Problems creating a simple shadow analysis

[Andrew Lees]

Hi,

I have looked at this from every angle I can think of and I can't find where the problem is. I'm guessing there must be some viewport control I don't know about?

The starting point for this exercise was a Jonathan Pickup video about how to: 

and I have pretty faithfully followed this to create a viewport at a certain time / date and then copied this across the page to set up equivalent views at different times of the year. I say "pretty faithfully" as I started the exercise before finding and watching the video and set up a different class for each heliodon so that I could manipulate which influenced each designated view - as I didn't know about the Visualisation-Lights palette. Me doing this doesn't seem to be the problem though, as I have switched one of my problem heliodons to the heliodon class that DOES work, and....it still doesn't work.

Here is my "master" viewport, with the heliodon at 20th March 15:00 hours:

 

The other views each have the relevant heliodon for their drawing label assigned, but as you can see - no lighting effects whatsoever. If I inspect the September 22nd 12:00 hrs view for example, you can see the heliodon that is supposed to be lighting the view:

Now this is interesting, if I try and change my March 20th 12:00 view to its heliodon, but select "all viewports": 

All the viewports except the one I wanted to be March 20th 12:00 change to March 20th 12:00!

 

At this point I decided it's time to get on the forum. 

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Edited March 11 by Andrew Lees
typo

[Tom W.]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Lees said:

The other views each have the relevant heliodon for their drawing label assigned, but as you can see - no lighting effects whatsoever. If I inspect the September 22nd 12:00 hrs view for example, you can see the heliodon that is supposed to be lighting the view:

 

Does you definitely have the 'Heliodon 11' class set to visible for that Viewport...?

 

I put all my Heliodons in None class on a dedicated Design Layer + turn them on + off in the Visualisation Palette. I think putting each Heliodon in its own class adds a layer of complexity without any benefit. If they are in the None class you only have one place to activate them: their Design Layer.

 

I take on board that you didn't know about the Visualisation Palette at the time + in fairness plenty of people do say you should class them individually but I personally don't see a reason for it.

[Andrew Lees]

As I said in my text, I did experiment with switching one heliodon to the class that definitely does work, but I will try putting the whole lot on None and see what happens.

But yes, all heliodon classes are turned on in all the views.

[Andrew Lees]

7 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Does you definitely have the 'Heliodon 11' class set to visible for that Viewport...?

 

I put all my Heliodons in None class on a dedicated Design Layer + turn them on + off in the Visualisation Palette. I think putting each Heliodon in its own class adds a layer of complexity without any benefit. If they are in the None class you only have one place to activate them: their Design Layer.

 

I take on board that you didn't know about the Visualisation Palette at the time + in fairness plenty of people do say you should class them individually but I personally don't see a reason for it.

Done.

Also repeated the "change all" exercise again. Again, all expect the one actually edited change to heliodon selected. Very strange.

[Tom W.]

If the design layer the Heliodon is on is visible and it’s class is visible and the Heliodon itself is turned on then I don’t know why you’re not seeing the lighting in the Viewport… 

[line-weight]

I find heliodons to be generally a bit buggy.

 

For example, potentially they don't like being duplicated, renamed or having their class changed.

 

For one of your problem viewports, try creating a new Heliodon, already in the class you want it to be in, and see if that makes any difference.

[Tom W.]

58 minutes ago, Andrew Lees said:

Also repeated the "change all" exercise again. Again, all expect the one actually edited change to heliodon selected. Very strange.

 

When you have 'Selected Viewport(s)' selected you are overriding the Light settings for those VPs only, a bit like using Class or Layer overrides. This icon means the setting is coming from the Design Layer:  And this that it's coming from an override: 

 

When you have 'All' selected you are editing the actual Light/Heliodon objects on the Design Layer + changes you make on that pane will be reflected in the non-overridden lights in the 'Selected Viewport(s)' pane, if that makes sense. So best to leave the 'All' pane as it is as you can end up chasing your tail a bit.

 

It's a bit hard to follow exactly what's going on it your file but if you have one VP that is behaving as expected, it might be easier to just option-drag a copy + in the 'selected VPs' pane turn the Light that's on off + turn on another light + see if that has the desired effect. And if so, just repeat the process + recreate the VPs that way + delete the original ones. There will be a reason why it's not working in the other VPs but bit hard to diagnose without seeing the file.

[Andrew Lees]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

 

When you have 'Selected Viewport(s)' selected you are overriding the Light settings for those VPs only, a bit like using Class or Layer overrides. This icon means the setting is coming from the Design Layer:  And this that it's coming from an override: 

 

When you have 'All' selected you are editing the actual Light/Heliodon objects on the Design Layer + changes you make on that pane will be reflected in the non-overridden lights in the 'Selected Viewport(s)' pane, if that makes sense. So best to leave the 'All' pane as it is as you can end up chasing your tail a bit.

 

It's a bit hard to follow exactly what's going on it your file but if you have one VP that is behaving as expected, it might be easier to just option-drag a copy + in the 'selected VPs' pane turn the Light that's on off + turn on another light + see if that has the desired effect. And if so, just repeat the process + recreate the VPs that way + delete the original ones. There will be a reason why it's not working in the other VPs but bit hard to diagnose without seeing the file.

Thanks for clarifying what those icons are - I was wondering.....

Copying a new VP didn't work though. That was after all how I created the multiple viewports in the first place.

[Andrew Lees]

1 hour ago, line-weight said:

I find heliodons to be generally a bit buggy.

 

For example, potentially they don't like being duplicated, renamed or having their class changed.

 

For one of your problem viewports, try creating a new Heliodon, already in the class you want it to be in, and see if that makes any difference.

🙏🙏🙏🙏 starting again with the heliodons (all in there None layer) fixed it.

[line-weight]

I've become completely baffled in very similar scenarios in the past. And have only managed to fix by making the heliodons anew. This seems to confirm that I'm not imagining it, there's something up with them and I always treat them with caution. Have also had problems where things like brightness settings get all messed up.

[Jonathan Pickup]

if you want to share the file, i'll have a look at it. 

 

[Andrew Lees]

Hi @Jonathan Pickup, problem seems to be resolved, but happy to share the file if you want to take a look to verify our bug theory. What would be the best means of doing this?