hungerf9 Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 I'm working on my first lighting rendering using VW 2008, and I can't for the life of me find the "Light On" option in the Object Properties dialog box (which is where it was in VW 12, and where the help file suggests it still should be). I know that I can turn lights on using the visualization palette, but as this is still a preliminary plot, the instrument names make that method confusing. I don't want to have to assign channels before I look at what the lights are doing. Is there a way for me to simply select a fixture and tell it to turn on? Quote Link to comment
Sam Jones Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 You probably have to turn on the beam in the OI Palette. The beam buttons won't be available unless you have assigned a focus point to the fixture. Sam Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee klinzey Posted January 4, 2008 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 4, 2008 Select the light then Right Click and choose "Edit Light..." you can access all the physical light parameters from here if you don't want to use the Viz palette. Kevin Quote Link to comment
hungerf9 Posted January 14, 2008 Author Share Posted January 14, 2008 Actually, I've found that it is possible to turn on the light (that is, turning on the light for rendering, not the "show beam" function) without setting a focus point. But that's turning the lights on through the visualization palette, not from the Object Info Palette. Quote Link to comment
hungerf9 Posted January 14, 2008 Author Share Posted January 14, 2008 Yes I've tried this. Looking in the Object Info palette I can't find the "turn light on" option that existed in VW 12. Similarly in the "Lighting Device" options, I can turn the wireframe beam on and off, I can adjust shutters and every other option, but I can find no check box to turn the light on. For the current project I've assigned temporary channels to everything so that I can tell each fixture apart in the Viz palette, but it's not the solution I was looking for. Am I somehow overlooking the check box in these palettes? Quote Link to comment
Jim_Allen Posted January 14, 2008 Share Posted January 14, 2008 Kevin said to right click the instrument and select the "edit light" not the OIP That might be why you are not seeing it. Jim Quote Link to comment
hungerf9 Posted January 16, 2008 Author Share Posted January 16, 2008 Ah, sure enough. When I right clicked on the fixture, I was choosing "Edit" rather than "Edit Light." Previously I didn't even notice that those were two separate options. So much for my thorough search. Thanks for your help, everyone. Quote Link to comment
David Roy Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Is there a way to move the EDIT LIGHT context menu information, or at least basics of it, back to the Object Info Pallete? As Andrew points out, all the other attributes (show beam/focus/etc) are there. In previous versions of vectorworks I could select multiple lights in wireframe and then advance through them quickly in the Object Info Pallete to individually set On/Off, Intensity, and Color, or I could select a group of units and give them all the same info. The new way takes many, many, more keystrokes and much more time, since I have to right click each light individually. Is this the only way to do this now? Any chance we can have these items restored to the Object Info Pallette in a future update if there's not a way to set it up now? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Check out the Visualization Palette to be able to turn on/off lights easily. I just selected a couple of VW lights and right clicked and was able to edit them all at the same time. You just have to make sure that you have only lights selected. I don't know about Spotlight lights. Pat Quote Link to comment
David Roy Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 I was speaking specifically of spotlight instruments, which won't let you right click and EDIT LIGHT when you have multiple units selected. The visualization palette does accomplish what I'm looking for in terms of being able to select multiple instruments and change their properties at once. However, it also changes the process from a point and click visual process to one where I must hunt for the correct unit in the list by name. This is helpful after the plot is channeled, but until then its more difficult while multiple units have the same or similar purpose. Also, I believe in VW12 when I typed in a color name and number into a lighting instrument's color field, the embedded light device would change to that color. Now there is an additional step of giving the embedded light device a color. Is there a way to copy and paste the light on/off/color/intensity properties from one device to another? That would also help this. Quote Link to comment
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