mjm

+1 this works well! >> a little but very effective tool for better handlingsize of PDFs >> https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf >> it is online, free and works well..

+1 Very tedious to right-click on each fixture and one by one adjust an intensity, ON state, etc

simplest way to do this in my opinion is to make all lighting positions a symbol FIRST, which allows editing later. Make your position, create a symbol from it, then convert it to Position, then anytime later edit it as you like and refresh the drawing if needed (cmd or crtl+/). This way, I make one onstage LX symbol, convert to position, and later, when I add tick marks to the symbol, all pipes update accordingly.

Thank you RickR

I agree: a catenary curve tool would be fantastic for all sorts of sagging/swagging objects (more accurate curtains anyone?)

Yup, works just like that. I am speaking specifically about the Spotlight lighting fixtures. It would be super cool if this kind of thing would work for Video Projectors as well. Annd, why couldn't it? I have included a 'gobo' made from a scren cap of any old nonsense on my desktop and created a 'gobo texture' from it and selected that as the gobo, and voila!

Wouldn't you just have the ones you want to use in your resource palette, then select the fixture/s you wish to edit through 'Find / Modify' and then input the gobo resource you want to use? Hmm, I'll try that myself, pretty much think that's how I do it...

Festoons are a P in the A, because their size and their arc are so difficult to produce readily. And then, if they're to be plotted-in they have to be made into fixtures, tho once the first is done the rest are easier. I have included a render from a recent event showing what I came up with in a hurry. [edit] also, I did create a glow texture, instead of a point source. Worked a charm.

>And I hate move by point tool. >For me it is the poorest implementation that I have ever experienced. Details Zoomer, please. I use Move by Points heavily and am interested to hear how it is crippled/could be improved. thanks man

Fuzzy gobos, that's exactly what I do. Sadly, sometimes it takes a couple iterations of them to make them the correct fuzzy.

In order for lighting fixtures to automatically assume positional height, they need to be touching an object which has been parameterized as a lighting position. That lighting position must have a 'Z' height, then the position and fixture will all be at the correct 'Z'.

Alan: Brilliant suggestion, thanks.

Also Sam Jones' Autoplot VW performs that same task. Sam's tool is Spotlight focussed as part of a much larger assortment of valuable Spotlight plugins, while Josh's tool can be used to sequentially number anything numerable. I use em both.

Awesome. Clear as a bell.

And then there's this: Lego Digital Designer I watched my 12 year old boy turn out a conveyor belt and several other items within minutes of opening the software.

Thank you very much!

Jim, I'd be grateful if you could walk me thru the steps in more detail to get to the rending you displayed in this thread. Looks to me like you did something specific Line Render Options | Sketch Hidden Line results... area. But then the rest is not that clear to me. TIA

Okay: Just tried, then immediately purchased Super Vectorizer, even tho I think the price is steep. The four to seven times a year I'll use it will pay for it in one cycle. Fantastically powerful yet simple tool. This is something Nemetschek should consider purchasing and embedding into VWX. Thanks for the recommendation Kaare!

I note there's been no response to this question: "Why can't I apply lit fog to multiple instruments at the same time?" And there are other issues around this very topic: Changing intensities, changing beam characteristics (Smooth Falloff | Realistic Falloff).

Try Josh Benghiat's Savvy Sequencer. A super tool. http://www.benghiatlighting.com/software/products/savvy-sequencer

Just to throw my 2¢ in, I upgraded to EC, after several other articles and fora declared it a winner, then checked here. Some users said they'd no problems with EC/VWX2015 or 2016, so I proceeded, with near disastrous results. The new user account did solve the issue for 2015 & 2016, but along with that, the commensurate re-do on all my other high end softwares has been irritating. It occasionally requires having to change permissions on a huge amount of data on external drives so it can be read/write by the new account. All that was driven by caustics lust, as well as the delicious discovery of the inclusion of Ambient Occlusion. I will endeavor not to be so foolhardy in future.

See attached file

I have used a north/south configuration, where the upper cells have the label configured above the fixture and the lower cells have the opposite. I have also seen Left/Right configurations, but that impacts the spacing considerably in close-mounted shows. Currently, I use a 'combo' N/S+L/R label which is about clarity for the Color field (see screen capture for the idea).

All: I am grateful for this forum beyond words, it' saved me many a time. And so I seek help again... In following the gist of the Linzey/Landru webinar, I cannot manage to keep the lens part of the fixture, once it's been inserted as a lighting instrument. At that point, the lens element is disappeared from the body. As far as I can tell, all classing / layering seems to be ok. Not attaching the lens to the body thru the data tab results in a a non-rotating lens. And that's it's own special mess. Your thoughts are appreciated! edited for spelling

Josh was kind enough to point out that I had placed the two BD 4 fixtures in the same physical space and so there was a necessary collision of shutters. Once I created a space between the two fixtures, no problem with the beam draw shutters— yay! What that means to me is that what the wireframe shutters display closely matches the rendered beam of light, this is not what happens with the spotlight shutters as detailed above. Sadly, the Soft Shadows option does obliterate the BD 4 shutter cuts. I look forward to a day when all the parts of this puzzle come together.