klinzey

As long as you have a professional license for Vision you should be just fine to install on the second laptop. You are permitted to install and activate Vision with a serial number on 2 machines. Because of the COVID-19 situation we have also automatically allowed for an additional activation. If you have any issues activating please contact tech support directly.

@Scott Campbell No. Vision running in demo mode only gives you access to the sample files that ship with Vision and has no time limit. The 30-day trial is a fully functional version of Vision that reverts to the demo version when the trial expires. Also remember that as of 2020, Service Select members that have Spotlight or Designer have a 2 universe license of Vision as part of their Service Select benefits.

Those were the only changes I made to the file attached above. You will see the the light on the second curtain till the rendering is complete.

First, you need to tell the light to cast a shadow. Once you do that the geometry form the fixture will be blocking the light, so you then need to assign a non-shadow casting texture to the fixture geometry. In the sample file I just made the texture but you can use the default instrument texture that is used by our lighting fixtures. drape opaque.vwx

Make sure there is a texture applied to the drape. Edit the texture and check the cast shadows option.

Without a fixture mode the fixture will not do anything in Vision. The fixture mode also controls the geometry of the fixture in Vision. My best recommendation is to use a fixture that is in the library and has a similar beam angle. You can adjust the brightness in Vision manually if needed. In the fixture mode pop-up select Other... and you can assign any fixture mode to the lighting device that you would like. You can also request that the fixture be created for Vision with the Fixture Request form on this page. https://www.vectorworks.net/en-US/vision

Let's start with the basics. You can not control fixtures using DMX using Vectorworks. You can focus fixtures and render the light by using Focus Points in Vectorworks. Select the fixture, right click and select Focus Instruments... Once the instrument is focused, select the fixture and right click and select Turn On. When you render you should now see the light at the focus point. (There are more efficient ways to do all this, but these are the basics.) If you want DMX control over the fixture using sACN or ArtNet you will need to use Vision. Weather you are using Vision or Vectorworks all the address assignments can be done in Vectorworks. Use the Universe and Address fields in Vectorworks to make the assignments. The next important thing to do in Vectorworks is to set the Fixture Mode and/or the GDTF Mode of the lighting device. If you are just starting out I recommend using the fixture mode. For most fixtures it will default to something reasonable if you are using symbols provided by Vectorworks. When you import or send to Vision, Vision will pickup the universe and address. (In Vision they will be called Universe and Channel but that's a story for another time...) From there you should be able to control the fixture via the console. One thing to note, with Vision 2020 sp3, if a fixture imported is as a GDTF fixture the editing of the Universe and Channel will be disabled in Vision but you still can see the assignments. If you are just getting started you may want to take a look at some the resources at Vectorworks University and the Vision Forum.

@_Aidan_ Because MA has not updated their installer you may need to install or re-install Vision after you run the grandMA Vision connection driver installer supplied by MA Lighting. The MA installer has been known to overwrite one of the files we provide with Vision.

@_Aidan_ A dongle is required to use MA-Net See: Vision FAQ What is a dongle? Do I need one to run Vision? A dongle is a USB key that contains your license information, including the number of universes that you own and subscription data. ... if you need to use MA-Net as your DMX provider, MA Lighting requires the use of a dongle for Vision. The Vision dongle can be purchased directly from Vectorworks. MA Lighting does not currently support visualizer connectivity via MA-Net on the grandMA3.

@RMDiekmann I'll open a bug report about the problem. Even if it is working as designed there is a need for improvements in order to support this workflow. Which fields are you seeing in metric units? The height field?

@radiowar Make sure you have the option to render fixture geometry turned on in Vision. There is an issue with the updater that will be fixed in a future service pack. If there are no updates available the progress bar will stall. It's safe to quit the updater, and check for library updates at a later time.

There is really no limit in Vision. You will probably have to adjust the Far Clip Plan and you may see some z-fighting is some geometry depending on your view distance and Far Clip plane settings. One of the reasons Vision has no limit on the vies is that we use an acceleration based camera view rather than absolute camera position values so we don't have limits on our camera/view location. I know there have been some very large models produced in Vision.

In the label legend manager did you select the option to display the labels in 2D? There are separate settings fro creating each label in 2D and 3D.

This is a known issue should be fixed in a future 2020 service pack.

If you have a physical console or a wing you can connect via sacn or artnet. If you need to use MAnet, you will need to contact your sales representative to purchase a dongle. Dongles are only only available with unlimited universes.