grant_PD

I know that there's a way to do this using the old school layer links, but I avoided it. I agree with having this capability, maybe just a "viewport" window where I can see what I'm doing from a different vantage point. As I work in telivision this would be invaluable to create in a plan view and see how things shape up in the camera's view.

I posted the similar wish earlier. YES, PLEASE!

nice!

Sure. All things are assigned a class in VW whether you want them to be or not. Even the none class is, essentially, a class. If you create a viewport, it's class will set itself to the active class. This can ( and has ) create a problem if you don't pay attention to which class you have active. You might end up creating a viewport and then not be able to find it if you've turned the class off while doing something else. I can't think of any time when I'd want a viewport to be in a class other than a "viewport" class, although I've such things before and immediately contradicted myself. But for now, I'd like to be able to set a preference that defaults all viewports upon creation to the class of my choosing.

Viewports are a special little beast. I'd like to be able to set them so that they are in a class of their own....always. This could be document pref I gues..

Self explanitory: Sometimes it's easier to make the symbol and then class it, rather than creating a class and then making symbols to go in it ( now that would be planning on my part!)

When selecting, to be able to select the inverse.

I know there's a tendancy for people to shy away from scripting, but I'd like to point out one program that actually encourages it with much success: Photoshop. Their actions pallete is really just a macro writer, and I think this would be the greatest thing for VW to have. I'd love to be able to start task recording, go through a few steps, and have VW record the whole process for me.

I've had issues with artistic as well. In scenes where I've got lights all over the place, sometimes I get no lit areas at all. Just a swath of grey. Also of note, try replacing a directional light with a point source. I get a massive increase in brightness with a point source.

I like how I can control the intensity of a light from outside a symbol. Can I also be able to control the lights color from the outside as well?

I spend a lot of time either trying to get more light in places and less lights in others. Having a barndoor or shutter tool for each spotlight would be great. In my mind's eye, I see myself clicking on the "set view to light" button, and then being able to draw a polygon (much like the cropping tool) around what I want to shutter off the light to.

Anyone ever made a workable barndoor or shutter for lights? I imagine there's a simple PIO that could handle this task.

I've tried no thickness, and various degrees of thickness. Always with the same result. And I agree, it takes a LONG time to deal with transluscent objects.

I've asked this before, but does anyone else have issues creating backlit objects? I use these all the time, and tend to get artifacts all over the surface when hitting it with front and backlight. Doesn't really matter what the rendering settings are either.

I'd check your video card compatibility first. OpenGl is handled by that almost completely.

I use a constant color background sometimes for rendering objects, so that I can "green screen" out the background and do overlays. Only problem is that whatever the color I use will show up in reflective surfaces. Helpful sometimes when I'm trying to match a lighting condition, but I'd rather have the backgrounds' reflection be an option than a constant.

Jnr, got my rig from XI. Nothing but good stuff to say about their computers. They put in what I wanted, gave me advice where I needed it, top notch job. Reasonably priced too, if you do a little comparision shopping. My hope is that VW will take advantage of the fact that dual processing machines are becoming more and more of the norm, and make more of their operations available to it.

Does anyone else see the need for cornerblocks and floor plates in the truss tool?

Dual processing should give you significant improvments over single processing. However, everything I've read about hyperthreading indicates that hyperthreading is not true dual processing, and can actually be slower in some cases. The fact that the industry seemed to move rather quickly into dual cores also tells me that hyperthreading wasn't so great to begin with. Dual core processors on the other hand break up the job internally I think, and so should act like dual processors per processor. I could be wrong here. I've got dual (single core) amd processors and they perform great. At this point the cost of having dual cores inside is too much at this stage, so in my opinion you really need to look at a a cost vs. performance analysis. It still holds true today that you'll pay significantly more for cutting edge technology today than you will for yesterdays' cutting edge technology.

When I move symbols into folders, the resource browser takes me to the folder I'm moving to. This is a pain, becuase I then have to go back to the original folder to continue moving stuff. all in all, I'd like to see the resource browser act like the O.S. folders.

the old stair tool would give me block type stairs if "concrete" was selected. Now it doesn't. I never actually have my stairs made out of concrete but in the theatrical/television/entertainment world small 2-4 step units are almost always block stairs.

I don't like the render bitmap tool at all. Much like rendering a viewport, it seems to take more time than just rendering the current view. If I want to work with the finished render, I'll just screen capture it and go from there.

I've noticed that there are times when renderworks will not render an object, mostly when I'm zoomed in tight on an object. I'm usually inside a group when I do this, don't know if that affects anything. the render fails on all render modes, except for hidden line.

I second this wholeheartedly. It would greatly reduce the amount of rotating and workarounds that I've had to do in order to edit rectangular objects in an oblique position.

actually I've had instances of creating a closed polyline that simply wont render a top or bottom.