How to avoid displaying Light Objects in Custom RW

[Didge]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to VectorWorks, so I hope someone can help me with this - I've been researching for hours and just can't work it out ...

 

I've added interior lighting to a house design.

 

After discovering that the 'Shaded' render mode only supports 8 lighting objects (that took a couple of hours to work out), I switched to RenderWorks so all the lighting objects can be enabled at the same time.

 

The lighting works fine - that is, all the interior spaces are illuminated as expected - but after the render finishes, the lighting objects appear as bright spheres, or sometimes as ghostly outlines in the final render - see the images attached.

 

All the lights are 'point' sources, with their class defined as 'light source' with 'fill' and 'pen' set to 'None'.

 

How can I prevent the lighting objects themselves appearing in the final render ?

 

Many thanks 🙂

[Pat Stanford]

What version of VW are you using?  The 8 light limit was removed in VW2023 or VW2024.  There is a setting in the Document Preferences Display pane that you can uncheck to allow more than 8 lights in Shaded.

 

There is a setting in Vectorworks Preferences, Display Pane that let you set light object to be seen Always, in Wireframe only, or Never. Wireframe is probably your best bet. But you can switch between Always and Never to adjust your lights also.

 

[Didge]

Hi Pat,

Thanks very much for your super-speedy reply 🙂

 

Ah - I knew it would be something simple - it works !!

Thanks so much for your tip.

 

BTW - Im using VW 2023 SP8 on an M1 Mac - cant see any setting there to enable more than 8 lights in Shaded mode ?

[Pat Stanford]

Document Preferences.  Last item on the Display pane.

 

[Didge]

Hi Pat,

Thanks again for your speedy feedback ... and the helpful tip - all my lighting objects come on now - great !

 

There does seem to be an unexpected behaviour with that setting though (Renderworks is OK) ...

 

If the 'Limit Shader render mode to 8 lights' is enabled, then the shader behaves as expected - only 8 lights come on, and light is occluded by solid objects such as walls.

So when I enable my interior lights with the heliodon switched off (ie a night scene), the scene looks like image #1 attached.

 

If the 'Limit Shader render mode to 8 lights' is disabled, then all the interior lights come on (great) but the exterior space lights up as thought it is daylight.

See image #2 attached.

 

Switching to the RW shader gives the expected result - see Image #3 attached.

 

Is this just something strange with the OpenGL shader - or is there another setting I need to adjust ?

 

Many thanks for your advice,

 

Gary

[grant_PD]

check your ambient light settings in openGL (shaded)?

[Didge]

Hi Grant,

 

Many thanks for the suggestion ...

 

Yes, I did think of that - but :-

1. Turning ambient light off didn't change the rendering very much because its set to a very low 5%;

2. I'd expect the ambient light setting to have the same effect (more or less) regardless of which shader is used.

 

Another few clues ...

 

1. If I turn all off all the interior lights, then the view is the same whether the 'Limit Shader render mode to 8 lights' setting is on or off.

This is the expected behaviour.

 

2. With 'Limit Shader render mode to 8 lights' turned ON, successively enabling each interior light has almost no impact on ambient lighting.

You just get the tracing of the interior lights, occluded by walls etc.

Again, this is the expected behaviour.

This is what you see in image #1 above.

 

3. BUT - with the 'Limit Shader render mode to 8 lights' setting turned OFF, successively enabling each interior light progressively increases the ambient lighting.

You still get the tracing of the interior lights, occluded by walls etc, but the effect is swamped by the ambient lighting.

This is not the expected behaviour.

This is what you see in image #2 above.

 

4. This is the clincher !!

Next, I turned all the interior lights OFF, then added interior lights one at a time ...

Lighting was correct for the first 6 lights - that is, all the interior lighting was as expected, with traces to the outside occluded by walls - see image #1 below.

 

BUT - when I turn on the 7th light, the entire exterior lights up ! See image #2 below.

This always happens when the 7th light is turned on, regardless of which other lights are turned on, or the order in which they are enabled.

 

IMHO - this has to be a bug in the renderer and the 'Limit Shader render mode to 8 lights' setting ?!?!?

[grant_PD]

Sure sounds like a bug to me.  

[Pat Stanford]

I have not heard of this problem before and it seems like if it was a bug someone would have found this in the 20+ months since VW2023 was released.

 

I am sure it is a big file, but can you post it or get in contact with Technical Support and let them take a look at it and they may be able to provide a solution.

[Elite Exhibits]

20 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

if it was a bug someone would have found this in the 20+ months

@Pat Stanford Ironically, I am able to give you a for instance from 2018/2019 of a "BUG" that I now (still...) find in V2024 ver 5  - Unifed View! - That said ...

 

 

We have experienced something similar to @Didge above. Our issue was Symbol based Lights - Much easier to edit one symbol, than a dozen lights - except when there are more than 8 said light symbols in an Open GL rendered design.

 

We ended up removing the light from the Symbol as it made for a rendering that looked incomplete. (Page 1) The long tern solution was Custom RenderWorks rendering vs Open GL / Shaded

 

One suggestion - Note the bright background (Page 1) of the attached - (Originally in VW2021 / Open GL) - No Indirect Lighting - No Ambient - No Environmental - only the eight lights that you see functioning out of the 15 Light Symbols across the top of the back wall - Changing then Background from a "bright" Two Color to One Color Black (Page 2)changes what happens to the surrounding brightness with the same Open GL / Shaded render mode.

 

Peter

Black Background Open GL.pdf

[Pat Stanford]

2 hours ago, Elite Exhibits said:

Ironically, I am able to give you a for instance from 2018/2019 of a "BUG" that I now (still...) find in V2024 ver 5  - Unifed View! - That said ...

There is a difference between a bug and a poor design that is working as designed. 😉

 

Totally different process to get them "fixed".