MrTemplate

Hey Phil; you might also activate the tool with the keystroke option - z. (i **think** alt on a windows platform). if that doesn't do it then you might be working under a hacked-up workspace. hth, shelley

greetings; when it comes to fonts my brain goes into neutral. i get easily confused between truetype and postscript and openType font formats. i'm looking for a hand-drafted quality graphite MM style font that crosses over between mac and windows and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. i just went to font.com and got overwhelmed. any help using small words appreciated from an old luddite. thanks, shelley

hello max; if you have not solved your object library problem, may i offer SoftSymbols, a collection of object liabraries found at www.fieldtemplate.com. please stop by and take a look. i've got a collection of the color kinetics series including vertical strips. shelley

hello malibu; <shameless plug> if you have a moment look at the fixtures available at www.fieldtemplate.com. the softsymbols collection does include a mac 700 wash and profile but as i write this those two images may not be viewable on the page. contact me OL and i'll email you any pdf's you may require to see if you like the symbols. MrTemplate@earthlink.net </shameless plug>

Greetings; I've been working on a plot for a while. i've added resources, deleted resources, added different theatre architecture, etc. and now the document is getting somewhate bloated. other than running a selective "purge" command, are there other techniques for "cleaning up" a vw drawing? does export/import vectorscript have any impact? workgroup reference? ideas cheerfully accepted. thanks, shelley

Greetings: Back in ancient days of yore, say, vw 10 or so; i used to select an object, and the slection handles would appear around it. in this example, a piece of text. if i had "offset duplications" NOT selected in vw prefs, and then pressed command-d (on a mac), the second piece of text would appear "on top" of the original text. when i selected both pieces of text, the fact they were precisely "stacked" meant their selection handles "cancelled" each other out, and although the IOP listed "two texts" no selection handles would appear. now, in vw 12 that no longer appears to be the case. tell me, is there a way to regain this "double-stacking-cancel-out-the-selection-handles" attribute back? yes, i know, "put down the coffee". any thoughts cheerfully accepted. shelley

thanks again for the help. i work in theatre, so the pay is a bit lower than you get in residential. i usually live in extrude and sweep. but for the 3d of the umbrella i used the hemisphere tool. thanks again. shelley

hello peter: that's it! you're hired! now i can make that little umbrella i was working on! thanks. shelley

Hello; in the menu, Page > set grid > then type in 6" for snap grid and reference grid. in constraint palette make sure the "tic-tac-toe" icon (snap to grid) is on. then make certain your symbols' origin point is in the "middle" of the symbol; Organize > Edit Symbol. hth, shelley

Greetings; i'm trying to create a 3D piece of "cable". in top/plan view like the letter "S". but in 3D view, the "S" is a tube. i've looked at the latest fundamental manual but as usual it makes my eyes cross. is what i'm trying to create a nurb? how do i change the size of the "tube" after creation? sequential hints cheerfully accepted. TIA, shelley

Hi; <shameless self promotion> as an alternative you might consider checking my colortran symbols at fieldtemplate.com i went through and measured all of them for accuracy. all softsymbols are a uniform line weight and use only black, white, and a single grey fill for unity between all libraries. </shameless self promotion>

Hi Phil; sorry i've not checked in lately. just saw your post. i don't understand what you're saying. what i'm **guessing** that you are saying, is: you have created a hybrid object which you're calling a pipe, which you created in 3D as an extruded circle. you have assigned it a z height of 10', but it is showing you in the vertical scale on the side of the document that the pips is actually at a 30' z height. so far so good? your locus point comment loses me completely though.... shelley

Hello Mr. Allen; I think that an overview of all of the possible pipe lengths can be daunting, and so was set aside. [[shameless sales pitch]] if you want, take a look at softsymbols at the field template web site. the lighting positions object library includes booms, curved pipe, straight pipe, deck plates, and ladders. the straight pipe includes 5', 10', 15', 21', 30', 42', 50', and 63' long pipe. [[/shameless sales pitch]]. hth, shelley

Hello BJW and Jim; yes this isn't the simplicity desired. BJW's method is good, except i would suggest NOT assigning a Z value while in the "edit symbol" window if your lighting positions will be at different heights. When i created the lighting positions for SoftSymbols, i followed BJW's methodology, except i extruded a circle (into a tube), rather than a line. yes it would be great if it was easier. bottom line, you have to edit the resource, not the symbol. hth, shelley

Hi Pat; i gave up on the editable worksheet long ago. when i whined the reaction i got just didn't sound that interested in pursuing it as a useable function for us. so i just bounce it into Lightwright and be done.

and someday, i'll be able to download it. i'm sitting here buffering (i guess) for the fifth straight time over the last four days. right now i'm stuck at 201 megs. in the meantime, a student told me his "workspace got removed" when he upgraded to 12.5; can anyone verify?

Today I began to update some lighting resources. in the ETC product range, i want to create a second set of resources designating 750 watt fixtures, in addition to the existing set of 575 watt fixtures. At the present time, regardless of version, when i select a folder in the resource browser, my only choices to affect that folder are: Rename, Delete, or Move. In my imagination, i want to select the 'Ellipsoidals*' folder in the resource browser, and invoke the "duplicate" command to **the entire resource folder**. Once the duplicated folder (and all contents,) is created with the new suffix 'copy', i'll change the individual resource names and edit the symbols. Is it possible to do this? and avoid having to invoke the "duplicate" command to **each resource** inside the 'Ellipsoidals*' folder? Any suggestions cheerfully accepted. thanks. shelley ps; i'm now on mac OS 10.4, vw 12, have to update the signature

Hello leerose: I'm not up to speed in Spotlight for vw12, but i can tell you that the tool you're looking for is available in autoplot, written by sam jones. (www.autoplotvw.com) He has many "manual ## assign" tools for units, channels, and so forth. HTH, shelley

greetings; if you have a moment please take a look at version 2 of softsymbols (plug) at www.fieldtemplate.com. not only does version 2 include color kiinetics, there are also new libraries for supvervision, ADB, James Thomas Engineering, and Shelley's Section Collection. HTH, shelley

Hello Justin; these days when i want to portray a boom in both 2d and 3d i construct a hybrid symbol that reflects both of those views to provide graphic information, but i attach no record to the symbol so that it can't be included in any counts or any data exports. i have not, however, attempted to use these symbols to project any light or gobos. HTH, shelley

greetings; so you know i've added a simple one to version 2 of SoftSymbols. it's in the FT-Accessories Object Library in the Stuff* folder. shelley

Hi guys. sorry i've been off the loop for a bit, xmas shows and then i had a bit of a crash over the holidaze. kevin, i had no idea this update needed to take place for v12. did you mention this to me at LDI and i just missed it? folks; sorry for the delay. i'll try to address this as soon as i can. thanks in advance for your patience. shelley

Greetings. I just finished drawing symbols for the entire J. Thomas line. Take a look at www.fieldtemplate.com and let me know if i've missed anything. thanks. shelley

Greetings: I had a couple of SoftSymbols users report this same behavior in vw11. According to K. Linsey it is a vw11 bug; i don't know if it's been fixed in 12. My understanding of the quick fix is to 1. edit the S4-36? symbol 2. once in the "edit symbol" window, add a line, text, whatever, to the ETC S4 body. 3. Send this object to the back so it can't be seen. 4. once you exit the "edit symbol" window the S4-36? SHOULD behave properly. i say SHOULD because i don't own vw11 yet. good luck, HTH. Shelley

well, puff my cheeks and call me gopher. that did it just fine. thanks for the help. shelley