Misbehaving objects in current design layer

[NoemiM]

Hi there,

I am progressing a planting plan on a dedicated design layer. Plant symbols were looking as usual and then suddenly they lost colour attributes and cannot select them unless I 'force select', despite being on the active layer (as you can se in the object info)! . All the relevant classes are active and visible. I tried closing and reopening the file. I suspect I might have typed the wrong shortcut while extruding something, and now I cannot go back to the settings I had before. Any help gratefully received! 

 

[Jeff Prince]

I bet the class(es) you put the plants on is set to Gray instead of Visible.

That would make it to where you can see it, but not select it and remove the color fill.

 

If that's not the case, post the file and someone will take a look.

Edited April 17, 2023 by jeff prince

[NoemiM]

@jeff prince Thanks for your thoughts.
Sadly not, the class is visible, active and the class option is Show/Snap/Modify.
I cannot think what else to check! 

Edited April 17, 2023 by NoemiM

[Jeff Prince]

Your layer options are set to "grey snap others".  Post a file if that's not it.

[NoemiM]

@jeff prince changed later options before and after posting but made no difference. It is a confidential project, not sure how to share the file without having to remove all the sensitive data. 

[Jeff Prince]

2 minutes ago, NoemiM said:

@jeff prince changed later options before and after posting but made no difference. It is a confidential project, not sure how to share the file without having to remove all the sensitive data. 

 

Sorry, I'm out of ideas without seeing the file.  Good luck.

[Benson Shaw]

Some ideas -

 Copy Paste a tree into a new blank file. Test that, and post here if that is within your confidentiality permissions. 
 

re color fill

Looks like all trees in the view have no color fill. The drawing is set to 2d Plan projection which reveals only the 2d components of the hybrid tree objects. Try Top view.    Or    The 2d components may have only linework and no fill?  Or the style 2d is lines, no fill? Or the classes of the 2d components are no fill?  Anyway edit the tree and or style to see what is specified. Make sure all components are attributes “By class”.  And , select a tree and in attributes palette open the bars and choose Make all attributes by Class. 

 

Re selection by force

Select tool is set to middle mode. Try the 3rd option - full function select/rescale. 
  Or

Does the drawing include another layer with the trees in same positions? You could be viewing that layer in gray, and either your intended trees are not on the active layer or are present but invisible because of some class settings. 
  Or

?

 

Visibility problems are almost always class related. 
 

Hope you figure it out quickly. 
 

-B

[NoemiM]

Sorted although I am not fully clear on the correlation. 

The 'None' glass was set on Grey. Although the plants symbols were all in another class, by making the 'none' class visible, all the plant's fills become visible again! My guess is that some components of the plant symbols are associated to the none class. 

Thanks both for your thoughts. 

[Tom W.]

I'd be interested to know what the answer is here. You can assign the Plant itself plus all the component geometry to classes other than None + yet None class will still affect the object...

 

Also why can't you set your own insertion classes for Plants?

 

[Jeff Prince]

2 hours ago, NoemiM said:

Sorted although I am not fully clear on the correlation. 

The 'None' glass was set on Grey. Although the plants symbols were all in another class, by making the 'none' class visible, all the plant's fills become visible again! My guess is that some components of the plant symbols are associated to the none class. 

Thanks both for your thoughts. 

Glad you found it.  That’s why Vectorworks says to leave the none class on always, almost all of their content uses it for some or all of the geometry.

[Tom W.]

1 hour ago, jeff prince said:

That’s why Vectorworks says to leave the none class on always, almost all of their content uses it for some or all of the geometry.

 

This is true, but at the same time presumably you should be able to assign a Plant object + all it's components to non-None classes + be able to turn None off should you for some reason want to + the Plant remain visible...????

 

For example all my Walls, Slabs, Roofs, etc remain visible when I turn None off (because none of their parts are assigned to None)...

 

Just interested to know why Plants are special in this respect

[Jeff Prince]

2 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Just interested to know why Plants are special in this respect

 

I believe it has to do with how the Plant Object tool is written.

I suspect when you create a plant from your own geometry, the program places the information in a container on the none class which is inaccessible to the user.

You can test this yourself by making a symbol for a plant that has nothing on the none class.  Then, use this symbol to create a plant.  When you go back to edit the 2D  geometry of the plant, it's no long in that Symbol you created and all the pieces are accessible, but turning the None class to grey will make it grey.  Clearly, something happens within the Plant Tool itself.

 

In terms of plants being unique in terms of having geometry on the none class, that isn't the case.  There are tons of things that ship with Vectorworks that are built with 2D and 3D geometry on the none class.  And there are inconsistencies with that, see the two different jeeps below 🙂

 

Anyway, leave the None class on and these problems go away.  I purposely do not use the none class in my drawings and reserve it for Vectorworks objects to use only.

 

 

Built in VWX content + one custom symbol on the right. None class ON

 

 

None Class = Gray

1. note the custom symbol turned into a plant on the right has grayed even though nothing was in the None class.

2. Jeep on the left is not gray, most pieces are not on the None class, so they display as expected... however, a few pieces are gray because they were not classed consistently.  That is probably an error on the part of the person who made the model.  There are many examples of these errors throughout Vectorworks and likely another reason the trainers at Vectorworks almost universally say "Leave the none class ON".

 

 

I would post this simple file for you to play with, but it's nearly 100 MB of just stock Vectorworks content!

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by jeff prince

[Tom W.]

30 minutes ago, jeff prince said:

note the custom symbol turned into a plant on the right has grayed even though nothing was in the None class.

This is precisely the point I was making. 

 

30 minutes ago, jeff prince said:

 

In terms of plants being unique in terms of having geometry on the none class, that isn't the case.

This isn't what I was saying. Plants seem to be unique because they remain on a hidden None class despite reassigning them to a different class.

 

like you say: no reason to turn None off, just leave it on + all this is irrelevant!

[Jeff Prince]

@Tom W. you should know by now that if you try to make sense of how Vectorworks works, you will drive yourself mad.  This is what happens to programs that are developed over long periods of time... inconstancies in behavior.

[Peter W Flint]

Ran into a similar issue posted in this thread and shared a screen recording of having nested plants in landscape areas unaffected by toggling none on and off. I'm stymied as to the reason, but it is apparently possible.