click on a truss and drag it to another, they will snap to each other as they should except the fixtures on the moving truss are offset from their original location. If I grab the third stick of truss and do the same move the fixtures are offset as well... except worse. As if the there is a compounding effect going on. I tried creating the raked truss first and adding the fixtures but that's a pain in the ass and a half. I posted some photos for reference. I downloaded 2020 just to futz around with it. Still using 2019 for actual work so none of this is a real issue for me. Just wanted to throw what I've discovered out there to get the ball rolling on 2020 SP1.
  20. In VW 2020 the DMX Patch tool combines the Universe and Address fields into a separate field while still maintaining the individual fields for universe and address. It would be amazing if this can be utilized for Circuit Name and Circuit Number with a "-" as a separator. This would limit the number of fields in the label legend as well as eliminate the label rotation issue when trying to keep the two bits of info together.
  21. @Sam Jones Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I cannot share the file due to confidentiality reasons. I have, however, attached a screen shot with the information you requested. Its worth mentioning that I started a new file completely blank file, dropped a few lighting devices in it, and everything seemed to work. The file I was previously working in was a working file so I'm leaning towards the project sharing environment causing issues. When I have a moment I will save my working file as a regular .vwx file to see if that has any influence. Would there be any conflict if I had previously used the cable tools native to VW in the file prior to using the AP cable tools?
  22. Can we please, please, please, have the power jumper and signal cable info be attached to the lighting device? This would save hours not having to go back and do this manually. This is currently a feature available in the AutoPlot add-on but I have yet to make it work. I'm also hesitant to move forward with a third party add-on as we have several draftsman in the firm and this would add level of complexity to upholding standards as well as making sure the add-on is current with the new versions of VW as they roll out. VW - seriously. Please make this happen. You will make the lives of many Techs very happy.
  23. I too would like to see this. I downloaded the AutoPlot tools for 2019 as a demo. I followed the steps in the Circuit Assign Prefs dialogue to insert the appropriate data into the appropriate fields with no luck. Every time I opened the dialogue it was reset to default settings regardless of checking the "save as VW default" box at the bottom. Having this work would save countless hours of manually entering the data. I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere in the AP settings, however, I would really like this to be native to VW Spotlight. I manage several other draftsmen at my current firm so trying to uphold standards with an additional add-on in the mix would complicate things. VW, PLEASE MAKE THIS A REALITY!
  24. @klinzey All good now. I made the change in our template start file and it seems to carry over fine. Thanks for the help.
  25. @klinzey I've unchecked "Use Active Class for Lighting Device Insertion" and then checked "Make Default". Works fine in that document but if I start a new document I have to redo that step.
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