Lighting Scenes

[willofmaine]

Is it just me, or is controlling lights for different scenes in VW Architect 2008 ridiculously difficult? Maybe I'm missing something.

The Visualization Palette doesn't work. After a couple of uses, it just goes blank until VW and/or the computer are restarted. After hours trying to get it to work, I finally realized that even if it did work, it doesn't seem to offer control over different instances of the same symbol: a light is either on or off for all instances of a particular symbol. What if I have several lights of the same type in a building, and only want some of them on for a particular scene? Kinda crazy, I know. But there it is.

Running reports on lights and/or lights in symbols seems useless, too, as there seems no way to report on the status (on/off) or brightness of a light. (Never mind that VW can't seem to report on the design layer that a light object's host symbol is on...).

So I've come up with a system: my light fixtures are symbols placed as groups, groups which contain light bulb symbols and fixture component symbols. This way the light bulb symbols can be put into appropriate classes to control lighting scenes, while the fixtures can remain present in the model even if their light bulbs are turned off. Also, fixture components, such as a track lighting heads, can be swiveled without needing an entirely new symbol, etc. All good. Until one realizes/remembers that "Convert to Group" deletes all 3D components and 3D-only symbols from the group when placed in Top/Plan view, and vice versa, all 2D components and 2D-only symbols are deleted when placed in a 3D view. Why is this?!?!?! Why, when a symbol is converted to a group, does it not retain ALL of its 2D and 3D components???

So now I'm making all my light fixture pieces and parts hybrid symbols, simply so they're all included when placed into a file. Which means an additional symbol for the rotated versions of things such as track lighting heads. There seems no escape to the complexity.

Am I missing something?

Thanks..................