kacey1

quote: Originally posted by jomer: I am unable to get the Selecon Acclaim 650w Fresnel to be at 7000mm on the truss. Everything else goes to that hieght but not those lamps. They are drawn with a grey body or is that a red herring. Windows 2000 VWSL9 At first, I had no problem here, but then I realized I was using the imperial symbol. From a fresh install of the metric libraries, I realized that the Acclaim fresnel seems to be missing its 3d component. I have bug listed it and you will see it in the next release. In the meantime, you can do one of a couple of things. You could install the imperial libraries, and copy the 3d portion of the symbol into the metric library. You could also create your own 3d portion by sweeping part of the 2d symbol. You could also pull in the 3d information from an Altman fresnel. It would be a bit off, but you could scale it to what it needs to be. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-28-2001).]

quote: when i decided to move from maclux to vw, i knew i was in for quite a learning curve.i started with vw8. I moved to sl 8.5 about a 1 1/2 months ago. then vwsl 9.01 3 weeks ago. last 1 1/2 months i put in about a 100 hours. i have done chapter 1-2-3 in vw + assorted ponctuel subjects. i have even done the little house twice.i have read and plotted simply in 8.5 and in 9.01. So, you have read most of the manual!! Good for you, because quite often users don't like to do that. Let's see if we can't track down some of your problems and make it easier for you. quote: my posting "create symbol" demonstrate that i do have a handle on parts of the sl manuel. kmoorel's answer confirms that the approche i used was labor intensive and did not fault the actions. my second posting "plan b" (which turns out to be an hybrid of kmoorel's suggested solution). kaceyl's answer to the first part is pertinent and i will watch for it. MY second part was twofold:#1 when i used the dimensioning tool to find the exact spacing between two light positions, (so that i could give a precise value in duplicate array to duplicate 9 parcans to other light.pos.,) the dimendion lines were not selectable, they were part of that layer but not selectable. My thought here is that dimensions are not always exactly on. This is due to the user not hitting the points exactly and any rounding that the dimension may do. For example I drew a line that was 13'3.77" and when I dimensioned it, it read as 13'4.5." When I looked closer, it was because I didn't hit the points exactly. That could be one reason. quote: #2 i inserted light. ins.(fresnel) onto a light pos at about 13'6". in the OI it was at 13'6.584". i corrected that value to 13'6". inserted an other and corrected to 11'6". when i reselected the fresnel it was at 13'6". 1/2 hour lated when i selected it it was at 13'6.202" what are the possible causes of that: operator error, fluke.... Yes, this could be a fluke; I have not yet been able to duplicate it here. I'm surprised that you'd want to be that exact also. If you just want to get your instruments to line up to one another, you'd be better of using the align and distribute command. (Page 3-7 of the manual) quote: part #3 was an odd behavior of the label manager.Would a quicktime movie of my screen help in any way. as for the zooming out, tried that first of: no go. I tried this on my mac and found if I use the scroll arrows, it will toggle on and off the plus sign for the last selected field. (This has been entered as a bug.) The temporary solution is to use the scroll "bar" instead of the arrows. I hope that helps a bit, and good luck. I hope you stick with it and find that SpotLight will work for you. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-23-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by bruce johansen: plan a was a waste of time , plan b did not give the results or not the right ones, what would plan c be? any suggestion? back to paper and pencil? back to maxlux? or what? Bruce, I understand that you are frustrated. Also we all want and need answers right away, but give us a chance to answer your questions and give some of our suggestions a try before you give up on us. Also, the manual is presented in a sequential order. I'd suggest, especially to people new to VectorWorks and SpotLight, to just sit down and do a really simple plot, following the SpotLight manual step-by-step. It will take you through the basics of the program and covers all elements of plot creation. It should only take 20 minutes or so, especially since you can skip import/export and visualization at first. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-23-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by bruce johansen: i create a new layer. i find and import the light. ins. that i will need, i try to edit an altman par, good luck! i edit a strand 2k fresnel, when i use it ,sometime i get the edited versoin sometines no.? My guess is that you are picking the fresnel from the source file as opposed to the one you just edited in the current file. Make sure that in your resource pallette the current file name is at the top before you select a symbol. quote: i use dimensioning to get the distances between light. pos.so that i can use duplicate array to duplicate 9 pars on 6 different light pos.now i can erase those dimensioning lines!after i inserted the par in their places, i use object info to make sure an or ajust their position, after a while they seem to migrate by fraction of inches? I'm not exactly clear on what you are saying here. If you use the OI palette to move them, then they are going to move by fractions of inches if that's what you tell it. You can use the X and Y fields and enter -3" or +3' and it will move the instrument 3" or 3' quote: i go to create a label, i add a label and make it active ,try to select fields: oh god! double click 1 field ok a second ok scroll to a third, it unclicks the last selection!reclick the second, double click the 3, ok scrol for a 4 , 3 is unclicked!and so on. i try to edit the layout of the label,oh god part 2! i get the sample lamp but not the fields. may be it's time for plan c I've never seen this clicking behavior. Are you sure you're double clicking and do you see a plus sign by the field before you scroll? When you deselect the field make sure the plus sign is still there. (BTW, What platform are you on?) When you go to edit the label layout, zoom out a little bit, and the fields should be on the left hand side of the page. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-23-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Is there a way to take a position and the instruments on it and do a "copy as" that would create a new position and instruments with all the position and instrument records updated to reflect the new position name?? IE take #2 Ladder R and copy it to create a #2 ladder L No, you can't do that exactly. You could copy it, select the instruments and rename their position field all at once. Perhaps not as elegant as the feature you suggest, but just as fast. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

No, the position does not automatically update each time you place an instrument or change colors etc., because that would increase processing time. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

The major benefit of the viewer is that it is VectorWorks. Instead of printing to PDF (which is an advantage in some situations), this allows clients, printing services etc to view VW files in their native format. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

To all SpotLight users- It has been brought to our attention that there is a small error in the manual that will not allow you to import files properly from Lightwright. On page D-7, it says to check the Import First Record box. This is incorrect. Keep the box unchecked for importing to work properly. We apologize for the confusion. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

quote: Originally posted by ArenaLights: A plot with 353 Units is talking 3-6 min to refresh We know that speed and refresh is a major issue with SpotLight. Some things to help refresh- *Turn off all unused classes. For example, you may turn off some of the labels classes *Place systems of lights in their own class. i.e. front lights in a front class, and turn off classes you are not currently working on. When you're ready to print you can turn everything back on. We will be actively working on the speed issues for the next version. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-20-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by danakasind: I think I have things for the most part figured out but I can't for the life of me find out what the SIA format is. I'm sure it's something simple so while the rest of you are laughing, could someone enlighten me? I'm not sure I know what it is either. Where are you seeing this? ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

quote: Originally posted by JoshuaGill: kacey, I am sorry, I don't use the City Theatrical symbols, but I do use the Symbols_Theatrical Lgt under the toolkit>specialties>theatrical lighting folder. These are the oldest version of the symbols, and have become obsolete by SpotLight. You should be able to open the 8.5.2 file and save it as a version 9 file and use the symbols in version 9. Also, you can modify the current symbols and add the hatch lines. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-20-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Anyone know how to change the length of an electric after it has been created? You need to edit the symbol that was created from the position. Go to the resources palette and open the lighting position symbol. Be careful if you've created one pipe symbol and used it for more than one position because all will be updated. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

quote: Originally posted by tgrabowski: Where in the preference dialog in the control to turn this off? I can't seem to find anything that controls this column. Was it somethnig that was changed in 9.0? (Still waiting on UPS for the upgrade). Thanks I checked the prefernce dialog and did not see this either. I believe as Kevin originally posted the only way to change the size of this column is through the font size. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

Appendix D of the manual talks about how to work with Lightwright-make sure you follow the directions exactly. We have not been able to duplicate any importing bugs here in our office. Some things to make sure you are doing: *Make sure you import the correct file-often a user mistakenly imports the VW Export file as opposed to the LW export file. *Make sure you export the external ID field from LW. Sometimes it helps to take a look at your data in excel or a text editor to make sure your LW export was good. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-16-2001).]

You have two serial numbers-one that begins with a 1 that is your VW serial number. Enter that one at the first dialog. Then, go to the Window Menu on WIN or the Apple Menu on the MAC and choose About SpotLight. This is where you enter in your SpotLight serial number, which begins with a 5. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

All the symbols that were in SpotLight 8.5 are in SpotLight version 9. In fact, there are more symbols because we added to the libraries and created metric versions of all the symbols. They are located in the VW_SpotLight folder. If you do not see them there, perhaps (if you did a custom install) they were unchecked and therefore not installed. In addition, you can take any of your own 8.5 files, open them in Version 9 and save them as VectorWorks 9 file. Voila, all of your 8.5 symbols will now work with version 9. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America [This message has been edited by kacey1 (edited 08-16-2001).]

There has been a major fix of the move page tool. It no longer affects SpotLight instruments, accessories, etc. You also shouldn't lost any data or information when updating. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

Yes, the two-fer uses the same containers as you have assigned in the label legend. It is strange that they did not come with a solid fill, because that is how they shipped; my install here was that way. But, I guess now you know how to fix it so... ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

Some common errors: *Make sure you are exporting the External ID when you export from LightWright. *Make sure when you browse to the file on import to VW, that you associate UID with External ID from the LW file. One question, is there actually different information in the file? Sometimes there is nothing new, so it updates, but since there is nothing new you can't tell. Orphans are also at the bottom left hand of the page, and you have to zoom out past your page boundries to see them. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

What version of SpotLight are you using? There are some issues with the move page tool in version 8.5.2. I am unable to duplicate the problem with version 9. I am also assuming that your electrics are 2d and 3d symbols, is that correct? Let me know and I'll see if we can figure out what is causing this. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

I don't see this here on either my WIN or MAC copy of SpotLight. The hexagon is definitely on top of the two-fer lines. One thing to check-from the resources pallette, open the containers folder, and edit the 2d portion of the symbol. With the hexagon selected make sure on the attributes pallete the fill is set to solid, not none. Let me know if that fixes the problem. Sincerely ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

There are two ways to approach this. One is to do a find and modify, and select all of one instrument and enter the wattage. However, if you want this to be a permanent change for every time you use a particular symnbol, you will want to attach the Light Info Record to your symbol. This is described step-by-step in Appendix A of the manual. Let me know if you have any questions. Sincerely, ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

My guess is that you had auto-numbering turned on for the position, and as you moved things around it got confused. Perhaps you should toggle the auto-numbering off until you are finished placing your instruments. HTH ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

Please e-mail the plot to kacey1@nemetschek.net and I'll take a look at it. Thanks! ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America

quote: Originally posted by td4stage: Once I assign a symbol to it will it move to the correct position? ie hanging position? I realize that it won't be *exactly* where I want it. (say I have a new unit #5...will it go somewhere between units #4 and #6?) Once I assign a symbol to the orphan, will it still have all of the attributes I added to it in Light wright? Thanks, Pat Unfortunatley, SpotLight is not yet clairvoyant so it can't know where your positions are, so you will have to move it to the actual position. However, it will retain all the information you assigned it in LW, the only thing that will change is the symbol. ------------------ Kacey Fisher Quality Assurance Specialist Integrated Products Group Nemetschek North America