jamesmise

Anyone know how I can make a little degree symbol in a text box? I have been typing "degree" or "deg." for years. For instance, if I have a callout that says: "All bevels to be 15 degree"

So Kevin, you cannot accurately wash a cyc with lights in Vectorworks? I just get a big V-shaped pattern if I place a Colorblaze 72 at the top of a cyc pointing down. In reality the light source is 6 feet wide. (Hundreds of leds on a panel 6 feet wide) Can I buy Spotlight 2015 yet?

I'm not on the architecture side of things. I design for the stage. An architect might be better suited to advise you on this. But I will share what I know. A standard door symbol exists in both the 2d and 3d world. In 2d, you see the door as you would on any architects plan. But as soon as you rotate into a 3d view, it pops up off the page and you can see the 3d hardware and everything. So all of the furnishings in my designs are hybrid symbols. They have a simple plan view, but are fully modeled. I've attached 3 files. 1) a jpeg of a scenic unit in plan view 2) the same scenic unit in top view 3) the same scenic unit in an isometric view. After modeling this unit, I made a copy of it and converted it to polygons. I used the 2d polygon tool (outer boundary) to outline the entire shape. I placed the resulting polygon over my original model. I selected the model and the new polygon and created a symbol. It is automatically a hybrid symbol because it has 2d and 3d elements. In plan view, you see the polygon outline of the model. In any other view you see the model in whatever rendering mode you happen to be in. There are so many tutorials out there on what you want to do. Search You Tube. The Vectorworks channel and the Archoncad channel are the best.

I can't get the colorblaze 72 to render its beam correctly. It's one point of light at the origin instead of a wide wash of light.

I usually rough-in my drawings in 2d. Then model everything in 3d. Then make most everything into 3d hybrid symbols so they appear differently in top/plan view than in any 3d view. One of the main ideas with Vectorworks is to draw everything once. You draw in 3d and generate drawings from any angle, as well as sections. All your viewports are based on that one original object. Change the object and the viewports update. But in reality, you are drawing everything twice. Once in 2d and once in 3d and then combine the two into a 3d hybrid. When you are in top/plan view you see the 2d drawing. But change to top view and you see the models. Does this help?

Really? Thanks. I have the same problem on two different computers and five different printers. Maybe someone with Windows 7 can try my file. Jim

Here is a simple file showing the problem. Go to the sheet layer. Go to page setup and try to show more than one page. You will see the paper size increase instead of multiple page boundaries showing. Jim

Oops, I came to the "Let's Trash Vectorworks" forum. It seems to me that your architect could provide you with a file for each layer. Or merge certain layers together for you. After many years of learning Vectorworks, I can't imagine someone sitting down with it and navigating classes and layers and viewports and sheet layers and saved views etc. in a short amount of time. I provide a walkthrough or fly around video for people and provide different plan views as pdfs. Maybe your architect could link his layers which was the way it was done before unified view and design layer viewports. VW still supports layer linking I believe. The Vectorworks Viewer is far too complicated for the people I'm dealing with anyway. Jim

If you want it to be a generic solid, convert it to mesh. Convert it to nurbs. Ungroup. Stitch and trim surfaces. Jim

I have to say I agree with NM on this one. However, as with educational watermarked versions, maybe NM could let you open it with a giant, shaded "PIRATED" sign over the page. You could still use the file but some advanced features might be unavailable. With watermarked files, you have to be careful not to copy any object in the file to any other file, or that file becomes watermarked as well. I got a watermarked file and when I mentioned it to the author of the file, he was very embarrassed that he was still using his educational version. He immediately bought a license to avoid the same situation in the future. It's funny that people seem to be unanimously against pirating of VW software, but don't mind doing business with the pirates. (Or doing business with the businesses who are doing business with the pirates) I guess they have no problem using stolen TVs and computers. Hey, they weren't the one that stole it. Jim

Post a file with your drawing and I'd be glad to take a look.

So in your other software programs, when you select plan view, you see your vertical lighting positions laying flat with all the channel, color etc. shown, the way you would draw them by hand on a plot? I believe the main reason for the VW method is so you can have a printed plot view but as soon as you start rotating, it jumps to its 3d position for modeling purposes. Design layer viewports are a great addition to VW. The learning curve is a bit difficult, I agree. As I said before, I did the vertical lighting position tutorial 4 times before I got comfortable with it. Jim

I don't see that in the Unified View options in 2012. And Unified View isn't active in Sheet Layers. Thanks though!

Way to go Kevin! For anyone else: Click in a blank area of the page so no objects are selected. Change the fill to solid in the attributes palette. You may have to refresh your instruments in the Spotlight menu to see the change. Kevin is my new best friend.

I found the refresh command to be very helpful with many of my perceived instrument problems.

The Spotlight-Getting Started Guide that comes with 2012 goes through this process. In short, draw your vertical lighting position in top/plan view (so it will be laying flat on the ground) off to the side of your drawing. (Outside of the theatre architecture) Populate it with lights. You can mirror the whole thing to the other side of the theatre as well. You then use the Create Plot and Model View command This moves what you have drawn to a new definition layer and places a design layer viewport of the vertical lighting position back on your design layer. (which is probably your plot layer) You can move this viewport to the correct location. This viewport shows the Vertical position laying flat in plan view, but once you start rotating, you can see the 3d model in its true vertical position. Use this viewport on your model layer as well. (Make sure you hide the visibility of those definition layers!) The tutorial is very good. It only took me 3 or 4 tries to understand it!

Since the last service pack, I can longer show page breaks on a sheet layer. I can do this on design layers. For instance, if I'm using 11 x 17 paper, I can specify 6 pages and across and 4 pages down and I will see all 24 page boundaries on my layer. But this feature has disappeared on sheet layers. If I specify 6 pages across and 4 pages down, my paper size changes to 66 x 68 with one giant page boundary showing on the sheet layer. Many people were gathered at my desk today trying to figure this one out. Even in older files from years ago, these individual page boundaries are no longer shown.

If you don't have the designer series, you cannot import Sketchup directly into Vectorworks. You have to export from Sketchup to a dwg and then import the dwg.

I'm having the same problem. I can't shutter my instruments. So I opened a new file. I put in a simple floor and a couple of instruments and they shutter fine. So I copied all of the elements of my original drawing (except the lighting instruments) into a new document. I then added new lighting instruments directly from the entertainment library. I still don't have shutter cuts. If I select "draw beam", the shutter cuts are shown. They just don't render. I'll let you know if I find out anything. Something in the file must be conflicting with shutter cuts. The shutter feature is fantastic. Especially from the OIP. You put in a value and a few seconds later you see the result. Now only if I can get it to render in a larger file! Two files attached: An image showing the beam drawn, but the cuts don't render. The VW file demonstrating the problem.

I needed to make a 4-foot tall paper cup. I made the cone using the cone tool. (You can also use make a tapered extrude) I chopped off the pointy end using the split tool. Convert to Nurbs. Ungroup. Unfold surface (in the 3d power pack) And voila, I have the patterns for the cup.

Thanks for taking a look. I need that image with several different color looks. In reality, its a backlit black and white photo with an LED light box behind it. So I need a black and white one, a red one, a blue one etc... But when I render in anything other than GL, I lose my shader. I could edit the photo in photoshop with several different tints and import each one as an Image Prop. But what is the purpose of the image shader if it only works in GL?

You will need to edit the image in another program. Also see "image props" and "image masks". You will need to make everything around your image a solid color with photoshop or something. Create a new image prop under the model menu. Import the image. Select Use Mask and then Create Mask. Select Reuse an Image from Another Resource. Select This Props Color. Then Transparent Color. Then click on the area around your image. (The mask color that you made in Photoshop) That color will be made invisible in your drawing. Jim Misenheimer Spotlight 2012 with Renderworks Windows

Thanks! I'll look into ESP Vision. But I'm finally up and running with Spotlight and it's incredible. Jim

Thanks for your reply. I forgot to check my post. Here is a file of a black and white image. In GL, a pink filter shows up. But when I switch to Fast Renderworks, the pink is gone.

I now see that this is normal. Import sketchup is mainly for architecture. Exporting the Sketchup model as a dwg using Sketchup Pro and then importing into Vectorworks gives me the layers and textures.