Haydenovative Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Hey Gang, More venting than anything but if someone has a workaround that would be great. So I build a venue, I place the production elements and I hang a few lighting fixtures. I'm not really interested in focussing them and turning them on, I just want them there because they will be there on the day, but I'd like to continue working on the show in open GL or taking renders of the show without the lighting fixtures on and alas I'm in the dark. As soon as I add one light to a drawing I lose all global lighting even when the light is switched off. Is there a way I can retain "Normal" lighting conditions after placing a lighting device without deleting or turning off the layer with lights on it? I have in the past duplicated the lighting layer, selected them all and converted to 3D polys and turned of the "Actual" Lighting layer so I can do renders with the lights hanging in the ceiling but with global lighting on, it seems its a whole can of worms once you add lights as you have to adequately light the entire space with house lights etc. and render times go through the roof. Any ideas? Thanks a million! Quote Link to comment
James Russell Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Hayden, I can totally +1 on this vent session. Looking back at the original Lighting Device code from a 2008 printed copy of it that I have here (those were the days), a third hidden component is generated when your lighting device is added to the drawing. It seems there are three components created when a Lighting Device is generated. The 3D Symbol, the 2D Symbol, and a generic directional light commonly found in the visualisation toolset. The main issue is that there doesn't seem to be a way to get to this visualisation directional light component. In the ideal world I'd love there to be a class added for these visualisation lighting components (just like clamps is generated on first load) so they could be turned off and on to avoid this issue. It's one extra line in the lighting device generation .vso. Otherwise your current workaround is pretty much the same as mine currently. Good luck, J Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 A workaround may be to increase the Ambient brightness in View>Lighting>Lighting Options>Ambient info. Explained here, scroll down to MK's post: https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=200257&Searchpage=1&Main=40390&Words=%22default+light%22&Search=true#Post200257 Apparently VWX has two "background" light sources - The ambient light controlled in View>Lighting, and a "default" light (no user control) which casts those faint surface shadows, eg in OGL renders. The ambient light default setting is only 35%. If a light object is added to the drawing, that "default" background light switches off, leaving only the 35% Ambient light (plus the new light) for everything. Hope that's relevant. -B Quote Link to comment
James Russell Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 The major issue I have with this solution is the wipe out of shadowing due to the global rise in ambient light in all directions. (See attached for examples) It makes the objects loose all depth due to the whole 360 degree lighting thing going on, whether the ambient is at 25%, 70% or 100%. I'll have to have a play with fixed almost sun direction lighting to see if I can replicated this light that gets turned off, it'd be good to know if it can be enabled/replicated again for future reference. Thanks for the link and explanation though B, I'd remember seeing this a while ago but dismissing it. Good to check it out again now. J Quote Link to comment
James Russell Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Also what does this parameter control: Layer Ambient Status 150 TRUE or FALSE ObjectVariableBoolean ? Quote Link to comment
Nicholas Kargel Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I too find this frustrating. However, if you add the fixture using the symbol insertion tool rather than lighting instrument insertion tool, it won't kill the default lighting. Or you can convert an existing light to a 2D/3D symbol using cmmd-K "ungroup." Quote Link to comment
Haydenovative Posted March 18, 2015 Author Share Posted March 18, 2015 Thank you guys for throwing more info at the problem. we really need the balance of a pretty picture along with it being a working technical document and I just feel that ANY workaround speaks to an issue that should be resolved. As soon as you mention lines of code my brain explodes, but alas if that's where the fix is Id love to see a tick box in some format to allow me to work the way I intuitively would. Jim, I know you're listening, could this one go on the wishlist pretty please? Quote Link to comment
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