Locking fixtures to a position

[kelrock]

I wrote about this last July and only got one reply that didn't work, so I figure I should ask again. I have created a few "light positions" that are semi circles. If I select one of the "positions", the highlighted position is shown as a rectangle. This rectangle crosses my floor lights. They are no where near the "light position", but I can not change the "position" in the light information menu. When I type in "floor" it reverts back to "Pipe 6" immediately. I've tried putting the two positions on different classes, but there should be a way to to over ride the auto positioning feature. Any ideas?

[michaelk]

I usually put my floor units on a separate design layer and leave that layer turned off.

Then include that layer in the viewport on the sheet layer.

HTH

Michaelk

Edited December 28, 2008 by michaelk

[Sam Jones]

Another alternative is to ungroup the lighting position, but this will mean that you have to remember to fill in the Position field and run a numbering command whenever you add lights to the position

Sam

[johndpalmer_ld]

Hi, I have had similar problems. The solution that I found was the move to back command on the position that was taking control. It is tricky because then other things want to take the position of the new "front" position.

Hope that helps!

John

[MrTemplate]

Greetings;

how about placing the lighting positions on different layers? i did the "move to back" on lighting positions for one show until it drove me batty. placing them on their own layer seemed to work for me. fwiw, i didn't have to do any visualization on that plot. with the little i know now, i would separate layers with different z heights very carefully.

hth,

shelley

[David Ormsby]

Out of curiosity, do you have a lighting position called Floor in your file? It sounds strange the VW won't let you change it to a new position.

FWIW, when I have floor units, I create a lighting position called Floor using a very short line somewhere to the right of unit 1.

[michaelk]

David

How do you use it? What's the benefit of having a Floor Position Object?

Do you insert the lighting instruments into the Floor Position and then drag them away?

You still have to number manually, and you can just type Floor or Deck into the Light position field of the OIP.

michaelk

[David Ormsby]

I create the Floor position so that VW will autonumber the fixtures. Even if the the fixtures are not "touching" the position, the autonumber command does work as long as the position exists.

I usually don't bother with inserting them on the position and moving away, but just enter the Position manually into the OIP.

[michaelk]

I get it.

I usually just type Floor or Deck into the position field and use the number instruments/number manually command. (Or more accurately, I insert one unit, get its 3D orientation correct and just duplicate that same unit and replace with whatever symbol I need later.) There usually doesn't seem to be a good right to left or top to bottom numbering solution for deck units in my shows.

I like the invisible position trick.

michaelk

[Cris with no H]

The Lighting Positions have gotten extremely "grabby" and have become a headache for many of us. The fact that we talk about ungrouping Lighting Positions so as to get our work done should ring alarm bells at NNA.

[lolson]

Alarm bells indeed! I have hated this about VW2008 since the day I bought it - here it is 3AM, again, and instead of sleeping I'm manually correcting positions in the paperwork before a plot goes out in the morning.

This is why I used AutoCAD for so long. I'd rather use a program that doesn't think, than use one that thinks it's right and I'm wrong.

Having VW fill in the position once is a great feature; having it assert position and not let the user change it manually in Object Info...I'm boggled. I the user know what position I want that to be in, and I shouldn't ever have to resort to chicanery to get my way.

At least put a preference in the next update so that those of us who hate this can turn it off.