ghunter64

Hi I'm producing some good renders in VW2013 but I've got a problem. I've created a viewport with a camera and selected Fast Renderworks with indirect lighting 1 bounce. The usual process as indicated by the status bar is as follows: Geometry Textures Load Pre-Render Indirect Lighting Render Once it gets past the "Load" phase cinerender kicks in and completes the last 3 stages in the background (spinning teapot). However, if I try to re-render the viewport, it get's stuck on the "Load" stage and the teapot stops spinning. It's still possible to work in the design layers, etc but it's almost as if the "Load" status is being displayed but it never actually loads. The only way I've found to get around it is to quit VW and restart. Sometimes I have to reboot before it will let me re-render the model. Has anyone had similar issues and have a solution? Thanks

I would like to produce "sunbeams" similar to those shown in the attached photo. At first I though I could do it by adding some image props, setting the sun direction, and turning on Lit Fog in the HDRI background I am using. But I discovered that Renderworks does not light fog for "Directional" light sources, and since the VW sun is a directional light source I figured that's why it doesn't work. Second, I got rid of the sun, added a Spot light source put it roughly in the same position that the sun appeared to be coming from in the HDRI environment. The problem is that it lights the fog all around the light, the sky basically whites out, and there isn't enough directional light to cause the image props to cast shadows. Third, converted the Spot source to a Lighting Instrument, added a breakup gobo, cranked up the output of and set the lighting properties for the scene. Nothing at all! Has anyone had any experience in producing scenes like that attached in an outdoor RW environment (specifically the beams)? Thanks

Hi Dave, Thanks for the tip...setting all amplitudes to zero except fold amplitude, and experimenting with the scale, fold amplitude, fold frequency and fold detail fields renders a very convincing warped glass look. I also used the "Glass Simple" reflectivity, the effect is really nice. Thanks heaps! Glen

Hi Dave, thanks for your reply. I tried various settings but couldn't get a nice slow wave, rather it just looked like a quilted cushion with smooth hills but angular valleys. I've attached a picture of the kind of effect I'm after, notice the reflection of the car in the glass on the side and rear walls. Do you think it's possible to get this kind of warping using the Wrapped Leather bump...if so it would be great! Thanks Glen

I'm looking for a way to render a "warped" mirror e.g a wall around 5000mm long and 1000mm high with mirror or glass reflectivity, but where the reflection is a little warped like the wall is made from a sheet of plastic that is imperfect, like it has random "wave" bends in it. I thought maybe applying a bump map but this doesn't seem to work and the bump map is always "jagged" even when I use a hi-res image for the map. Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks

Does anyone know if there is an easy way to place a Door inside a Window Wall object? Thanks

Does anyone have any experience creating a transparent "projector screen" which an image map on it? I created a 10m5m "screen" which was a solid object. I then created a new texture from an image file and set the transparency to 50% and applied to my screen. It works great, if you put objects behind it you can see them, if lit by light sources place behind the screen. My problem is that the image is very dark - in order to see it properly you need to put some light sources in front of the screen. The problem with this is of course that the light sources also light everything else in front of the screen and behind the screen (along with the screen). Is it possible to create a "screen" with an image texture which is transparent, but "emits" it's own light, without the need to put light sources? Thanks Glen

There is a file in /Applications/Vectorworks 12.5.1/Plug-Ins/VW_Spotlight/Data/Lee Colors.txt which contains the color mapping info for Lee filters. It appears to be quite out of date. The mapping info for other filters e.g. Rosco and GAM also reside in the same directory. If you open the file (in TextEdit) you can see which colors are are supported. For colors that aren't in the file(s), VW just seems to use white. Hope this helps.

Does anyone know how to create a sliding door with only 1 door part? I am trying to model a dock door in a warehouse which just has one door part and slides horizontally on a rail across the top. I have tried inserting a door with "Slider" configuration but it has 2 parts. I want the door to slide all the way across the opening so that it leaves the opening fully exposed and the open door sits next to the adjacent wall. Thanks

Thanks David, by Setting Line I mean (usually) the line drawn across the upstage edge of the proscenium arch in a theatre. Combined with the Center Line in effect you get a cartesion coordinate system for layout out set pieces, etc. I have been working my way through a demo version of Lightwright so it looks like this might be the way to go. Also downloaded the demo of the Autoplot tools...thanks for the tip, these look to have some excellent features.

Thanks, I've tried the tips you've suggested and using different fonts or a different scale does affect the way it is displayed, but I can't really get the the whole text inside the box without shortening the instrument type names (less than ideal). It would be nice to see the implementation of this feature changed so that a class is assigned to the position summary types (similar to the label legend), so you can change the font type, etc for each part of the summary. This would also be very useful for controlling visibility in sheet layers as you may not always want a summary printed out on a sheet layer.

I am looking for a way to show the distance of an instrument from the center line and setting line, either on the plan or as a summary report. e.g. I have a Source 4 26 degree lamp which is 4.5m from the setting line and 2.3m from the center line. Also I have worked on shows where the focus positions of each lamp are shown as such on a summary report e.g. the focus position for my source 4 is 6m from the setting line and 0.5m from the center line. Is there any way, for each lamp, to show the x,y position of the focus position for that lamp in some kind of summary report (for all lamps, summarised by lighting position). I figure if you assign a focus position for each lamp you should be able to get to this kind of info. I was hoping there might be some tools already that could provide this kind of informationf from Vectorworks. Thanks

Hi, does anyone know how to change the text size and alignment in the Light Position Summary box on a plan, as well as the size of the summary box? When I place a light position object and check Position Summary/Sum Insts on my plan the summary box is too narrow and the text won't fit inside it. Thanks

One way of doing this is to use the Beam Angle and Field Angle attributes of the lighting instrument. If you have a 30 degree instrument, Vectorworks often sets these to be identical i.e. 30 degrees. In a real lamp, the field angle is the area of light where the intensity drops below 50% (please excuse my layman's definition here!) So by setting the beam angle to say 20 degrees, you get the >50 intensity in the 20 degree area and the <50 intensity in the surrounding 30 degree area (ie 10 degrees of fading intensity around the edges). This way the lighting instruments behave like real lamps where you need to overlap the field areas to get even coverage. When you set the beam and field angles to the same (e.g 30 degrees) you end up with a very hard edge as there is no diminishment of the light in the field area. I have found that most of the instruments in the Vectorworks libraries set the values to be the same, to get the instruments to behave like their real-world equivalents you will need to consult the photometric charts from the manufacturers. I have found I get slightly different results depending on the rendering mode selected but generally you get nice soft edges. Hope this helps.

I have experienced the same problem since upgrading to Vectorworks 12.5, but basic Top/Plan view. In 12.0 I used Mouse Wheel Zooms for zooming in and out...while zooming it was chunky but basically rendered in full detail once I stopped zooming. But in 12.5 when you stop zooming it just stays chunky. I found it helps by turning off "use vectorcaching" in display preferences. But generally I have found all sorts of screen refresh issues since upgrading to 12.5. Anyone had the same problems?