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willofmaine

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Everything posted by willofmaine

  1. Possibly against my better judgment, I'm trying to learn how to use the Roof Object and Roof Styles. It's been an uphill battle... like trying to climb up a 16:12 roof without a rope... So I started from scratch in a blank file with four un-styled walls and an un-styled Roof. Finally, I was able to (mostly) make sense out of things. Then I proceeded with a Roof using (a Vectorworks default) Roof Style, and things went downhill from there (yeah, I fell off the roof), as I could not for the life of me control the fascia or soffit. Ultimately I concluded that if I consider the Bearing Height and the Bearing Inset to be entirely meaningless, and set the Inset to 0" and manually position the roof at the desired height, I could get the Roof and its fascia to work. The soffit seems to be an entirely lost cause. See attached file for the progression of my attempts to get the Roof to work. What am I missing?!? @Christiaan and @Gadzooks, you guys seem like the rocket scientists of Roofs... maybe you have some answers? Thanks!! -Will 04-Roof Object Issues.vwx
  2. Okay, so I guess I misunderstood this from the "Roof and wall associations" section of VW Help: "If the walls are edited (whether moved, reshaped, or replaced, or due to a change in the wall style, the wall thickness, or the wall components), the roof component connections update automatically." I now see that it says "roof component connections," which I guess is different from "the roof shape/footprint will update...". Thanks!!
  3. I'm under the impression, especially after looking at Vectorworks "Help," that roof objects can be associated with walls such that when a wall is moved, the footprint of the roof object automatically updates accordingly. But even in a brand new blank file, with just four walls and a basic roof, when I move a wall, the roof does not update. Am I misunderstanding the capabilities, or otherwise missing something?... Thanks!
  4. I'm not going to say I understand why the software can't be written to keep the texture and hatch aligned but, yes, your suggestion to use "Auto-Align Plane" appears to re-coordinate the texture and hatch, so thank you for that. Thanks!
  5. Seven years and two weeks later, and textures and their surface hatches are still sometimes 90º apart. See attached. VWIS046 05-Confirmation that Problem Persists in VW 2021.vwx
  6. Hi @m.graf, at Tools > Utilities there's an "Update Plug-in Objects" command, but that appears to specifically exclude Marionette. It didn't seem to change the behavior of the Marionette when I ran it. There's also a "Reset All Plug-Ins" command. When I ran that immediately after opening the file and before touching the Marionette, I got the error message twice in a row. And after that, I still got the error message each time I adjusted the Marionette. So, assuming "Reset All Plug-Ins" is the same as "Update intelligent objects," it looks like the error message does also appear when that command is run. Thank you!
  7. Hi @Marissa Farrell, any thoughts on this error message? It only occurs with project sharing, and in that case it occurs every single time any of the Marionette's parameters is changed. Thanks!
  8. I've got a Marionette object working quite well... at least until I use it in a Working File linked to a Project File. Actually, even in that case it's working quite well... except that each and every change to the Marionette prompts an error message (see attached screenshot). Apparently the error message can be ignored without issue, but, it's very tedious having to continuously close it. Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Thanks! VWIS221
  9. Oh, that's easy. I thought of that, but also thought everything after the " # " was just commentary. Thanks!
  10. Okay... got it. I went into the "Marionette Default Library.vwx" file, edited the Scale node's symbol, opened and closed the node's script there, and now when I place it in a new file it works as expected. (And while I was at it, I edited the node's Symbol Options so that it places into the Operations class rather than the Active class...). How do I disconnect a node from the REFFILE function? So that, you know, I can mess around with its script without affecting all instances of that node... Thanks!
  11. Hmm... I just went through each scale symbol node, and here they all have the "i" (assuming we're looking at the very last character of Line 36, see Screenshot 07). I started from scratch in a new file (File 08) and had the same issues. The node from the Resource Manager fails to create a solid, but when replaced with a copy of the node that works from File 05, a solid is created as expected. What is the REFFILE all about? After I changed that first node, they all have the "i" (here they do, at least...). Oddly, I just found that after opening and closing the node's script, a solid then is created as expected... See Screen Recording 09. The recording also shows an error message, which I often get just when opening a file and pretty much always ignore... 09-Screen Recording-08.mov 08-Scale Symbol Node-00.vwx
  12. Sorry, thanks for your response. I ended up starting over, with an entirely different approach for this Marionette.
  13. Great, I will do that, thank you! I think I'm about halfway there with Python, as I've got the Mu interactive shell doing math for me. Well, maybe not exactly quite halfway there... but, still, I've at least got it doing something!
  14. @Jesse Cogswell Ah! Okay, that is tremendously helpful. With a couple of "If" nodes I was able to stop both the symbol name and the width (set to zero) of an associated extrude's rectangle, and that seems to have done the trick. I suspect my previous successes were only when I unknowingly did as you've described. Thanks!!
  15. In what I think is a similar vein... Is there a simple, or at least reliable, way to include or exclude specific geometry within a Marionette object via the OIP?? I've struggled with this pretty much since day one. I've had limited success with the "If" node, and my few successes I can't seem to incorporate into other networks. This morning I was yet again struggling with this when I stumbled across this thread; not sure I'd ever heard of the "Valve" node before. After several attempts (different locations in the network) I was able to get it to work. But when I wrapped the network and used it as a node in a larger network, I believe it killed the rest of that larger network. Is there a simple True / False node that will either pass whatever's put into it if True, or just exclude / destroy / make nonexistent whatever's put into it if False? (I.e., "pass this thing," or, "pass nothing"... without crippling the rest of the network and without the need to (confusingly and rarely successfully) delete unwanted duplicates). As an example, I have a simple stair run Marionette, which includes geometry to indicate minimum head height (you know, super-sophisticated clash detection...). It would be nice to make that geometry optional with a checkbox in the OIP. Thanks for any thoughts!
  16. Okay! Sounds like I'll skip the C++ (not that I was considering it!...) and see what I can figure out with Python. And to that end, maybe what I'll do for starters is just forget about Vectorworks altogether and go learn some "regular" Python (by downloading the Python Interpreter and that "Mu" thing and whatever else). And then, just maybe, hopefully, the incorporation of Python into Vectorworks might make more sense to me. In the meantime, thank you for all of that information! Some of which is very helpful in choosing to tackle Python, and some of which I suspect I won't fully appreciate until I've spent some time with scripting. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can figure out... Thank you!!
  17. @Jesse Cogswell Ah... so there is a method to your madness. I'm not surprised, really... And again, thank you for taking the time to explain, and for your thoughts on scripting and Marionette. Like you, I was very excited when Marionette was introduced (I hadn't ever seen graphic scripting before), and I whole-heartedly embraced it. But at least two, maybe three times in the past I've abandoned Marionette, each time swearing to never return. But I just couldn't let it go; I've created a sizable collection of extremely useful (when they work) Marionette objects, all well worth the time invested in creating them (excluding the time lost fighting with their many issues). Even though I've got my latest Marionette working (at least for the moment...), I think I'll actually change my mind and follow your recommendation of learning a programming language; at least now I can do it at my own pace, maybe so that the next time Marionette's disagreeable I'll have a viable alternative in the works... So the question is, which language? @Pat Stanford had suggested Python as a first language, though he also complained about its being "white space delimited." I can find plenty on the Web for Python, but nothing specifically for Python within Vectorworks... and the two implementations look different to me. So, at least for starters, I ended up pursuing Vectorscript, thanks to your crash course. And looking just now, I can't seem to find a simple Python-based plug-in object that I could try and reverse-engineer from; everything seems to be Vectorscript. Do you by any chance have, or know of, a crash course in Python?? Thanks!!
  18. @Jesse Cogswell Excellent crash course in Vectorscript; thank you for putting this together. I stumbled across it out of an extreme frustration with Marionette's instability and in search of an alternative to Marionette. I was able to take your script, add it as a plug-in, and successfully make some changes (such as adding another point and adjusting the colors). Any particular reason you alternately use numbers and letters to identify what appear to be the same points? When I changed all of the numbers for points in your script to their corresponding letters, the script continued to work fine. Looking at some scripts gave me some ideas that I think I've successfully implemented into Marionette so, between that and yet another Marionette work around or two, I'm continuing with Marionette... at least for now. I can see that it would take a huge time investment to become proficient with Vectorscript or Python. In the meantime, again, thank you for your crash course!
  19. Hi @JoeDrafter, The two worksheets don't "talk to each other;" rather, they just report on different fields associated with the TBB. The trick is to set up the Sheet List worksheet so that it only includes the sheets you want in the list. In the "Status" column in the Report worksheet, type "Current" for any sheet you want displayed in the Sheet List. Then, in the Sheet List worksheet, right-click on the Database row header (at the left), select "Edit Criteria...", and add a new "choice" that is "Field Value" > "Status" > "=" > "Current". This will prompt the Sheet List to only display sheets that have the "Current" status. So the Report worksheet is used to add and remove sheets from the Sheet List by changing the info associated with the TBB worksheet. HTH
  20. Hi @Marissa Farrell, just wondering if you saw my above post and have had a chance to look into it? Changing the "s" to an "i" seemed to work only for the node that I changed. All other instances of the node seemed to automatically have their "s" changed to an "i," but they wouldn't work. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? Thanks!
  21. When run, the wrapper in the attached file (VW 2021) produces the window trim as expected. But when I go to convert the wrapper to an object node, I just get the spinning beach ball and need to Force Quit Vectorworks. It doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with the network, since it runs successfully, so I'm not sure what I'm missing... Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Thanks! VWIS220 02-Object Node Crashes VW.vwx
  22. Okay, thanks. Sadly, I've had no luck searching the web for tutorials on Vectorworks Python. I wish Marionette would just work. A network that I've been working on runs fine, even when wrapped, but crashes Vectorworks when I go to convert it to an object node. I feel like whichever way I turn there's a dead end: Marionette is dysfunctional, and it looks like scripting will require a tremendous investment time-wise to learn (which I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the financial implications, especially after having already invested so much in Marionette). But I digress!... Thank you Pat for your feedback; I appreciate it.
  23. Do I need to download the Python software / "interpreter" and Mu, or are these functions provided via Vectorworks' Script Editor? It looks like Python code lines start with " >>> " where in Vectorworks they don't and/or they starts with " vs. "? I guess the question is, do I want to learn Python within Vectorworks, or through the Python website? Thanks!
  24. Thank you Pat, that is all very helpful. I've been looking at Vectorscript out of a fear that Marionette's issues stem from Python. But maybe it's safe to say that they don't, and that Marionette is dysfunctional on its own? I've heard of Pascal before (and there you have a synopsis of my experience with it...). Not sure I really followed your last paragraph; it sounds like Python isn't perfect, but I will check it out. Thanks! -Will
  25. I'm so frustrated with the instability of Marionette, that I find myself looking in these Vectorscript and Python forums, though I don't know what the difference between the two is or which might be best for creating parametric objects (or plugins?). I think Python is used for Marionette? I like the "approachable" graphical interface of Marionette - the colorful nodes and connecting 'em with wires is fun - along with its ability to (sometimes) create extremely useful objects. But if only it worked more often than not...
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