Class Color Bug

[Yanai Ozalvo]

Hey,
I selected each type of fixture and changed it to a different class, then in the organization window, I changed the pen and fill color and pressed use at creation and the objects didn't change their color.
I also tried to make a new class and made it active and after I changed the colors I tried to insert a new fixture but it was still black and didn't use the class colors.
what did I do wrong?
I can see in the attribute window that the fixture is in the right color like the class color but in the plot or the design layer, it's still black.
also, I've checked and I'm not in black-and-white mode.

Thanks 
 

[Jesse Cogswell]

For lighting fixtures, there are a couple of different options you want to look into.  These are document settings, so they will need to adjusted from drawing to drawing.  They can be found under File - Document Settings - Spotlight Preferences.  There is a tab within the Lighting Devices section called Classes and Color.  These settings determine which classes new lights are placed in, and how color works for them.

 

 

By default, Insert lighting devices in active class will be selected, so placing new fixtures will always appear in the currently active class.  There is another option, called Insert lighting device in symbol definition class.  This is my preferred method, and new fixtures would be placed based on the class specified in the Edit Symbol Options dialog for the symbol that defines the Lighting Device object.  I prefer this because I can specify different fixture type be different classes if I so choose, and then I don't have to worry about what my currently active class while I'm plotting.  So if I'm plotting out focus areas while I'm building my plot, I can leave my Focus Areas class active and know that my lights will always be in the classes I want them in.

 

You can also have Vectorworks build classes for you based on a field parameter, such as color or device type by selecting the third option, Automatically assign the class of the lighting devices and choosing the options that you want.

 

Now, onto how Lighting Device objects respond to Attributes.  By default, Lighting Devices will only show the graphic attributes of the symbol geometry.  This means that if you wanted some of the fixtures to be lined in blue and some in black, you would need two different symbols.  However, if you check the box for Modify lighting device color, you will have a small bevy of options for how to handle the color.  From the sound of it, you want to be sure to have Object attributes selected, where the lighting fixture will take on the values of the Attributes palette.  But be aware that if you leave the Modify Only Geometry in the Class option set to <All>, this will affect all of the geometry of the fixture, which can lay havoc with things like moving light radius circles.

 

Example of lighting fixtures based on symbol geometry:

 

Same fixtures after selecting Modify Color - Object Attributes

 

This means that if you want things to not be affected by this change, you would need to have elements of the symbol classed out so that it would only affect the desired geometry.

 

Same example but with the Modify Only Geometry value set to my Lighting-Fixtures class

 

You also have options to use the fixture's color field to set either the fill or pen of the fixture.
 

One other place to look for something like this is using the Data Visualization tools.  I can't help you too much with them, as they're not currently part of my workflow and I've only messed around with them a little bit, but there are some users of this forum doing some pretty amazing things to adjust things on a viewport by viewport basis.