Jump to content

SamIWas

Member
  • Posts

    409
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by SamIWas

  1. I think this has been requested before, but it was buried... One of the best improvements in Spotlight was the Universe and DMX Address fields, and how they work together with Absolute Address (does anyone use that?) and the combined Universe/DMX Address Field, with a selectable divider (I use a period while some use a slash). I would love to see this same feature used for Circuit Name and Circuit Number. These two fields are almost always used together, and having them separate makes label legends act extremely funky when rotating, with unpredictable results. Combine them into a Circuit Name/Number field, with a "-" as the default divider, but changeable like the Universe/Address one. I solved this with my own custom field, but it's a manual process to enter the info and thus error-prone.
  2. Absolutely. I'll share them with anyone who needs them. Where it becomes unfortunate is that I don't work within a small team. I work here and there and everywhere, and plots that I draw will be used by someone else who will then send them to someone else to refer to. I was hoping those things could track across once I converted them to red symbols. I was under the impression that the red symbol sort of "contained" the plug-in. But I see now that it simply maintains field entries for an existing plug-in.
  3. @klinzey Oh, okay. Well, balls. I completely misunderstood how those worked, which makes all the plug-ins I've built useless for plans which are sent out to others (and stops ones I'm currently building). I guess all the red symbols included with VW have a matching plug-in buried in VW somewhere? 😨
  4. I thought that when you created a Red Symbol from a custom plugin object (using "Create Plug-In Object" when making the symbol) that the Red Symbol could be used by others. However, I just had my gaffer test a file with a few of my custom plug-ins which I made Red Symbols, and he can't even edit the info on them. It's all greyed out. I was under the impression that was the entire purpose of red symbols: to make plugins more portable. Is this not the case? Is there any way I can use these symbols in a way that he is able to manipulate and use them also?
  5. I can barely even figure out Vectorworks texturing normally. I think you need a degree in theoretical mathematics to determine where Vectorworks is going to place a texture's origin and how scaling will affect it. But, I'll look into these... (I made a post in the general forum about the texturing positioning, but no one replied 😞 )
  6. That was the ticket! I knew i needed to find something to change the name to some sort of reference ID. I just didn't know what t was. Took a minute to figure out scaling, too. Then I found the somewhat confusing SetTexMapReal. Thanks!!
  7. Hey guys, I've been doing a lot more scripting over the "break" and am running into some new challenges, but ones which I think are easy. I'm just missing that one little thing. Say I've created an extrude and want to assign an existing texture to it (I'll get into having the script create textures later). What is the code to just say "Assign texture 'Blue Noise' to the extrude I just created. Something like the following: BeginXtrd(0,3); Rect(-1,1,1,-1) EndXtrd; oh:=LNewObj; **AssignTexture(oh,'Blue Noise');*** (the part in asterisks is just the idea of what I'm trying to do) I've looked at the function reference guide, and everything I find seems to refer to texture refs using LONGINT. How can I assign a texture to an object by name?
  8. Yep...I got ya. I still want my symbols to be able to take on Spotlight info, so I'm making them "hybrid" symbols for now. They have a spotlight light in them, but for some renderings, I'll turn that off and turn my visual light on. Curious...how do you focus them?
  9. I've been working on some objects with a fresnel lens, and am using an imported image texture for the lens. The texture is applied to an extruded regular 16-sided polygon (edges will be hidden with other geometry). I've tried numerous different mapping styles (auto-align plane seems to work best) and tried drawing just at center or in place. I've had mild success if I draw at the drawing origin, but if not, it's a crap shoot. The image below contains a rendered fresnel. The last time I worked on this file, the lens was centered and looking great (after spending FOREVER getting it centered). When I opened it again, the texture was offset. The second image shows several polygons with the texture appleid. All three have exactly the same texture settings, but they're all wildly different. I've tried with both the Z-origin option on and off, and it's just killing me. Is there something I'm missing, or does Vectorworks just randomly plop textures on wherever the hell it feels like? I'm used to Cinema 4D where texturing is a breeze. And this is precisely why I typically don't texture my 3D models...I just don't understand how Vectorworks determines texture coordinates.
  10. Thanks, Andrew. This is exactly what I thought. I have added light sources into my symbols for visualizations not related to stage looks, and put them into a class of their own so I can turn them off at other times. They're bright enough to glow the lens, but not bright enough to put much out on stage. One s the Spotlight default light and the other is my custom one. The spotlight one looks ridiculous, even moreso when the pivot point isn't in the center of the head!
  11. I'm getting deeper into modifying my 3D fixture symbols. I want to make sure I'm correct in the thought that Spotlight lighting fixtures contain a default simple spotlight, and that's it. You can't really customize that light too much? I've gotten some results I like by placing a spotlight object inside the fixture, but then it's not controllable from the visualization palette. I don't mind the automatic light for some things, but when it's a tiny spot in the middle of a large lens, it looks ridiculous. Trying to find the best balance. What are others doing?
  12. Make sure you have "Export Plug-In Objects" checked. I just tested again, and truss will not export if that option is deselected. This is in Cinema 4D with a straight VW export.
  13. If you are looking to import patch info into an existing plot, you'll run into the problem of spotlight not knowing which info goes to which instrument. If you want to just import data, and have lights placed via the 3D coordinates from MA, this is possible, but will likely not place actual symbols since exported fixture names might not match symbols in the document. In short...yes, it can be done. But, it's not straightforward or automatic.
  14. As Rob said, the clamp needs to be a part of your symbol. Accessories typically add to the lens/color frame of a fixture.
  15. Hmmm...I just checked on my setup with VW 2020 SP3.1 on mac. Exported a 3ds with straight truss, curved truss, and a few other random objects. Imported into Cinema 4D with no problems. Everything is there.
  16. You got me! I knew I had seen the mesh smoothing option before in the OIP, but I thought it had been under "shape". So, when I didn't see it, I figured something was wrong. It was in the render tab. That seems to have fixed it. Thank you!
  17. I am modeling some objects and importing meshes for some parts that I don't want to model in VW (I don't want to lose all my hair). The mesh imports just fine and looks great, but I need to change the class of some of the meshes. While this works, it doesn't change the underlying structure's class. This means that the mesh is essentially two classes, which is undesirable. But, if I go into change the internal class, the mesh loses smoothing settings, and looks bad afterwards. I trued using subdivision, but it smoothed things way too much. There is probably a way to deal with it, but wondering if there's anyway to change the underlying class of a mesh without destroying the smoothing angles? Right is the imported mesh, while left is after changing the class inside.
  18. I like the new DMX addressing options in Spotlight, especially the new Universe/Address field. I have always preferred my printed DMX addresses to have three digits, so that a fixture with universe 4, address 86 would come out as 4/086 (or 4.086 in my format). But Spotlight automatically changes digits to only what is required. For me personally, it just doesn't look as good. Maybe just a checkbox in Spotlight settings with an option "Use 3-digit DMX addresses" and an update to the code to display it would be helpful.
  19. I will probably try that tonight. I can make the label legends fine. It's editing their settings later that becomes an issue. Luckily, this is not something I have to do very often.
  20. Well, I hope that service pack comes soon. I'm in a different file now, and started creating label legends from scratch. Once I got past that "about ten" limit, the new ones started failing. 2020 isn't going to be very useful if I can't put legends on my fixtures.
  21. I have done it both ways. The resource manager is where I duplicated them first, and found them broken. So I tried from within the manager. That also did not work.
  22. In VW2020 SP 2.1 on a mac, whenever I duplicate a label legend, it breaks inside the label legend manager. I can still arrange legend through editing the 2D components. But if I choose the legend in the manager and try to edit the fields, the base symbol is blank and selecting it says "The resource list is empty". When I cancel out of the window, there is a vector script error which says "Error on line=1: _1979 _1982 - Index outside array limits." It appears that label legends can no longer be duplicated then modified. This is a serious workflow issue for large files.
  23. Running 2020 SP2.1 on a 15" MacBook Pro using 10.14.6. Back in the day (like 2008-2011), I had dozens, if not hundreds, of custom scripts all nicely organized and quickly accessible via the document or object context menus. Things that greatly accelerated my workflow. As time has gone on, I've been cutting those things back with each release, and stopped writing new ones, as fewer and fewer seem to be "allowed". 2019 seemed to fix some of the issues, and I could put a few more custom scripts in the object context menu. But now, in 2020, it's a complete s**tshow. The same workspace menu layout (built from scratch, not imported) that I had in 2019 is a mess. Some scripts run, while others don't, and it appears to be completely random. Two which are supposed to bring up a small dialog asking me to input a number, instead open various plant dialogs. This has been an ongoing problem for years, and has never been rectified after several contacts with VW. There also doesn't appear to be any real guide as to how many custom menus you can put in before things simply stop working. EDIT: I have fixed this a little by deleting a bunch of menu items from standard menus that I don't use. But, that shouldn't be necessary.
  24. Sorry for not responding...started building a show. I'll check these out soon!
  25. In certain Spotlight numbering operations and some AutoPlot tools, the cursor changes to a target of sorts, and can pick up symbols or snap to points. Is there something in basic scripting that makes this happen? I am not near the level of "event-based" scripting yet. I have some scripts I want to write which would require this, but I don't know how to toggle it.
×
×
  • Create New...