kmoore1

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: When a SPOTLIGHT drawing is exported to DWG format all of the instruments become individual symbols. (ie, 5 different Altman 6x12s are exported as five different symbols with the name of the block 1022.1.1.0.0 etc. as opposed to Alt 6x12). Obviously this maintains the "look" of the drawing as all the label legend information becomes part of each light as an individual. However, this is a huge problem in moving a show to an AutoCAD user or WYSIWYG programmer because each instance of a 6x9 has to be reassociated as a 6x9. In the future can there be a way to convert a SPOTLIGHT drawing back into a regular VW drawing so that all 6x12s keep their original symbol names (Alt 6x12) before exporting to DWG? This is on the wishlist for future consideration. I'll add your vote to the pile. ;-)

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: It's troubling to me that the Spotlight manual says under the Gobo Projector section "These features are intended to assist you in previewing the lighting design (they cannot be used to accurately render all the lighting instruments on the stage for every scene)." SpotLight does not currently do what WYSIWYG does with regards to visualization and console interaction and I wanted to make this extremely clear to people buying SpotLight. Our strength is in light plot and paperwork creation and management, whereas WYSIWYG is a strong visualization tool. The caveat in the manual is there to prevent people from having false expectations of the program that it is not designed to fulfill and then becoming frustrated / disappointed when it won't do what they expected. I would much rather have someone not purchase SpotLight because they find out it doesn't have the visualization capabilities they want, than to purchase it and either feel that its capabilities were mis-represented, or frustrated that they can't make it do what they want. SpotLight is first and foremost a production tool; it also has visualization capabilities. WYSIWYG is foremost a visualization tool; it also has production capabilities. That said, we are continuing to refine and develop our visualization tools. Integrating the visualization with the light plot is high on many people?s wish lists. I?ll make sure to add your vote to the list.

quote: Originally posted by Kevin Jones: After upgrading to VWA 9.5 yesterday whenever I edit a ETC ERS (Ellipsoidal) fixture it turns into a rectangle and all label legend info disappears. The properties seem to be there, though. The ETC S4 Pars don't appear to do this or the 6x9's in the plot. Any ideas? This is frustrating to have to replace symbol with current after every edit.TIA The problem has to do with the degree symbol in the symbol name of the ETC source 4 fixtures on windows. If you change your symbol names so that they don't have the degree symbol this should fix the problem. This has been entered into our bug tracking system.

quote: Originally posted by Kevin Beacham:[QB]The whole gobo projector is quite unintuative/frustrating.QB] What aspects of the gobo projector do you find unituitive / frustrating? Can you give me some ideas on how this functionality would work in a "perfect" CAD Package. I'm not being critical or sarcastic, I am intersted in hearing what aspects aren't working for you and if you have any suggestions for improvements to the system. I'm begining the design process for the next version of SpotLight so now's the time to get your wishes in. TIA [ 12-07-2001: Message edited by: kmoore1 ]

quote: Originally posted by domakid: How do you center a gobo in the light? I can get the gobo into the light but it is off center and I get 4 of them. They seem to be centering in the beam but I get 4 quarter gobos. Any thoughts? If you use the create gobo texture command it should take care of getting all of the offsets correct for you. If you've migrated the texture from a previous version of SpotLight you may need to adjust the offsets, or re-create the texture. Some fixes were made to RenderWorks that addressed problems with image mapping. This is most likely the cause of your offset pattern.

quote: Originally posted by vinod: I TRIED CREATING GOBOS FROM JPG AND GIF FILE BUT IN VAIN,ONLY CAN CREATE FROM BITMAP,IS THERE ANY SETTING OR ANOTHER WAY TO CREATE GOBO'S FROM JPG FILES.THANKS What error messages, etc. are you seeing when you try to use a jpg file. This sounds like it might be a problem with QuickTime. Check to make sure you have an updated version, and that it is properly installed. I believe we use QuickTime for all of our image importing / exporting. [ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: kmoore1 ]

quote: Originally posted by vinod: i want to activate or call other programs from vectorworks using vectorscript .Is it possible if so how can i do it,or do i need to use the sdk to the thing for me,any ideas,thanks Vectorscript does not have the capability of starting another application. I don't know if this is possible in our SDK or not.

quote: Originally posted by vinod: i am a new user , i m trying to export my mcd file so that i can open it in povray can anybody help I don't know if anyone has any .mcd to .pov conversion routines, probably not. You can export a file to VectorScript which is our own internal scripting language. From this you might be able to either write a tool or go through by hand and mangle the Vectorscript in to POV code. If you go this route you might want to set your class or color attributes in the VectorWorks so that you can perform a search and replace on certain object attributes in the VS code and replace them with the appropriate POV texture or attribute definition. HTH

quote: Originally posted by lalcaraz: I have created a Lighting position from a symbol.I created the Symbol on my "Light Pipes" classI created the Lighting Position while in my "Light Pipes" classWhen I select the position, it shows it as on the "Light Pipes" class However, if I try to 'Gray Other'or 'Active Only' classes, it Grays the Lighting Position as well or causes it to disappear. I believe the problem is that the the "stuff" you used to draw the lighting position may not be in the "Light Pipes" class and may be in the none class. When you select the lighting position and set its class you're setting the class for the container and not necessarily for all the objects in the container. To fix this you should be able to edit your position symbol and select everything and change the class to "Light Pipes" HTH

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: I have done a couple more plots. All of my label legends are gone after the purge, even if I assign them to the instruments I place before the purge??? I am having to go back and re-create the legend over again and re-assign them to the instruments - any thoughts? Your label legends are gone because they weren't inserted anywhere in the document. I mentioned this specifically in my post as a warning. The label legends are used by the lighting instrument to look up information. I'll e-mail you a file of the label legends that were in the file I purged. Before you purge you need to use the symbol tool to insert each of your label legends somewhere in the document. This will add virtually no size to your file and will keep the legend symbols from being purged.

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: According to the manual you can run SP 8.5 or 9 on any machine that has a Pentium or higher and 92 mg ram. I have a Celeron 366 with 192 mg ram, windows 98 and it runs like a 64 Volkswagon. Why? Everytime I move an instrument or do anything it is 5-6 seconds of redraw time. Check out SpotLight 9.5.b5 public beta. Redraw times for lighting instruments have been dramatically improved. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Whatever I do on the plot to an instrument it seems to cause a bunch of instruments to disapear and reapear on the screen. I changed the channel number on an instrument, then next I just moved it - same results- a bunch of instruments appeared to redraw or regenerate on the screen. I tried several different plots and it is consistant. Check out Beta 5 of SpotLight 9.5. This is much improved. Exporting instrument data with instruments in view is also fixed. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by domakid: Is there any way to quicken the process of scrolling in spotlight? There have been a number of posts on this topic on the bulletin board. You can check for some suggestions there. If you are brave you can also check out the public beta of SpotLight 9.5 which is available for download. We've done some work to improve the regeneration and redraw speed of lighting instruments in SpotLight. quote: I am also having a huge problem trying to take the plot off of my computer and put it onto a PC. We both have all of the same fonts (including Archie that we downloaded from your website) but it takes alll of the I took a look at this and the only font I was seeing a problem with was the Archie font. I have a feeling the problem is with this font. You might try Architect or Technical which are very similar fonts and you can find truly identical versions cross platform. quote: [b} I'm also having a problem with the lable ledgend manager displacing some of my unit info strangely. I have a few units that are at 45? angles on the plot and the lables keep shifting weird. [/b] Can you please send me a file with your label legend and three instruments inserted. Insert the first instrument pointing straight up with your label legend. Insert the second instrument at the 45deg angle. (This will be the "shifting wierd" example) Insert a third instrument at the 45deg angle and manually move each label to where you would expect it to end up. Label this third instrument. E-mail me this file (kmoore@nemetschek.net) I'll take a look at it and see if I can give you any suggestions on how to set up your legend to make what you want to have happen, actually happen. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Just got XP and am going to install it but wanted to wait to know if anyone else has run SP on it yet and know if there are any problems. I talked with the guys in tech support here and they have: A) been running it on some of their machines with no problems for a couple of months. B) Seen only the typical user issues that they see on all platforms and no particular issues. They have had more calls about installtion problems on windows 2000 and XP but this has been mostly due to people not RTFM (reading the fine manual) with regards to installing things as an adminstrator or as a power user with necessary privleges. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Kevin, Thanks for the help. I did run the convert from 8.5 so I guess there is a bug in the convert. I'll check into this and get it on the buglist. quote: It is really a hassle to start new, as I re-use old plots when I am going back into a space, or one that is close to a space I have been in before - instrument wise. I will start creating new plots, but I hope future upgrades( 9.5 ) won't create this problem. I have plots for 50 theatres (30 in 8.5) and I won't want to start from scratch everytime SP upgrades. Also how did you purge the old instruments, as I have a bunch of converted plots that sit around 5 Mgs and would love to downsize them!! You can run the purge command which is on the edit menu. You'll need to insert instances of your label legend symbols to prevent them from being purged. I would also recommend that you attach the zsys record to one of these instances. When I cleaned up your hilton file I just created a new layer and made it invisible. Inserted each of the legends into this layer and then selected one of them, changed to the data pane of the object info palette and selected the check box for the zsys record. I then ran the purge command and choose all of the check boxes. Once it was done I manually pruned out all of the unused symbol folders and the resulting file was much smaller. The theatre lighting toolkit stationery file is where all of the bloat is coming from. The entire library of symbols was included in the template and was over a meg and half. SpotLight has so many more symbols that they were all broken out into library files instead of a single template file. SpotLight was also designed not to require any sort of template file as this proved to be really cumbersome for people working from DXF imports or previous plots or things they were getting from scenic designers in VW. You should be good from now going forward. I would recommend setting up a clean template file with your usual layer structure and a library of your common lighting equipment, label legends, etc and then just copy and paste your exisiting projects, layer by layer, into this clean template. You shouldn't have to re-draft anything, just some copying and pasting and resource maintenance. HTH ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by kmoore1: Can you please send me one of your 8.5 files. I'll take a look at it and try to figure out why you're having this problem. Ok. The reason you're having problems is that your Light Info record didn't get changed to the new format used by spotlight 8.52 and 9.01. The command convert plot from 8.5x should have done this. I don't know if it didn't get run, or if it has a bug and didn't update the record format. I'll check into this. The symbols that are in your document seem to mostly be from the VW 8.52 theatre lighting toolkit. Here is how to fix it. In the resources palette scroll down to the item "Light Info Record" Click the "Edit..." button to edit the record format. Change the field name of "Instrument Type" to "Inst Type" Change "T3-Frame Size" to "Frame Size" Click OK to finish editing the record format. Now any time you perform a replace instrument it will work correctly. You might want to start your next project from a clean file and use the SpotLight 9.01 instrument symbols. This should greatly reduce your file sizes as you won't have the complete theatre lighting toolkit stuff floating around with your file each time. I knocked your hilton file down from 5791k to 1692k by purging the un-used symbols out of the document. Just be sure to insert instances of your legend symbols into a temp layer to keep them from disappearing. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by td4stage: How do I change default setting for units I have already entered onto the plot? IE, I want to change the frame size for a unit. Edit the symbol definition for your symbol. Change the value in the light info record to the appropriate value. Run the replace instruments command. Change the settings so that it will replace All <My Instrument Type> With <My Instrument Type> This will make the instruments go look up the default values again. You can also use this to globally change instrument types or change to a new symbol. If you just need to change all the frame sizes for an instrument type you can also use the find and modify command to "find all instruments whose Instrument Type = <My Instrument Type> and change their <Frame Size> field to 12" x 12"." quote: I increased the size of the dimmer and channel containers. How do I move the containers so they do not "pile up" on top of one another. I have tried moving them through label legend manager...no luck! You might try adding the containers to your label legend symbol to help you in laying out your labels. As long as you don't group them with your text the instrument will still be able to find all of the labels and lay them out correctly. Once you've edited the legend you'll need to force the instruments to update their labels by using the refresh instrument command. If you've dragged the labels around for an instrument to customize the location of the labels it will not update with the new locations of labels in the legend. If this is the case just select the instruments and change their label legend to the same legend again. You'll loose the custom placement of labels and it will adhere to the placement in the legend. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight --------------------- [This message has been edited by kmoore1 (edited 10-19-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: I select the instruments to be replaced. Go to "replace instruments" menu. Select ETC in the Symbol Folder window - select a S4-36 unit in the symbol window and click OK. I get units with all the info in the Object Properties window - position, color, channel, etc, except the instrument type which is blank. Again this only occurs with ETC units. Check the second part of my last post on the bulletin board about checking out the symbol and what information is attached to it. Find your "S4-36" instrument in the resources of you file and edit it. The most probable cause of it not updating is that the field names in the record attached to this symbol do not match the field names of SpotLight's lighting device. You can edit the record format and change the names to match and this will fix the problem. You might also pull in the source 4 symbols included with SpotLight and use those instead. They will have the correct records and fields attached. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: It seems that whenever I replace units, on a plot that has been converted from 8.5, with ETC units they come in with nothing in the "Instrument type" field. Any thoughts? Converted from SpotLight 8.5 or Theatre lighting toolkit in 8.5? Are you replacing it with ETC instrumentation from SpotLight 9.01? Our instruments all have a record format called "Light Info Record" attached to them and this record holds the various defaults for an instrument. Check to make sure that the instrument type field is filled out in your source 4 symbols and that there isn't another record format attached with the same field name. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by seaghan42: Sorry Kevin, I just tried it. I can delete all of the info from the "Do Not Edit" window, but when I press Enter or Return it replaces itself. This is correct. If the field is blank it re-fills it out, but it should do so with default information. I had hoped that this would unfreeze your labels for you. Can you please e-mail me your file so that I can check this out for you? kmoore@nemetschek.net -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight --------------------- [This message has been edited by kmoore1 (edited 10-19-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: I don't understand what you are saying. I follow the manual instructions on replacing instruments exactly and it doesn't work. Can you spell out what exactly I should be doing to solve this problem. Can you please send me one of your 8.5 files. I'll take a look at it and try to figure out why you're having this problem. kmoore@nemetschek.net ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by td4stage: I have *sucessfully* been importing data back and forth between SL and Lightwright. I have just added dimmer info to LW and when I imported the data into SL, any units which are ganged (two-fered) do not recieve a dimmer number. All single units get their dimmer numbers as assingned! What am I missing? Pat I wasn't able to duplicate this problem. The instrument labels may not be updated when you import, so select the instrument and check to see if the value in the object info palette is correct. It may just be that the two-fer label is out of sync with its instruments. If so just select your two-fers and press the "update Insts" check box in the object info palette. This will make the two-fer go look up all its info from the instruments and should correct the problem. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jomer: So to save time I drew part of the plan Stage Left side of Lx1 then I copied it and placed in position for Lx2, then added some par64s and once again copied and pasted it for Lx3. Then did the whole process over again for Stage Right (a duplicate and mirror function would be appreciated in SP10). Now I am filling in the blanks Channel Colour etc. However all of the Strand 240v 1.2Kw Fresnels change to a rectangle when I add channel or colour but only on the Stage left side, that includes the original from which all were copied. Now the SR side was done exactly the same and does not suffer from this problem nor do any of the Altman MFL par64 or Strand Lekolites 30'. As you can imagine this makes my time saving method pointless as I am yet to work out how to stop them from turning into little rectangles. Look forward to you solution When the lighting instrument can't find your instrument symbol it turns into a rectangle. Check to make sure that you still have your Strand 240v 1.2Kw Fresnel symbol in the resources for your document. You can use the replace instruments command to get your instruments to look like fresnels again. Select all of them and run the replace instruments command. Select the symbol you wish to use. This should update the instruments and fix the rectangles problem. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Changing the label names is a much faster way of working around the problem. I use LW to edit instrument info. It seems to me that the problem is that when you change an instrument the regeneration happens on a bunch of instruments instead of just the one you worked on. I move an instrument and watch a bunch of others regenerate for no apparent reason - IE same type of instrument, same pipe, color, channel, ETC. Isn't there a way to isolate the regeneration to the single instrument or instruments you are working on and leave the others alone?? I think you may be mixing up re-drawing and regenerating for an instrument. An instrument is re-generated if it is moved, if it is rotated, if you change the class it is in, if it is copied, or if one of its parameters on the object info palette is changed. Many things like panning, zooming, etc cause the instrument to re-draw, which should be a relatively quick "repainting" of the object geometry onscreen. When you edit the data for an instrument it regenerates only that one instrument. (Except of course if the instrument is two-fered with another, or part of a multicircuit instrument.) It may be that some of the adjacent instruments are re-drawn because changes in the one object's geometry required an update to a portion of the screen that included adjacent instruments. Let me know if you are seeing a different behaviour. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by seaghan42: I try to move the color label, which is near nothing else, without success. The same goes for all other labels, regardless of their position. I'm not sure if this will fix your problem but I think it will. Select your lighting instrument and scroll the object info palette all the way down until you can see the field called "Do Not Edit" Clear this field completely out so that it is empty and hit return. The instrument will re-generate and you will loose any of your custom label locations, but this should let you move the labels. You can select multiple instruments and clear this field out simultaneously on a bunch of them. Let me know if this works for you. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------