Tamsin Slatter

It should work fine for you if you have an Architect, Landmark or Designer.

That's it!

That's my diagnosis too!

Do you mean the Light tool in the Visualization palette? Or do you mean you have inserted a Lighting Instrument from the Spotlight libraries? If its the latter, double-click the light and edit its properties. On one of the tabs (can't remember which and I'm not in front of Spotlight right now), add the Gobo you want to include. On the Visualization palette, make sure the light within the instrument is turned ON and render with Fast Renderworks. You should see your gobo. Hope that helps.

Well done Simon! I know a lot of hard work has gone into these and I am sure they will be a valuable addition to the libraries.

Another way to do this is to extrude all the elements of the panel as one. Make the texture with a single tile of it large enough to cover all pieces. If all the pieces are extruded at once, the texture need only be applied once and you can use the Attribute Mapping tool to ensure it starts in the right place.

Hi On the Snapping palette, make sure you turn off Snap to Working Plane. It's at the bottom right of the palette. This button only appears when you are in a 3D view. Hope that helps

Hi Yes - this is a known problem in 2012, and I believe it is fixed in SP2...

Have you installed SP2? Also, if it's zooming causing the problem, you could try turning off Vectorcaching in Vectorworks Preferences.

Vectorworks will pick what it thinks is the closest RGB match to any CMYK colour you suggest. Best bet is to covert outside in something like Photoshop to get equivalent RGB values and then use those in VW.

Are these Lighting Instruments? If so, you can adjust the Beam Angle and the Field Angle in numbers of degrees. If the Field Angle is larger than the Beam Angle, you'll get a soft edge. If the values are the same, you'll get a hard, sharp edge. If you are just using the Light tool from the Visualization palette, you can adjust the beam and spread angle on the Object Info palette. Hope that helps!

Your pads don't have to be "closed" shapes. They can be drawn as open shapes. Start on an existing contour, draw the new shape of the contour, ending back on the original contour line and then Send to Surface. This will send the open pad the same elevation as the contour line, but divert it, exactly as it would when you are drawing by hand. Works a treat. But yes, you can draw any shape and convert to 3D Polygon. Then assign the Z value and place the polygon in the Site-DTM-Modifier class. This turns it into a modifier. It's cool!

OK - I've had a look at the file and the issue is that there were hardscapes stacked on top of each other, all defined as texture beds. Textures cannot be stacked in this way. I used Modify > Clip Surface to cut the inner hardscapes from the outer hardscapes and the textures displayed after updating the site model.

Hi Jet Sorry - different timezone and have been training all day. Only just seen this! Not sure what is happening here, but I suggest that you a) check that the texture beds are getting their texture from a class? If so does that class have a texture assigned. It would help here to know what version of VW you are using... b) Make sure the texture bed objects also have a solid fill set on the attributes palette. This is a standard thing for all 3D stuff - textures won't show unless the object has a solid fill. c) do you have Show 3D checked? If so, uncheck it. I can see from the black triangles that you have updated your site model, so I'm not sure what is happening, but I will do my best to help. I guess the file is too huge to mail, but you can dropbox it to me if you like? Contact me on tamsin@vectorworks-training.co.uk if you want to set this up...

You have to Update the Site model for the texture beds to make a difference - and show the proposed model.

That's right - concentric is fine. It's if they touch or intersect that it's a problem.

Pads must not touch or intersect. Vectorworks needs to create triangular surfaces between the points, and it can't cope with touching pads as it doesn't know which one to use to create the elevation at that point. Move your pads slightly apart (sub-millimeter will be enough to get it to work!). If your pads touch at the same elevation, the error message can be ignored, but if they are at different elevations, one of the elevations will be ignored and you will not get the results you were expecting. Hope that helps.

It's fully controlled by Page Setup - and you can now add it as a Quick Preference at the top right of your screen, so you turn it on and off with the click of a button.

Hi Jeremy Bryan is quite right - always back up before doing anything potentially destructive to your system. And always backup anyway. And then backup some more... But to add to that, you will find that there is no Uninstall application icon with Vectorworks,it is simply a case of dragging the folder from the Applications folder to the Trash. This does not remove your resource browser favourite links or any preference settings, as these are stored under Library/Application Support/Vectorworks/2010. If you have made any folders for your own symbols etc, make sure they are NOT saved in Applications or you will lose them. But I guess, even before doing this, is to ask has the crashing just started? Has something changed on the Mac? For example, have you updated the operating system to Lion? Do you have the latest service pack for 2010? Do feel free to give us a call in the office if you are still having problems. All the best and hope you are well!

You're welcome! Happy Thanksgiving to you too.

You can use File > Batch Convert option to convert a group of files too.

Just a thought... Have you tried employing a light that does not cast shadows for the light that needs to pass through the glass? It will then ignore the glass altogether. I am sure you've probably tried this as it sounds like you have had a detailed go at this... but might be worth a try.

Hi Make a site model from the existing levels of the site (either point data with Stakes or 3D Polys to represent contours). Use Site Modifiers (pads) to modify the site to accommodate the building. It's a large subject to condense into a quick reply, but hopefully that sets you in the right direction. The site model is a very powerful object. Once it's been modified in this way, it can show you existing and proposed contours, and a 3D model with a variety of display of options. I would usually reference the building into the site or the site into the building file using Design Layer Viewports. Hope that helps you get started, but feel free to ask more questions.

How big is your polyline? What distance do you have set in the Preferences?

Ooops Grant and I pressed Submit at the same time. Yes - it will calculate GI each time. The full version of CINEMA 4D does cache the GI solution.