markdd

Both would be good. But its the reflected light that I am interested in. I would like to use it as a tool to work out here to place the source to get the reflection where I need it. Many thanks Mark

It was the resultant reflected light that I wanted to see. Any thoughts?

I would like to reflect a spotlight off a mirrored surface. Is there a way to render the reflected beam? I would really grateful if anyone is able to give me a walk through of the procedure here. Many thanks Mark

Doing a plot/model view of each fixture will be very time-consuming and very difficult to navigate, I agree. Is there not a way you can make viewports of groups of fixtures? Just in terms of turning lights on and off, then assign channels to your design and then turn them off/on using the channel column in the Visualisation palette. Its still cumbersome, but makes it easier than locating individual fixtures over a large complicated model. Mark

Best thing I can suggest is that you share your work with us and let's have a look so we can make suggestions. Could you post a Dropbox link? Mark

Yes please. It's very peculiar that it's not available for Spotlight users. I endlessly receive dwg files and spend way too long sorting out their class/layer structure to make sense with my way of working

Agreed

I get the call out tool in my version of Spotlight.

This a great idea. Just what Spotlight is potentially so useful for. Checking if beams are clipping masking or other elements is difficult even in a rendered mode as most of the time masking is black and as such doesn't show up clashing beams without changing its color.

You can ungroup pdf files to get at the vectors if they existed in the pdf file to begin with.....That's quite a good trick that has been helpful in the past.

I didn't realise that. I do all my visualisation before channelling up the design as it is the visualisation element that must come first with me. Once I am happy with the results of any visualisation then I can go ahead and finish the design and finally channel it up. Makes more sense that way?! Mark

The earlier thread https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=225757#Post225757 got me thinking....... For lighting designers who sometimes have several hundred instruments in a drawing, the visualisation palette is very clumsy. Firstly, I see no need for it to show accessories and static accessories. They needlessly clutter up a very long list. Ultimately it would be great if it could display in a "magic Sheet" format, but this may rely on too much information to be practical. However could it not be split up like the navigation palette into positions/fixture types/colour etc etc. Maybe all user definable so that when visualising shots or a wash or any other lights for that matter, it is a simple more user friendly layout. The current layout of using layers and classes seems mostly redundant for my workflow as most of the time my fixtures are confined to one or two layers/classes. It would be interesting to hear from others how this might turn out, but I thought I would get the ball rolling! Mark

Yes please

Definitely +1 If it helps, then if you give a lighting instrument a purpose then that will show up on the visualisation palette Why do lighting accessories/static accessories have to show up in the Vis palate? Us theatre lighting designers use alot of them (barn doors, scrollers, top hats etc) They don't emit light, so it seems to make no sense! Mark

Can't believe this hasn't been requested 1000 times before! Doesn't stop it being a good idea though!

Hi Is this not a bug that should be fixed? mark

Thanks, that's good to know. I'll be careful next time! Mark

I am trying to create a Section viewport using Hidden Line rendering. The model consisted of planar lines as well as 3D objects. VW crashes when I check the Planar Objects box. Is this a known fault? If I duplicate the viewport and just turn on the layer with the planar objects then all the planar objects are rendered perfectly. Mixing the 3D and planar though seems to cause problems. Anyone got any answers to this!? Many thanks Mark

Hi I share my favourite files with two computers using dropbox. All worked fine till today. Now, only the laptop is able to add new files. My desktop just ignores the command. Is this a common problem? Is there a simple solution? Many thanks Mark

Thanks Raymond. This has made a big difference! Not quite there yet! I will need to search for some objects using individual colours to finish the job. All the best Mark

Raymond Thanks you for spending the time to help out. Your script makes a difference, but I still have over 40 colours in the document! Any other thoughts? Shall I send you a copy of the file I'm working with? Many thanks Mark

Hi It's the colour that is set by class. Despite the fact that all the objects in the file look and say that they are all the same colour, when I look at the colour palette for the file I have over 60 or so colours in the file. I have "purged all the unused colours" and still am left with just about the same number. What I want to do is totally eradicate all of the colours apart from Black and White from the document! The reason for this is to stop bringing in random colours into new documents when using my symbol library. I am sure this has occurred because symbols have been created over 10 years or so. It would be great to have a delete all pen colours and replace with Black and delete all fill colours and replace with white. Is such a script possible in vectorworks? Essentially I am doing some Spring cleaning! Thanks for your help! Mark

Raymond All colours are meant to be set by class. I had hoped that by simply changing all the classes to Black Pen, White Fill that that would sort out the issue. Sadly not. It appears that colours seem to be embedded in groups of objects within symbols etc and all sorts of other things besides. A bit of a mess really! Many of the symbols have history back to when I was a novice VW user (2005). Now that I am a little "wiser" I am trying to weed out old stuff and be more productive! Mark

Hi I want to spend a little time updating and rationalising my symbol libraries which are contained in various folders within one drawing. What I really want to do is streamline my work with regard to use of pen colours. Currently I have over 70 colours in this file and I would like to get that down to just Black and White (for now). Many of my symbols have multiple classes and I need to keep it that way. I have looked into the "Change Symbol Attributes" menu command but this is too general. Is there another way that I could change all the pen and fill colours in all the symbols in my library to Black pen, White fill without editing every symbol (over 800!) I am wondering if anyone out there has written a script to do this. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Mark

I have started to use this feature a lot more these days. I particularly like the height label which I put beneath the position name. However If you add Position Height before the instruments on the build list then all multi circuit instruments count as individuals rather than grouped by the amount of circuits you have entered in the dialogue box. If you put the position height at the bottom of the build list then all behaves as you would expect. Is this a bug or is there something that I don't understand? Many thanks Mark