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Camera disappears after creating a viewport


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I wish there was a way to link viewports to cameras that remained in the design layers (ie. live cameras) instead of the current system.

Then I could like multiple viewports to the same camera and cameras would be way easier to manage. I often have many viewports showing different states of the same view (ie. a camera view of a stage with different scenic states).

The current system leaves a lot to be desired. Even in the case of the original poster, suddenly there's two cameras with the same view to manage instead of just one.

Kevin

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

If you duplicate a viewport created from a camera, it actually creates another renderworks camera embedded into the new viewport. This is useful to know, but being able to leave the camera on the design layer and choose whether or not to link it to one or more viewports explicitly would be far more useful.

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The current method was quite confusing the first time I encountered it, and whenever my students play with cameras before learning about them in class, they find the process confusing as well. (And even after I explain how the cameras become part of the viewport they don't quite understand why.)

What one would expect is essentially what Jonathan and Kevin are describing: Cameras should stay in the Design Layer and Viewports should be able to "link" to them.

In theatre we often create multiple renderings, all from the same POV, to illustrate different lighting looks or to show scene changes. Currently, if we already have 10 viewports showing different scenes, for example, and then we want to change the POV slightly, it's a long and manual process. Being able to link all the Viewports to one Camera which can be edited in the Design Layer would be amazing.

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More specifically:

When you create a Viewport with a Camera selected, there should be a pop-up that says "Would you like the Viewport to be linked to the selected Camera? Any edits made to the Camera will be reflected in the Viewport" with an option to create an un-linked Viewport.

Cameras should then have a list or button in the OIP showing which Viewport(s) are linked to it. Similarly, the Viewport OIP should have a field showing what Camera it's linked to, and an option to un-link it.

Double-clicking a Viewport and choosing "Edit Camera" would take you to the Design Layer camera. There should be a pop-up that says "Any edits made to this camera will also edit the views of other Viewports linked to this camera" with buttons that say "OK", "Cancel", or "Make viewport unique". Or something kind of like that...

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Agreed on all points:

1) Renderworks Cameras should not be removed from the design layer after being used as the view for a viewport.

2) It should be possible to link multiple viewports to a camera, even after the viewport has been created. The View option in the camera's Object Info should not just grey out as it does now if the view is determined by a camera, but allow the user to select from the list of all RW cameras in the document.

3) Users should be able to not only link viewports to a camera, which should then update that viewports view to match the camera, but also be able to unlink the viewport from the camera. At which point the viewport should maintain the view settings from the last camera it was assigned t before it was unlinked.

4) A camera object should display a list of all viewports it is currently linked to. (Data pane perhaps? Maybe the bottom of the Shape tab of the OIP would be fine, Renderworks camera's OIP isn't THAT full compared to other objects like Doors)

5) When creating a viewport from a camera or linking an existing viewport to an existing camera, the user should be alerted of what this entails. This alert should be permanently dismiss-able if the user should so choose.

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1)-5)

+1

Plus,

an external render Window to render and save Image Files at controlled resolutions.

And,

A Full screen View of the Camera with darkened Borders where Cameras Aspect

Ratio does not fit Design Window Aspekt Ratio, to control Camera Perspective

and Image Borders.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

1)-5)

+1

Plus,

an external render Window to render and save Image Files at controlled resolutions.

I'll add this one to an existing similar request, it would likely fall outside the Renderworks Camera object functionally, but be hooked into by it.

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