grant_PD

I just tried this and grouping between layers moved everything from its original layer to the layer I was active on when creating the group, so I'm not really sure how this workflow is possible. In any case, I would agree with @line-weight that this workflow seems to work against the structure of VW. Classes define the object, Layers define the position. In theater a lot of times Layers can also loosely define "Departments," so there can be an "audio" layer, a "lighting" layer, etc. I'm not sure what @pjs8888 means when writing that there will be multiple iterations of the design in various places around the venue. Perhaps an example could help. The example of the tabletop and legs makes no sense to me. Unless you were a furniture shop and you wanted different tops to go with different legs? Even still classes would be preferable there, since you could nest them and control textures etc.

I'll take any and all integration to outside assets. I do use NURBS modelling, I've never used Rhino, I hear it's great, let's make the connection and see if we can all be inspired. Upvoting now.

VW has gpu rendering from redshift, although it is nowhere near as fast as redshift in other modelling programs. Depending on your field (landscape, architecture, entertainment,....) you might find it better to head toward twinmotion, enscape, or a dedicated 3d modeller that has gpu rendering in the form of redshift or something like it.

Can't imagine why classes would turn on and off unless that's operator error. Is the font you are using for the file installed for both users? That could make the annotations jump around....

See if you can do a foreground render in shaded mode, turn off textures and colors and draw edges. Then do a background render with hidden line turned on.

@dtheory looking through your website you'll probably be happiest heading into twinmotion/lumion/enscape. They are all fast gpu style renderers and pretty easy to get used to. I would think the complexity of C4D or some other 3d modelling program+renderer will be too overwhelming for what you produce.

You could import the image as a reference, being careful to save the image with the same file name, and then update those renderings prior to exporting the sheet layers. But in essence, all external renderers are going to generate their own file, that needs to be updated manually by the user, the output of those files will need to be placed either in the sheet layers or in an external presentation. The trade off is that external renderers are going to give you faster and in most instances better renders. In my world better quality almost always wins, since that is client facing. The suffering of the user who needs to do more file management loses, since that is in house facing.

@Tom W.I'll take it.

Yes, but then when I edit the properties after creation, I want to have all of the fill/line/textures set to be what I normally set them to be. Is there a way to predetermine those?

How can I set new classes' default attributes? I can't seem to find this in the documentation.

There are going to be many tutorials for this online, but the basic premise is: You are looking at a section of a room, so everything that you see in the elevation must be modelled in 3d prior to cutting the section. Once you have everything modelled with the accuracy level that you want, cut a section of the model and create a viewport of that section on a sheet layer. Adjust the rendering settings to what you want (there are many options in VW) and place all of your notes/dimensions etc inside the annotations. Annotations are a sort of overlay layer that exists only for that viewport. You should be good to go then. Any changes you make to the 3d model will be updated in the rendered view by updating the viewport. You will have to adjust the dimensions and notes accordingly as changes progress.

@MGuilfoile I had high hopes for redshift when VW integrated it. But for whatever reason it just doesn't as expected. I've been a redshift user in C4D for a few years now, I couldn't see ever going back to a cpu based renderer. I totally agree with you about twinmotion. So perfect for creating exteriors! Not perfect for controlled lighting situations like the television work that I do. So like you, I need to produce high quality renders (for the clients) and high quality drafting (for the shops). It is a crutch to go to C4D as you say. @Kevin Allen here would be my starting list to woo me back to renderworks: -Light falloff controls -Real, usable area lights that can be assigned to geometry -a material editor workover that gets us into this decade: more precise controls and all the channels we expect: normals, masks, glossiness/roughness, subsurface scattering, etc. -UV mapping. -alpha channel output -more control from cameras.

Wholeheartedly agree, but realistically do you think it's a high priority considering how much attention they would need to give it? The standard for renders these days is unreal/unity or the renderers of vray/octane/arnold/redshift. So how do they compete with that? What would be the renderworks Final Quality features we should be asking for?

I abandoned VW's realistic rendering a long time ago for this very reason. I love that it can create OpenGL renders, hidden line renders, anything but realistic style. Once I started rendering in C4D, and then C4D with Redshift, I never looked back and neither did my clients. Even if I liked the quality I was getting out of VW's realistic style renders, I couldn't deal with the amount of time it takes to produce a render. I am always excited each time VW adds new capabilities to the rendering engines, because like you, I prefer to keep my work in one program. But for now, I need to render in another program, whether it's C4D or Twinmotion.

If they are a symbol, you should be able to edit any one of the instances and have it update globally across the file.