mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 (edited) Here's something literally stopping me from delivering the goods TODAY. Happened last night out of the blue. Building a sheet for communicating Lighting Presets (moving lights recorded in a focus position, + color + gobo + etc) as one does, for one's previz operator. So far, so good. Loving the unlimited Shaded Render beams, wows my workflow speeded up because of that, ya…woops. So: here's the onscreen render: Yay, right? OK. so excited, I exported, published, printed to pdf, and all returned this: woops. This is stopping me from making my deadlines and pretty much super bad for my mental health. This task should has reached the braindead-rinse-and-repeat cycle of developing the previz shots, exporting to PDF. This ruined dinner & a movie last night and apparently it's gonna continue to be all an kinds if fun VWX-day here. Here are the render setting for each of those views: Same background used for all three as well. Ironically, the speed and overall readability of the 2023 Shaded Render offers so much potential to change my life for the better because it's so much faster than the other options. Edited November 8, 2022 by mjm spelling Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 I had a Redhshift render solid black last night. Anyway, for the sake of the deadline, and your sanity, could you juice the SLVPs to 300dpi (or even 150) and use screenshots? Obviously not ideal but you could hand off to the previz programmer, and carry on living your life. Or do what my buddy does which absolutely triggers me: import the same screenshots and then publish… It’s dirty but it gets the job done. Also we need to add the hug emoji the community forum support group. Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 5 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said: I had a Redhshift render solid black last night. Anyway, for the sake of the deadline, and your sanity, could you juice the SLVPs to 300dpi (or even 150) and use screenshots? Obviously not ideal but you could hand off to the previz programmer, and carry on living your life. Or do what my buddy does which absolutely triggers me: import the same screenshots and then publish… It’s dirty but it gets the job done. Also we need to add the hug emoji the community forum support group. Thanks for the hug man, honestly needed that. And yes I have already capitulated to the screenshot idea, in order to GTD. Triggered, LOL. yup. Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 BTW those renders look gorgeous, so I can see why you were fighting for them. 1 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 @Mark Aceto, dang thanks for that. I am sure you can imagine how thrilling it is to have such potentially rapid turnaround on these kinds of things with the revision to Shaded Render, so to have it fail mid-stroke… Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 16 minutes ago, mjm said: @Mark Aceto, dang thanks for that. I am sure you can imagine how thrilling it is to have such potentially rapid turnaround on these kinds of things with the revision to Shaded Render, so to have it fail mid-stroke… Literally going through the same thing right now on my gig although its more for client viz than previz. @Dave Donleyany suggestions for @mjm? Quote Link to comment
Andy Broomell Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 Out of curiosity, are the viewports re-rendering during the process of exporting the PDF? I tend to uncheck this box to avoid re-rendering (assuming I've already made sure my viewports 'look' up to date, even if they're technically not): Regardless, this bug shouldn't be happening, but curious if this changes anything. 3 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 9 minutes ago, Andy Broomell said: Out of curiosity, are the viewports re-rendering during the process of exporting the PDF? I tend to uncheck this box to avoid re-rendering (assuming I've already made sure my viewports 'look' up to date, even if they're technically not): Regardless, this bug shouldn't be happening, but curious if this changes anything. @Andy Broomell: Thanks man, had not thought of that. & so, just tested your thesis. Opened file All three render views already "rendered" Clicked 'Export to…PDF' UNclick Update visible out of date viewports prior to exporting Click render Result: Same as before. Quote Link to comment
Andy Broomell Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 I assume when you say "click render" you mean "click export." But regardless, that's very strange; it means that the process of exporting the PDF is not delivering what's already on the page, because if you uncheck the "Update visible out-of-date viewports" checkbox, then no rendering processes should happen as you save the PDF. It should save what's there. Next thing I'd try is to see whether there's a difference between File > Export PDF, vs File > Publish, vs Printing to PDF driver if you have that on your machine. At the end of they day I'd maybe resort to Mark's suggestion of screengrabs (or maybe File > Export > Export Image File > Each page as separate page?) Good luck! 1 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 13 minutes ago, Andy Broomell said: I assume when you say "click render" you mean "click export." But regardless, that's very strange; it means that the process of exporting the PDF is not delivering what's already on the page, because if you uncheck the "Update visible out-of-date viewports" checkbox, then no rendering processes should happen as you save the PDF. It should save what's there. Next thing I'd try is to see whether there's a difference between File > Export PDF, vs File > Publish, vs Printing to PDF driver if you have that on your machine. At the end of they day I'd maybe resort to Mark's suggestion of screengrabs (or maybe File > Export > Export Image File > Each page as separate page?) Good luck! Lol @Andy Broomell, yup, did ALL you suggested above, no joy and your sense of the issue is the same as mine. I did get all three to print by copy/pasting the three viewports into a blank file & exported without updating. THAT worked. Of course you can imagine what happened when those three viewports were then updated. 1 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Dave Donley Posted November 8, 2022 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 8, 2022 I am able to get a rendered PDF out of that viewport if I uncheck "Project screen objects". Perhaps there is a screen plane object that is covering the rendering here. There is a black rectangle (layer plane) and if I delete it I get a good PDF. That rectangle is layer plane though, it isn't a screen plane object. 2 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 @Dave Donley: Huzzah Dave—that solved that problem for me, thank you very much. However: what black rectangle? The only black rectangle I know of in that file is on the Auditorium Layer, there for unwanted light leaks during render, as my actual building data is very slim. That rectangle is I think it's 6'9" below 0,0. It is definitely on the 3D plane. Also: it appears Shaded Render on DL does not have any 'Project Screen Objects' options, so the issue does not seem to be visible there. And, of course changing that rect to an extrude seems to obviate the issue entirely. Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 1 hour ago, mjm said: Lol @Andy Broomell, yup, did ALL you suggested above, no joy and your sense of the issue is the same as mine. I did get all three to print by copy/pasting the three viewports into a blank file & exported without updating. THAT worked. Of course you can imagine what happened when those three viewports were then updated. As much as a I hate to say this, you can reference the screenshots. As long as you rename them with the same name (replacing the old one and the same location) your drawing will auto import. Gotta love Vectorworkflows. 1 Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 14 minutes ago, mjm said: Project Screen Objects' options, so the issue does not seem to be visible there. In the SLVP OIP 1 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 34 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said: In the SLVP OIP yep — the point being that rendering in DL does not seem to offer that PSO option, so this issue never raised it's ugly head while actually creating the looks in Shaded on DL, so no warning beforehand, if you will. Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 (edited) Alright; I seem to be back on track, I want to thank all y'all (esp looking @Dave Donley) for your assistance and support. Back to having fun again, doing what I do! Edited November 8, 2022 by mjm 2 Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 57 minutes ago, mjm said: Alright; I seem to be back on track, I want to thank all y'all (esp looking @Dave Donley) for your assistance and support. Back to having fun again, doing what I do! Love the data tags. It looks like they're mirrored on the right side. You can uncheck "mirror something something flippity flew" in the data tag settings to not do that. Unless that's by design, in which case, keep it as is. Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 24 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said: Love the data tags. It looks like they're mirrored on the right side. You can uncheck "mirror something something flippity flew" in the data tag settings to not do that. Unless that's by design, in which case, keep it as is. @Mark Aceto—woo-eee, thanks man! Quote Link to comment
EAlexander Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 Looking cool in here! 1 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 2 hours ago, EAlexander said: Looking cool in here! Thanks man. Shaded has come a long way in '23. That specifically was why I've been willing to go thru all the pain of the dot zero release this year. For the first time I can move with so much more speed in generating reasonable visual ideas. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Dave Donley Posted November 15, 2022 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 15, 2022 The bug that causes the PDF viewport to show black will be fixed in an upcoming Service Pack. 1 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted November 15, 2022 Author Share Posted November 15, 2022 Super good news Dave, thank you Quote Link to comment
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