Edit Vision fixture properties of multiple lights at once

[Leon024]

Hi, currently as far as I'm aware there is no way to edit the properties in Software Console of multiple fixtures at once. For example, selecting 2 Acclaim Fresnels and then editing the Zoom property will only change the zoom on the first fixture, meaning that you need to go into the second one and change the Zoom property of that as well. Changing the actual properties, e.g. Color Wheel 1 to another gel colour is completely fine, it's just the options in the Software Console.

 

Copy and pasting 25 zoom properties gets tiring, and what's worse is that merging with an updated MVR model resets all these properties back to zero anyways! This means that if you have an updated VWX file, you need to make separate MVR models with only the fixtures you updated so that the remaining fixtures don't get reset in the merge.

 

Obviously more intelligent fixtures will not run into this issue, but working with generics is really annoying to set up right now, seeing as no focus information - gel, shutter, zoom, etc gets recorded into an MVR. The only way to record this information is to export as .esc, and then doing so creates a completely separate fixture instead of merging existing fixtures. On top of that, the gel colour of a fixture in Vectorworks can't actually be done for multiple lights either since you need to go to the actual edit light menu which doesn't appear with multiple lights selected...

 

Personally, if MVR could be better integrated then all the problems would be fixed but I get that it is probably very difficult to do so. If any of these changes got implemented it would make it a lot more bearable:

- Selecting multiple lights and being able to edit the software console would be a godsend. If multiple types of fixtures were selected I feel like just having it be blank as it is now makes sense.

- Having an option to deselect "import Vision Properties" or something along those lines so merging an MVR doesn't reset all values and the manual input only has to happen once

- Having some sort of way to import Vision Properties of certain fixtures (as far as I know there is no file format which will do so)

 

If there is also some other solution that is already implemented that would be amazing to know.

 

Thank you 🙂

[bbudzon]

17 hours ago, Leon024 said:

Hi, currently as far as I'm aware there is no way to edit the properties in Software Console of multiple fixtures at once. For example, selecting 2 Acclaim Fresnels and then editing the Zoom property will only change the zoom on the first fixture, meaning that you need to go into the second one and change the Zoom property of that as well. Changing the actual properties, e.g. Color Wheel 1 to another gel colour is completely fine, it's just the options in the Software Console.

 

Copy and pasting 25 zoom properties gets tiring, and what's worse is that merging with an updated MVR model resets all these properties back to zero anyways! This means that if you have an updated VWX file, you need to make separate MVR models with only the fixtures you updated so that the remaining fixtures don't get reset in the merge.

 

Obviously more intelligent fixtures will not run into this issue, but working with generics is really annoying to set up right now, seeing as no focus information - gel, shutter, zoom, etc gets recorded into an MVR. The only way to record this information is to export as .esc, and then doing so creates a completely separate fixture instead of merging existing fixtures. On top of that, the gel colour of a fixture in Vectorworks can't actually be done for multiple lights either since you need to go to the actual edit light menu which doesn't appear with multiple lights selected...

 

Personally, if MVR could be better integrated then all the problems would be fixed but I get that it is probably very difficult to do so. If any of these changes got implemented it would make it a lot more bearable:

- Selecting multiple lights and being able to edit the software console would be a godsend. If multiple types of fixtures were selected I feel like just having it be blank as it is now makes sense.

- Having an option to deselect "import Vision Properties" or something along those lines so merging an MVR doesn't reset all values and the manual input only has to happen once

- Having some sort of way to import Vision Properties of certain fixtures (as far as I know there is no file format which will do so)

 

If there is also some other solution that is already implemented that would be amazing to know.

 

Thank you 🙂

This is all very good, helpful, and constructive feedback! Much appreciated!!

 

I vaguely remember when we added multiple selection to Vision, discussing the Software Console. That was some years back now. I don't remember why we didn't do precisely what you suggest. I would even go so far as to say the Software Console should be integrated with the PgUp/PgDn functionality that allows you to cycle though individual lights in a multiple selection. This way, you could adjust them all together, or tweak them one at a time; all without having to change your selection in the Scene Graph / Properties Palette. Some of the stuff involving Vision Properties can get a little bit more difficult to deal with regarding MVR. But, it's something worth discussing internally to see if there's a solution to be found.

 

Unfortunately, there isn't really even a good workaround. I tried some things in my local build, but couldn't come up with anything. Maybe someone else will chime in. But, I think you have found about the best possible work around, which isn't ideal; the one involving splitting up your model so that updates to non-lighting device objects don't "reset" the devices you spent all that time setting up.

 

I'm sorry this response wasn't more helpful! But, I can use this to kick off some discussions internally. Thanks again!