AWD

The only workarounds I have been able to successfully use is to use a gobo projecting light instrument but of course it mean that you cant simply use a certain lens or projector type to get an idea of what you might reasonably see. It is a LOT of faffing about to do something so simple. It seems to me to be a matter of VW not being bothered about this because not enough people shout about it even though I would have thought that it would be fairly easy for them to actually implement a projector instrument.

Currently working on another project with multiple projectors being used to light performers, moving roll drops, set and multiple gauzes. Currently Vectorworks is utterly hopeless at letting me create renders without jumping through ridiculous hoops. Projectors are 'a thing'. They are not going away and they cannot be simply a screen. Having to pretend profile fixtures are projectors and torturously create gobos and work with non real lenses is pathetic.

might be useful to go support Dave's request here:

Hi Dave, I agree completely. We need a proper functioning projector tool not a shabby workaround that people who don't often use projectors think should 'kind of work'. I requested this over 2 1/2 years ago... maybe we need to remind VW...

I have been asking for this for years... There absolutely should be a simple way to do this and choose projector type, output, lens etc etc and it function in the same way the screen tools do. Using the gobo & light workaround really isn't a great solution. Maybe ok if you have to do this once but a nightmare when you have multiple projectors that need to project onto a stage, set, musicians etc and show what it is actually going to look like with projection.

Hi Benson, Thanks so much for there reply. Yup that's basically what I currently do but it isn't as easy to work with a lighting instrument as it is with a projector from the tool. Gobos, shutters, aspect ratios, orientation etc etc. There are a lot of things that are similar but having the lenses and figuring out throw distance and framing with the projector tool is really really useful and you can't easily do that with a source four. I can use the same method as you to project onto multiple gauzes from the front but it all comes unstuck when I try to rear project onto multiple gauze layers... you don't see any image on the gauzes since you are looking at the side away form the projectors.. I am guessing different materials could help there?

Hello, It would really help me to have a projector instrument that creates light in the way a lighting instrument does. I need to render projection onto gauzes and scrims and invariably have to use lighting instruments project the images. It would be great to have a Projection Tool that works like the Video Screen tool with the same lens options, image selection etc but which acts like a light, creating beams (lit fog enabled) and potentially hitting multiple objects as opposed to just a flat predetermined screen surface. Andi

Hi, I would love this as well. Just a simple projector that works in the same way as the light from, say, a Source four with a gobo in it, but which has attributes like the Projectors in the Video Screen tool. The video screen tool has parameters that make working with it great but it doesn't project light and I can't figure out how to not have a screen attached. I know you can hide the screen but then you have no image. I could of course be missing something here... Andi

Hello... Any updates on this... Surely it can't be that hard!

Hi Matt, I have had this problem forever. VW ability to do hidden line renders is appalling. I have tried all sorts of settings in the artistic render options and also asked both Nemetschek and on here and have never found anything that fakes hidden line renders If you do find settings that work then please let me know. Andi

Hi Ian, I think that to say After Effects is just pixel based is being slightly unfair since there are many integrations of vector models within it when used in a certain way. Complex 3D tracking of 3D objects is not purely a bunch of pixels... But anyway, I agree with huge amounts of what you say and I never once said it was a simple task to make VectorWorks multiprocessor aware. However it should be and if it remains as it is then other applications will overtake it in speed and usability to the point of it being left way behind. I just did a test by the way... Big surface already clipped with lots of circles needing some of those circles altered..... I did the test two ways, first with just using the clip surface command and then by duplicating the surface onto 4 layers, clipping it with rectangles such that each layer had just over a quarter of the complete piece and then applying the clip surface command. After that I combined the layers and added the surfaces. Vectorworks adds surfaces much quicker than it clips them and clips less complex objects much quicker than complex ones. The second method, despite all the faffing around was quicker.... I truly fail to see how that couldn't have been sent out to multiple cores. But hey, there is truth in what you are saying. I choose to use VW because it has lots of features I really like and I have used it since Minicad4. In those days everything I did was square or octagon based... I used to dream of round par cans! I didn't intend to hijack this thread, just felt the same as the OP that I wished I could find a way of getting RW to do hidden line (I don't really see why RW can't but that is how Nemetschek have set it up) or get it to utilise multiple cores and feel strongly that VW needs to keep up with other applications. There are many workarounds and bodges that can get us towards our goal but it would be nice to utilise the power of our computers wherever possible and keep things as they should be.

Hi Grant, I absolutely agree that all the fabricators I have to send files to all want DWG so I have to export as that but circles must still be actual circles, arcs must be real arcs and curves must be exact curves... I was responding to the earlier posters comments that drawings are just representations of real things and therefore do not have to be exact. However I generate construction diagrams from the same files I send to the fabricators and those are quite often hidden line. A recent project involved metalwork with literally thousands of small but precise holes in it... It was a nightmare to get VW to deal with that and no hidden line rendering was involved at all. Editing clipped surfaces was so slow it was untrue. All done using one core of a very fast machine.

I feel like I have somewhat hijacked this thread but hey ho... Yup Horst I am very well aware that the hidden line rendering in VW is done by Vectorworks and that other render modes are done by RW using the c4d engine. I was just agreeing with the OP that I can't find a way to get RW to do a hiddne line render either. I also went on to say that I am very very disappointed that VW continues, revision after revision, to not recognise or utilise multiple cores. I don't think I am misunderstanding much... just not very happy with it.

Hi DWorks, Sorry, that may be how your drawings are and if so then great but not everyone can bodge their work. I am guessing you never send plans off that get fed to CNC machines or sent directly to hardware fabricators....

Hi Ian, I am not saying that writing code is easy or that it is a simple thing to optimise programming but there are many applications written to take advantage of multiple cores which are just as complex as Vectorworks. Do you ever use applications such as After Effects for example? The entire film industry would be a shadow of itself without Multi Core applications. Cinema 4D and it's engine quite happily uses multiple cores to do Hidden Line Rendering but unfortunately I can't get it to do that in RW without having 'artistry' added on top. So it may well be very difficult but isn't that why applications cost thousands of dollars to buy and hundreds and hundreds each year to upgrade??