ajemutt

Hi all, I'm working to prototype 3d print some simple adapters for camera and telescope parts. Specifically. I'm looking to create some bits with large metric threads (m42-M55) I've got a Spotlight license, which only seems to have a basic thread/screw tool in Fundamentals - the included tools there seems to only have thread sizes up to M12. I realize that I can create custom threads with that toolset, but I'm hoping to work from existing specs in order to minimize operator error. Does anyone know if there any plugins or libraries available that have larger metric threads to work with? Does the Mechanical Design license include that? thx! AJ

D'oH! It ended up me needing to restart the computer, and then everything popped into place. Thanks all!

Yes. That's what I'm doing. I'm going into the folder in the Resource Manager and editing the 2d version. Changes still not taking 😞

Hi all! Trying to resize my containers in the LLM. I've done this dozens of times before in previous versions, but now it's not working at all. I'm going into the resource manager and choosing my custom LL, editing 2d component, and changing the size of either/both the rectangle or hex. When I exit symbol and refresh my instruments, the change doesn't 'take'. When I go back into the symbol 2d component, it shows my size changes. Text is scaling AOK. I created a blank document with a single light to see if maybe my drawing was corrupted somehow, and am having the same problem. Anyone else having the same issue? thx! A OSX 13.4 M2 Mac Studio VW 2023 SP5

Oh. Just realized that I didn't fully clarify what my 'fix' was. I'm pretty sure that I had tried all possible combinations of checking the two boxes for importing and creating meshes. The other day when I had the time to get back around to trying to solve this, I had moved to my laptop (also running 2023 SP5 - both are M2 processors) First attempt, no dice. Model comes in as just a mesh with no textures. I then played around with @Kevin K's model, and that worked great. I then tried my Turbosquid model, and no textures. Last attempt as unchecking 'create RW textures' and it worked. I then tried importing again and changing the import RW textures to positive, and it also worked. So YAY! it's working. But I have no idea why it is now, and why it wasn't before. I don't think it's changing computers, since it wasn't initially working on either. Maybe some glitched preference value got overwritten and 'unglitched'?

Hi all! Thanks again for all the advice. Circling back in on this with some results - I was able to finally get the objects and textures to import together. My issue was that (at least for these objects from Turbosquid) I needed to *uncheck* "Create Renderworks textrures for all materials", and now things come in and render as I'm expecting. Ironically, I was getting a little pressure from the band I'm working with to deliver something, so in order to get that over to them quickly, I actually dug the Human Figure tool out of the Legacy vault, created my people, converted them to meshes, which I then simplified and was able to deliver. Looks like junk, but at least I was able to show something. Now I'm gonna go fishing a little more ; ) Much appreciated!

Wow! Thanks for all the advice and pointers. I'm gonna dig into them this weekend, and will report back what I learn. Thanks!

Hey everyone - OK, I've learned a tiny bit more, but I'm still not able to get this to work. I'll try and itemize my most recent attempt to give a full picture of what I'm doing. - I downloaded the free trial of C4d, and have been importing the file (switched to a Sketchfab model because it was al little more on point for my gig), and outputting as .obj - put all textures that came from Sketchfab and the .mtl file into the same folder as the .obj - New VW doc, and import .obj - Check "import materials + transparency + create RW textures (have also tried with these unchecked with seemingly the same results) - Change units to inches (have tried keeping as mm as well) - Click OK - It brings in the object fast, but it doesn't show any other files coming in on the import window. there's also no textures in the resource manager. only what looks to be some mesh files(?) - I tried with the file as a .3ds and the import window does show a bunch of additional files being imported, but can't finagle an attempt where any textures are actually showing up in the resource manager. From what I'm gleaning, this might be due to the textures not being properly formatted/named by the original designer... but How would I go about fixing this? I don't see any way of selecting a part of the model and assigning a texture to it... Nor do I see any place where I can figure out what the correct names should be for VW to ingest this correctly. Am I mistaken that there's no way to do that? thx! A

Jeff, that's great - exactly the kind of 'teach a dude to fish' info I'm been looking for. I'll play around with the image files and bit depth to see what's up. FYI, I'm less upset that VW doesn't handle foreign files well than I am that there's no clear knowlegebase article giving the info you just shared. I would not have thought to search for meshes - I was only looking for .mtl importing, etc thx! A

Kevin, thanks for the info. That all makes a little sense. I'm working with some simple human/musician figures from Turbosquid. Nothing too complicated really, and I may well take you up on your offer, but for the moment, I'm gonna try and hack at it a little more. I'm also a more than a little frosted about the lack of official documentation on this workflow. I know that the various 3d formats have been - and continue to be - a literal Tower of Babel, but I would expect that a platform as mature as VW would provide more/better advice and wisdom to help us. While I'm still in a mood to get more familiar with what's possible, I've got the following questions: - Am I understanding correctly that C4D is able to save out a 3ds or obj that specifically conforms better with how VW is able to understand the file? - If yes, do you have any idea of Blender creates similarly 'clean' files? - Are there any 3d object sites that specialize in VW compatible models? Or at least has their offerings better structured to import well into VW? Thx! A

Thanks for the reply! OK, the .obj came with a .mtl file, as well as .png's marked as "Diffuse, Metalness, Roughness, etc, etc) I'm trying to figure out how to bring in the .mtl file that came with the .obj. There's no option to import it, nor does the dialog for importing the .obj give an option to select or interpret a .mtl file. I tried creating a new Renderworks texture, and I can import the .png's individually (but I have no idea where to begin tweaking them to work) - and VW doesn't recognize the .mtl to bring in that way. I've also tried to drag and drop the .mtl into VW, but it rejects it. I *did* RTFM, but the page on "Importing OBJ" seems pretty vague on what to do with the .mtl (or any other texture files), so I'm a little confused about that. Didn't find much on point via YouTube either. When I import the .3ds version of the file, it does bring a bunch of textures (solid colors) into the resource manager, but I'm not really seeing a way to assign them to specific geometry without taking the geometry apart and painting parts individually - which seems like not the way it's supposed to work, and is a little beyond my 3D skills to begin with ; ) Am I missing something obvious or well hidden, or is my gut fear that VW really isn't very good at importing some things coming true? thx! A

Hi all! Looks like this gets asked fairly often, but in searching around, I'm not quite seeing a fix. I've bought a couple models from Turbosquid, and have been trying to import them as either .obj or .3ds. I'm downloading the textures as well, and putting them in the same folder. I'm then selecting the imported textures in the import dialog, but everything comes in as a white model. I'm on 2023 SP5 on an M2 Mac Studio. Can anyone point me to a definitive guide on how to wrangle this? thx! A

Hiya, circling back - I didn't see the dongle in Disk Utility. Called support, and didn't get a definitive answer, so I just went ahead and ran Vision and HogPc on the same windows laptop. Note to Vectorworks Folx - calling in to support for Vision gremlins in recent years - inevitably I get someone who is *not* familiar with Vision, Spotlight, or stage lighting in general, and they usually insist on trying to solve the problem first before trying to send me over to a colleague who knows Vision. Most times, I know far more about what's going on that the non-Vision trained CSR. Sometimes they've been chill and transferred me, and sometimes their feelings get hurt when I tried to explain to them how to turn a light on using DMX in Vision doesn't at all work like it does using Renderworks. This is usually very frustrating. While this instance last week was pleasant in interaction, the support fellow had to ask a colleague and email me back later. Maybe add a way to get to Vision support more directly instead of having to burn our precious time explaining what DMX or sACN is? Thx!

Hi folx! I've got a 16" 2021 MBP (M1) Running Monterey 12.3.1, and just installed Vision 2022 on it. When I plug in the dongle via a USB-C to USB adapter, Vision doesn't see the dongle and boots into demo mode. I've tried this with 2 different USB-C adapters with the same results. I tried both adapters with the dongle on a Dell Windows 10 machine, and it vision opens correctly. Anyone else having trouble with USB-C adaptors? thx!

Zoom line thickness for the win! ; ) Many thanks! A

Hi all! I know this probably gets asked all the time, but when searching the forums, the only on point discussion I found was from 2012, so I thought I should ask to see if there's been any change. I'm trying to use VW2022 (spotlight) to create a vector (.eps) drawing that can be sent to a laser cutter. The cutter is capable of a line width as narrow as .1mm, and I need VW to show that accurately in order to properly figure the space between lines. It does appear that line weights in VW don't necessarily correspond to an actual width, correct? Does anyone have a workaround to make that possible, or maybe a suggestion on another app that does? Many thanks! A

Hi all, I'm trying to create an LED wall that I can attach a media server to in Vision. In searching around, I'm not seeing much - there is a thread from a few years ago about using "Spotlight>Visualization>Select Vision Video Source>" (which seems a little outdated, but there's a similar menu item in 2022) to configure that, but in 2022, the LED wall that I've created using the LED Screen tool results in the error "This command requires that one of the following objects be selected 3D Locus/Extrude/3D Polygon, etc, etc ,etc" The screen is editable via the PIO in VW, but it's importing into vision as just a mesh shape. I tried searching for an actual tutorial but there's nothing, and the manual is somewhat silent on actually setting this up. Can someone point me in the right direction for instructions on this feature? thx! A

Thanks folks! Some reckless draftsperson (ahem) dropped a stick of random truss about 1/2 mile north of the loading dock in my drawing. Once removed, it opens right in front of the stage and with all the zoom and flyover purchase I would expect. 🤣

You mean, I might have dropped a bolt out near FOH, and I've got to fish around to find it before the crew curfew? ; ) Thanks this all makes sense. I'll give these tips a try tomorrow when I'm back in my studio.

Hi there, I'm going into the same venue as I did for a show in 2019, so I'm hoping to reuse the VW plot that I created 2 years ago. When I have the plot open in 2021, and use the 'send to vision' command, it opens up in vision, but kinda far away, and I have to carefully pan and zoom into be able to see my stage and lights. There's also something going on where there's a huge amount of purchase from each mouse or scroll wheel movement, to the point that one or two clicks, and the entire drawing is thrown off screen. When I create a quick new stage and lights in VW 2021, and send that to Vision, it opens right in front of the stage as expected. I thought maybe something might have happened to the origin in my VW drawing, but it was right on. I went ahead and reset the origin just to make sure, but that didn't change anything. Any ideas? thanks! AJ

Hi there. For a graphics project, I'm trying to create a coiled helix that kinda looks like a coiled lamp filament. I'm creating it by drawing a 2d curve, and then using the 3D Power Pack/Create Helix-Sprial command. It's making a nice coiled 3d objet for me that's in the ballpark of what I'm looking for, but the coil itself isn't tight enough. When I try and modify the "Turns" value in the OIB, I can't increase it past 62 turns before I get an "Object creation failed due to invalid parameters, please use different parameters" error. I thought it might have to do with the radius of the coil, and maybe VW won't let the coil overlap itself, but even when I adjusted the radius to a size where the coil is really far apart, it still gives me the error. I'm attaching a screen shot of the current coil that I'm working with. The size is not the final version, I can't really dial it in until I've got this detail sorted. Any ideas on how to (literally) wind myself up tighter? ; ) Thx! A

Hi all, I had started a light plot last week in 2019, but apparently I need to use 2020 in order for my workflow to function with Vision, so I just started with 2020. When I open my 2019 plot in 2020 (Windows 10), all my lights are now offset by a couple feet SL from their position on some truss towers, as well as the electrics. Also, all of their Z heights now bear little resemblance to what I painstakingly set them at the other day.. In plan view, I then grabbed several lights that were at the top of truss towers, and moved them manually back on top of the truss towers, and they look correct in plan view, but when I click the 3d flyover tool, all of a sudden, the lights are back to being offset. I then tried "unified view", which moved the lights back off their trusses again. Before I take the time to individually re-position every lamp, is there a fix for this? Thanks! AJ

Thanks. I did try that. It looks like using it with a gobo might work, but I was on the phone with VW support today, and they said that shutter cuts won't render in fog. I tried to switch back to a gobo, and now VW keeps crashing every time I try and render the scene, so I'm gonna get back on the phone with them tomorrow :(

Hi all, I'm trying to dummy up a laser look by projecting a thin rectangular line gobo onto a surface. I used the technique described in the video linked below, and it works for just projecting the gobo itself onto my 3d surfaces, but I need to take the next step and have the shape/texture show up in the beam with the 'lit fog' option turned on, but when I turn on the fog, it's showing the entire circle of the beam, not the shape of the geo I've created. https://www.vectorworks.net/training/2016/getting-started-guides/spotlight/Gsg-2016-s15-adding-a-gobo-texture Is it possible to render a texture in the fog beam? EDIT: I also tried removing my gobo texture and just using the shutter tool, but that doesn't work either. thx! A