markdd

@mjm Yes. I have for years kept my own library instrument symbols. Some have been made by me from scratch and some are adapted from stock vwx symbols. All are classed as follows: Lights-2D (for the 2D TopPlan shape) Lights-Info (for information such as beam angle or other text) Lights-Movement Radius (For the movement radius of moving lights) Lights-Col (For a circular disk that I set to show Gel colour in 2D as well as represent the lens geometry in 3D. This uses the "modify lighting instrument colour" portion of the Spotlight Preferences dialogue) Lights-3D (For all the 3D geometry (apart from the lens)) It is the Lights-3D portion that I set to No Fill when I want to see beams in OpenGL with shadows enabled. However, as the stock vwx symbols are classed Lighting-Incandescent; Lighting-LED; etc These could just as easily be set to "no fill" and the same principle will apply. It's just that the 2D Top/Plan representation will have no fill as well while you work on your beams/shutters/gobos etc in OpenGL.

Go to your instrument symbol and go to the edit 3D portion Put all the 3D geometry into separate class; say, “Lights-3D” Make sure that the geometry is all set to inherit Class Attributes. Then go to the edit class dialogue and set the fill for that class to None. After you refresh the instrument/s you should be left with an open wireframe instrument in OpenGL with shadows enabled. This means that the instrument will now allow light to pass out from the locus point to the focus point and you will see the beam on any 3D surface. Enabling shadows in OpenGL means that you will also see the effect of shutters and gobos as well. The reason this is necessary is because OpenGL does not “understand” the “cast no shadows” nature of the default Lighting Instrument texture which is read by Renderworks. Hope that hat makes things clearer.

As you can see there are a few options to choose from. My favoured option in fact would be Kevin’s or Scott’s. I suggested the viewport route because that’s what you were doing with your Top/plan views. However Scott’s use of Design Layer Viewports is also a good one (I agree that they are certainly not just for angled lighting positions) I tend to manage different scenery configurations using classes. (Scene-0, Scene-1, Scene-2 etc) and make sure that all the attributes are set to None as a way of reminding me to not create objects using any of those classes.) I use them solely for their visibility options. However, if you use Layers, then you can sometimes take advantage of layer colours which can be helpful if you want to show more than one scene at a time. The other reason to use a single viewport and mange your scenes with either layers or classes is to make sure that your the relationship between the set/masking and venue architecture is appropriately “stacked” so that objects are hidden or visible correctly. As you can see, there are as usual loads and loads of options!

Yes. Use the same principle as you have in 2d. However this time make a series section viewports around the static turntable design layer and then place as desired on top of the elevation of your empty stage. That should work work well with maybe some tweaking of classes to get things looking just right.

In 2019 there is a bug which is as you describe. Try stepping your graphics capabilities down a notch to “best performance and compatibility” in Vectorworks Preferences and you should see the results you are looking for and would expect. If you keep your graphics at the highest setting the display display on screen will be wrong but any pdf or printed output will be correct. This is a known issue which I believe will be addressed in SP3!

Try this thread Otherwise, within the title block layout manager, you can copy and paste text objects that have links assigned to them and just relink to another field using the Title Block Data link section of the OIP. You should also be able to select "no link".

Check that the objects aren’t on a layer that is stacked above the objects that you are trying to send to the back of.

I can’t get any 3D polylines to accept linetypes in 2019. Could you share a file with an example? Thanks Mark

Chrome. But it opens its own browser within Vectorworks . When you eventually get this sorted out you’ll find it’s rather well done!

I tried it out the other day and it worked really well. No crashes at all........

There is an option in the Advanced tab of the viewport to scale the text by any factor you prefer. Will that sort out your problem?

How utterly terrifying!

If you keep the item you are looking at selected, does the item stay within view? There are a few things that could effect what you see after changing a view: Are you drawing at or near the origin of your drawing? If you are drawing far away from the origin, and there is a lot of blank space at or around the origin, then this blank space is what you may be seeing. Centre View on Activated Layer (Menu>View>Unified View Options). If you have this checked then when you change an active layer, it will always centre the view on the origin. If not, then as I understand it, it will rotate around the centre of your screen (I may be wrong on the screen thing as I can never find a pattern to this) Centre objects after view change in (VWX preferences). This will keep the selected object in the centre of the view. Just a few options if @JimW gives you the all clear with your graphics card.

Currently downloading this. Does anybody know what this is supposed to address. Is it Mac OSX Mojave related? Thanks

Sadly, I don't think there is a way to do this without a script. I seem to remember a while back following a thread about rotating individual objects and I think @Pat Stanfordwrote one which was really helpful. The rotate tool now rotates Spotlight Lighting Instruments independently about their insertion points. Maybe this would be a fantastic bit of extra functionality for the Rotate tool. It could even replace the 3rd mode button, which nobody seems to understand anyway!!