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jarjones

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Everything posted by jarjones

  1. I'm nearing the end of a project. After making all my Sheet Layers, I went down the Sheet Layer Navigation Pane and cleaned up the names and sheet numbers. Super easy, click on the edit pencil and run down the list. But when I went to publish, all the files came out with the incorrect numbers/names from before the cleanup. When I double clicked on the the title block, I discovered that the changes had not carried over to the Sheet Layer settings. When I opened them, they reverted the names/numbers back to the old versions that I had fixed. Making changes in the Sheet Layer list in the Navigation Pane didn't actually change anything. Is this a bug or is there some setting that links the list to the setting? Having to go into each sheet, then go into each title block, click on the setting you want, then click on the field you're changing is a time-consuming bore.
  2. I feel like this is a dumb question, but I've been searching for an hour now and I can't figure it out. The file I'm working on suddenly stopped keeping layer views consistent. If I change one layer to a top view, the other layers stay in the view they were in, so I get a top view over a front view instead of all the layers changing to a top view. Last week they all worked together, so I must have accidentally changed something, but I can't figure out what. It fixes when I hit Align Layer Views, but that's a pain every time I want to check something from another angle. I recently upgraded to VW 2022. Thanks, Jeff
  3. I tried that, and in earlier versions, I'd get control dots for each of these axes, but in the version when I click on the axis lines, nothing happens. Will have to look at that more closely. I started there, but because the face overrides were so complicated and some really hard to get to (basically a bunch of little planes making up the curves and interior cutout curves), the faster/better way seemed to be to apply that side texture overall, then deal with just the 2 faces. In my semi-attentive observations over the years, I think the mirroring/rotation goes back to how the item was created? If I draw a rectangle from the top down (negative direction of the Y axis), then extrude it and leave it as is, the texture will be rights side up (I think). If I do the same but draw the rectangle from the bottom up (positive direction of the Y axis), I think VW considers that first point the "top" and the texture is upside down. If I then add surfaces, clip surfaces, extrude, then add and subtract other extrudes, then rotate it on the x and/or y and z axis, then view it from the left or right, VW seems to have made a determination about what "top" is that rarely coincides with my perception. I did not do well with the previous texture mapping that let you designate sides vs top, since my sides were almost always the top for VW. I still don't get the texture not marrying to the object once set. If I mirror the object, the texture stays in its original orientation, which is now reverse on the object, but even that seems inconsistent. I did get the results I was after for the object above, it was just harder than I wanted it to be and some features didn't seem to work as I thought. Thanks for all your insight.
  4. I was having a texture mapping problem. I eventually made it work, although I'm not exactly sure how, but I was wondering what I was doing wrong. I do lots of texture mapping, and the 2022 interface for that seems like a step backwards (although the ability to apply textures directly to a face through drag and drop is amazing). I wanted to ask, since I'm sure this will come up again for me. I was trying to map a texture to complex shaped but flat extrude. Just applying the texture to a face did not get the results I want. I used the attribute mapping tool on 1 side and it worked. When I tried to use it on the other side, I got a flipped version of the texture, so I made a flipped copy of the texture, but this also came in the reverse orientation for the object. Is there a way in the mapping tool to flip the texture horizontally? I thought about turning it 180 in 3D, but I can't seem to access the handles for 3D mode for some reason. (I can see the axes, I just can't control them.) Is it because it's being mapped to a face that's a plane rather than something 3D curved like a hemisphere? Also, when I made a mirror copy of the object, it completely changed the applied texture back to the flipped and unmapped version. Duplicating and rotating the object did not cause this to happen, but it the object flipped, so did the texture. Thanks for any assistance. Jeff
  5. I have a group of 2D polygons that have been extruded. The extrudes were then added together and pushed and pulled and rotated to make it fit another 3D shape. Now I need a 2D shape of the extrude. My thought was to go back into the groupings of added extrudes until I got to the original polygons for the extrudes and copy those out and paste them back together and add the surfaces, but when I try that, they lose any rotations or scaling that I had to apply while in 3D mode. Is there a way to get the 2d shape easily? I'd rather not try to rebuild the shape in 2D. Thanks, Jeff brace leg.vwx
  6. Just got started on VW 2022 and I have a kinda trivial question: Is it possible to make the symbols (particularly the X) filled-in rather than outline, especially in the classes palette? (I'm finding it really hard to see at a glance what's on and off). If not, could that be an option for an update? All those outlined icons are reading as visual noise to me and it takes longer to actually identify the tool I need. Thanks, Jeff
  7. Apologies if the class setup seems chaotic. It's what I've found works best for me with these kind of modular sets. Snow White-AJF-10-19-21.vwx
  8. I have a scene that I have rendered that looks how I want it. I want to do anther render of the same scene with different furniture, so I duplicate the sheet layer and turn off the class that has the bunkbeds. The lighting is now totally messed up, despite making no changes to the lighting classes. All the instruments with gobos are set to cast shadows, etc. When I turn the bunkbed class back on, which should revert it to its former render, the lighting is still blown out. I can re-render the original viewport and get a consistent result, but any changes I make to the duplicated viewport cause messed up lighting. What's going on?
  9. The only files that can be chosen are .vwx and one other. I guess I could open the target file, re-save it as .vwx, then re-link it, but really, I'd just like to break the links so it's not reliant on that old file.
  10. Starting back to working after the long hiatus and wanted to clean up a theatre file. Every time I open it, a broken link warning comes up. I can find the file it says it wants to open, but it is greyed out so I can't select it. I have no idea what it's referencing. It's been doing this for probably years and I've just ignored it. Is there a way to force it to link, or is there a way to figure out what it's trying to link to so I can delete what's looking for the reference? I'm on VW 2019.
  11. I've designed a show in VW that will have many projections on multiple projection surfaces that change location. We're running through Q lab and I was wondering if there's a way to use a camera placed at the location of the projector to create the projection surface masks. It seems like there could be, but I know there are so many camera variables, that I could see it being completely wrong. Is there a way to get an accurate POV from a projection standpoint?
  12. In my case, it wasn't working because the chamfer was too big for the item. The fillet value was reverting to a previously typed size when I switched tools and I wasn't catching that. When I'm working with fillets and chamfers, the OIP still says they're locked, but they work fine unless the values can't be computed fos some reason (tight curves, multiple intersections, etc.) I also updated to 2019, which has run better than any version to date.
  13. Thanks! I tried that and got the results I was looking for. These forums are great! Jeff
  14. Is there a trick to projecting gobos onto a surface that has a glow reflectivity setting? To simulate a basic background cyc effect, I have an image of a gradient applied to a flat object behind the scenery usually set to around 80% glow. I think it works very well for rendering scenes with a background cyc. Today, however, I'm trying to project a cloud gobo on a cyc. If I have the glow turn on, even if it set low, the lights and gobos do not appear on it. If I turn off the glow, the gobos show up, but the cyc doesn't look as good with spotlights lighting it. The best compromise seems to be Using the Backlight setting, but it's still not as good as what happens in the space. Any tricks to make this work? As a scenic designer, I'm also curious how you lighting designers visualize a lit cyc in VW. Thanks, Jeff Glow texture cyc: Just the texture, no glow: Backlight:
  15. I eventually figured it out. I'd been carrying over my borders from v2014, even though I had made new title blocks in 2019. Once I deleted and placed new borders, the numbering worked as expected. Thanks for responding. Jeff
  16. Just upgraded to 2019 and saw a title block checkbox for "Auto Generate Page Number" but every page that has it says page 1 in the title block. Looking at the manual, it says, "When it is selected, the Page Number is automatically generated based on the stacking order of this title block border among the other title block border objects that have This Title Block is Active selected." I honestly don't understand what that means, since I only have 1 title block per page, unless it means where it's located in the stack of sheet layers, but then, why would they all be page 1? What am I missing? Thanks, Jefj
  17. I stumbled across a workaround, in case anyone is having a similar issue. I was trying to diagnose the problem so I copied a bunch of the gobo lights and the floor and ground row into another document where they seemed to work ok without any changes. I deleted the lights from the original file and copied the lights back in. This made them work again. Don't know why that worked, but I am back in action. Jeff
  18. So yesterday I learned how to use gobos in my renderings and all was going along well and I was getting some renders I was happy with when they just stopped. I can do the renders, but the gobos are showing up as a regular beam of light. I haven't changed any settings. These lights are in a separate class for the background scenery and have been rendering fine. I've re-rendered viewports that they worked in earlier, but they don't now. I've double-checked the gobo settings. I've changed out the lights. I've moved the focus points and the lights, thinking maybe I could force it to recalculate. I've restarted VW. I've turned shadows on and off. I've turned lights on and off. I've turned classes on and off. I've switched between PNG and JPEG compression. I've purged the file. I've upgraded to 2019 and done all that again and I cannot get the gobos to render, which wouldn't be as frustrating if they hadn't already been working. Any help or workarounds are greatly appreciated. Jeff Then vs. Now:
  19. Thanks for all the great help. It took me posting here to (eventually) figure out my own stupid mistake. I did create focus point objects that the lights were focused to BUT when I created them on my lighting layer, they were 24' above the stage at the same level as the lights, so the lights focused on them weren't focused downward. I haven't had a chance to fix it, but at least I know how to make it work. I've got it working in another piece I'm also working on. Thanks again for all the helpful posts. I definitely learned a thing or two. Jeff
  20. Thanks for the link. I hadn't found that. It does slightly contradict the VW user guide, which says that Fast Renderworks can be used. I used the Custom Settings as described in the video. Unfortunately, the lighting was the same, it changed my sail texture placement, and it took 48 minutes to complete.
  21. Working on a scenic design for a ballet and I'm trying to add some gobo textures as recommended by one of the tutorial videos. I've got several gobos aimed at the floor, but they are either not showing up or showing up so subtly as to be pretty much invisible. The lights are all at 100%, cast shadows are on, the floor's fill is set to not black, although the floor has a dark gray mottled texture applied with a thin layer extrude over it to create the blurry reflective surface we get. The light is at about 24' from the stage, ETC source 4 50° with a gobo texture and a green color. (I'd attach the file but it's 480mb with a multitude of layers and classes creating different scenes and I don't want to spend the time trying to replicate the problem in a smaller document.) The two attached images show the setup and the result. You can see a tiny bit of the gobo, but not really where it's supposed to be, and even where it shows up on the bottom of the ship scenery, it's not very pronounced. I'm trying to make a dark and spooky scene, so a lot of the other area lights are off. Since stage floors are often black, is there a trick to getting gobos to show up? I'm a scenic designer with very little knowledge of the lighting design aspects of VW/Spotlight. Figuring out how to add the lights with gobos and turn them on was challenging. I was hoping it would be as easy as pointing a light at the floor and turning it to 100%. We do this all the time in reality, so how to show it? Thanks for your assistance. Jeff
  22. I'm trying to produce a paint elevation of a mast for a scenic design. It's a couple of extruded circles with a wood texture applied and converted to a symbol. When I render in the layer (both Open GL and Final Renderworks), I get the expected result. When I render in a viewport for a sheet, it appears without end caps, as a hollow tube. The sides render properly, but not the ends. I've checked all my classes to make sure everything is turned on. The file it's in is too big to attach here, so I copied it into another file, but in that file, it renders properly. Any thoughts on what's going wrong here? Thanks, Jeff
  23. I'm making some windows for a theatrical set and doing lots of chamfering of extruded rectangles, pretty simple. Suddenly, all the extrudes I create are showing up as locked when I try to chamfer them. Unlocking the extrude objects has no effect. I reset the preferences, which also has had no effect. It has also locked objects that were already chamfered; if I ungroup them and remove the chamfer, I cannot select an edge to chamfer because it is locked. I'm on VW 2018 on Mac Mojave. Any idea what's going on and how to fix it? It's ground me to a halt. Thanks, Jeff A.R. Jones problem windows.vwx
  24. Very nice indeed. Is there a way to convert an imported dwg/dxf? The speed of dropping in existing models outweighs the beauty if I have to model them from scratch.
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