Stop Braceworks tomfoolery

[PeanutRigs]

On VWX26, 3.1

 

Have we finally gotten the ability to turn this mess off? The same for bridles.

 

I understand the necessity for Braceworks to do some of its physics work to connect trusses together automatically. But the rest of this, unnecessary.

Where do we turn it off at?

 

 

[Peter Telleman]

You mean the symbols for truss crosses? Of all the Braceworks things to complain about, I don't see this one as a real issue. You can automatically assign truss crosses to a class, and I then have that class set to invisible.

[Scott C. Parker]

On 3/14/2026 at 4:31 PM, PeanutRigs said:

Have we finally gotten the ability to turn this mess off? The same for bridles.

Which mess? And what issues are you having with the bridles?
As for turning things off, workflows that include the organized use of classes and templates make it easy work of turning items off.

 

6 hours ago, Peter Telleman said:

Of all the Braceworks things to complain about

🤣👆

[PeanutRigs]

On 3/16/2026 at 12:54 AM, Peter Telleman said:

Of all the Braceworks things to complain about

God forbid I don't want to have more things in my drawing that there needs to be.

[PeanutRigs]

On 3/16/2026 at 7:00 AM, Scott C. Parker said:

Which mess? And what issues are you having with the bridles?

As for turning things off, workflows that include the organized use of classes and templates make it easy work of turning items off.

My issue with the bridles is that they pop up at all. There is absolutely nothing in these base show drawings for them to connect to, so why do I have to click OK for every individual hoist?

As for the connection thing, it's dumb. Braceworks has absolutely no idea how I'm attaching those two trusses together. Cheeseboros? Saddle Straps? Hanger bars? I've drawn in boros for fun, they don't connect via BW. It also has no idea what that box is that I've drawn and placed inside the GT Truss. Not the weight, it doesn't know where those clamps are attached, nothing. 

So why does it have to make those connections? What, so I can run Braceworks and get wildly false information out of it? There is absolutely zero benefit to it existing here. I shouldn't have to deal with the mess it makes on top of that. 

Listen, it's not the end of the world. But it's part of the list of annoyances. Same list as why are there fields for Voltage, Speed, Phasing, and Wattage on hoists? Because it's a sloppy copy over from the Lighting Object Info? Because there's also nowhere in there to tell it the load it's supporting. I have to zero out chain weight and use the hoist weight field to put in my weight. (And yes, I would LOVE for someone to come in here and tell me I'm a blind dumb** that's missing a field obviously labeled "Load" where I can type that in.)

I, and most every other rigger I know, have taken issue with this since it came out. I guess the forum isn't the place to complain about it. Lemme go email my rep.

[jcogdell]

@PeanutRigs
Look in the loads and rigging section of the Spotlight preferences and toggle off the automatic truss cross insertion, that should prevent them from being added.

If you want to add a load to a hoist and don't care about Braceworks just enter it in the low hook weight equivalent field in the hoist properties, if you are using Braceworks then add a point load to the hoist (either manually or by using the add point loads at selection command).
 

[PeanutRigs]

7 hours ago, jcogdell said:

@PeanutRigs
Look in the loads and rigging section of the Spotlight preferences and toggle off the automatic truss cross insertion, that should prevent them from being added.

If you want to add a load to a hoist and don't care about Braceworks just enter it in the low hook weight equivalent field in the hoist properties, if you are using Braceworks then add a point load to the hoist (either manually or by using the add point loads at selection command).
 

Thank you for actual answers.

Given you didn't mention it, I'm going to assume there's no way to turn off bridle creation on the hoists themselves? 

[Scott C. Parker]

10 hours ago, PeanutRigs said:

I'm going to assume there's no way to turn off bridle creation on the hoists themselves? 

The hoist insertion tool does not add bridles on its own. How are you inserting hoists?
The bridle tool offers to add hoists instead of the downleg, but not the hoist tool itself, unless you’re high hook exceeds the length of the hoist chain. 

I'm curious about your workflow. Would it be possible for you to do a screen capture video of you adding a truss and then a bridle, and then a hoist? WIthout looking over your shoulder, it's hard to imagine how you're doing you inserting and subsequent displeasure with the process and the tools.

 

If there's any chance you're attending USITT, we have a team there this weekend.

 

Best, Scott

[Peter Telleman]

I kind of like to be able to see the trusscross connection symbols, so that I know it's recognized as connected. Do I think the symbols are very big and in your face?, absolutely !. That's why in my spotlight preferences I've automatically assigned all truss crosses to a class I have set to invisible, which makes them not show up, unless you want them seen. This works very fine for me, hence my remark that there are definitely more "important" things to bitch about on Braceworks. I haven't found a way to not have them appear at all.

[PeanutRigs]

On 3/18/2026 at 1:51 PM, Scott C. Parker said:

I'm curious about your workflow. Would it be possible for you to do a screen capture video of you adding a truss and then a bridle, and then a hoist? WIthout looking over your shoulder, it's hard to imagine how you're doing you inserting and subsequent displeasure with the process and the tools.

I recorded this and hadn't had time/ haven't remembered to come post it. 

 

Quote

On 3/17/2026 at 4:44 PM, PeanutRigs said:

As for the connection thing, it's dumb. Braceworks has absolutely no idea how I'm attaching those two trusses together. Cheeseboros? Saddle Straps? Hanger bars? I've drawn in boros for fun, they don't connect via BW. It also has no idea what that box is that I've drawn and placed inside the GT Truss. Not the weight, it doesn't know where those clamps are attached, nothing. 

So why does it have to make those connections? What, so I can run Braceworks and get wildly false information out of it? There is absolutely zero benefit to it existing here. I shouldn't have to deal with the mess it makes on top of that.

 

I'm still standing by this. There is no way for Braceworks to infer how this load will affect a truss. As such, I don't understand the purpose of the connection in the first place. If that tool asked me a question, I'd feel different about it being completely useless. Maybe a pop up that has options, Hoist, Inverted Hoist, Hard Connection, Soft Connection. That would probably be useful if someone's using reports to get gacflex counts or something like that. Or just a good reminder to put in a hoist so you don't somehow forget to later.

Me calling it a, "mess" is because it's that many more things to scroll through in my classes. It's my biggest gripe with drawings I get from designers when there's 9,000 classes of nonsense and having Braceworks add to the mayhem is just annoying. Assigning things to be created in invisible classes is something I knew existed but hadn't remembered to mess with until it was brought up here. So that annoyance is at least managed now.

Sadly I wasn't able to make it to USITT. I would have loved to sit with you guys and talk about making the motor tool's Object Info more rigger friendly. Right now it seems to just be a clone of the Lighting Object palette so it's full of things none of us are using. I've also never in my life seen a motor that has a Stage Pin power plug. Or an Ethernet, Edison, or RCA Phono connector. (Not that any of us are filling that out either.) Nor do I know any riggers that are listing the wattage of a hoist. It's not pertinent to what we do; the motor distros manage all of that by virtue of you only plugging one motor into one channel. You can twofer Sharpys, you shouldn't twofer fixed speed hoists. 

[PeanutRigs]

On 3/18/2026 at 1:51 PM, Scott C. Parker said:

If there's any chance you're attending USITT, we have a team there this weekend.

I'm setting something up with Dami my rep for when I get home from this tour. I'm looking forward to getting some of this figured out.

[Mike Wright]

Quote

Screen Recording 2026-03-18 at 3.42.41 PM.mov

 

This looks like it is a bug in 2026, no previous version has shown this behaviour.

[Scott C. Parker]

17 hours ago, PeanutRigs said:

I recorded this

Lance, the recording was very helpful. Hoists have a max chain length set in the record attached to the symbol in the library. When users need to attach the top/bottom hooks beyond the limit, VW automatically adds bridles. This has been so since 2023. 

Several users would like to manually enter a new chain length, like before, to the hoist, and this is on our list. The current catch is that we get the overall weight of the hoist and its chain from the record, and changing the chain length would not report the changed weight properly. Again, it's on the list.

Changing the length and weight of the hoists is fairly easy via the attach record workflow in the resource manager. Once users update and save their preferred hoist configurations in their favorite files, the type of issue you're showing in the video is solved.

Best, Scott

[Mike Wright]

thanks Scott, I did not know about this behaviour

[Peter Neufeld.]

Hello,

Just a quick note that you can substitute the geometry of a Truss Cross for a symbol via the OIP, if that's going to be useful.

Here is a nested symbol of 4 x 90º clamps.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Peter