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Vision bugs


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Hello,

 

I have a couple of bugs:

 

- The bloom of a light can sometimes make a big black box over the light and sometimes the entire screen so that nothing can be seen. This can be fixed by lowering the Bloom Strength but it occasionally happens at 1% bloom depending on where the camera is.

- When opening a file or importing a scene from Vectorworks the rotation X, Y & Z of a fixture does not correctly display its current values. For instance I select a light in Vision, its X, Y & Z rotation values are all 0 regardless of their actual orientations. If I set a light to have a Y rotation of 90, save the file and close, and then re-open the file the Y rotation value reads 0 even though the light is rotated 90. The lights rotate correctly but does not display the correct angle when importing from Vectorworks and when editing, saving and then re-opening in Vision.

- Is there a way to edit the unit number within Vision?

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hey Dan! I'll number my responses to keep things readable.

  1. Raising Bloom Threshold and lowering bloom light strength will also make this go away. Basically what is happening here is the bloom from fixture A is "blooming" fixture B, and B is blooming C, etc. So what happens is the area at the center is being told to be at 100% brightness , and then 150%....and then 200%, etc. We are looking into a few options, but the point at which it "overblooms" is dependent on GPU and Vision scene - so 1 computer will overbloom, and another wont (with the same dmx being sent).
  2. I was unaware of this one! I never thought to check since they come in rotated correctly. I can see how this could be troublesome when fine-tuning conventionals or something. Is there any other reason for needing the angle? Maybe we have some sort of workaround.
  3. Sure! Just open the patch window via Window>patch. Double click the unit number and change it, then hit enter. You can also change it in the fixture's properties window.
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Hi Edward

 

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I will keep my responses numbered too to make it easy and have included some screen shots to help explain what is going on. 

 

1. Blooming- I understand what you are saying and have played with these levels and it does fix the problem to an extent. I don't need to see the beam for some fixtures but need to see the light source (such as LED bars pixel mapped facing front on) and so these lights need a small bloom strength and some bloom light strength to show the light source. Combine this with some bright fixtures such as strobes and the black boxes makes an appearance. A workaround for me has been to lower the candela of those bright fixtures but I have found when saving the file and reopening the candela amount is displayed correctly in the fixture properties panel but the light output has gone back to its default level. Another factor that comes into play here with the black boxes is the volumetric amount which I suppose is linked to the bloom.

 

Another artefact that appears sometimes are coloured boxes. See below.

 

5ab9764d45192_colourbox.thumb.jpg.efab5eb203c1c0a35deadc861239f8d7.jpg

 

2. There is two reasons I am rotating fixtures within Vision. 1- LED bars become curved so that each cell is focused on the focus point. See pic below.

5ab972f29ae72_curvedledbars.thumb.jpg.294a5858802d6318233af69c6158327f.jpg

 

2- The other reason is 3D rotate in Vectorworks doesn't translate properly into Vision. 

 

In Vectorworks I have used 3D rotate to flip the fixtures 180 degrees so that the LED bars are mounted on the floor.

5ab97353ef546_VWy180.thumb.jpg.028e4d47aeba1a132a87f6e1b48e9e61.jpg

 

When I then export to Vision they are rigged the opposite way up.

5ab973af10230_ledbarsupsidedown.thumb.jpg.fd3b52784503667912434b330a26b28e.jpg

 

Setting the 3D rotate z=0 in Vectorworks makes them appear the correct way up in Vision

5ab973f69a061_VWy0.thumb.jpg.567e392c1ca982ed120b12455769b077.jpg

 

3D rotate in Vectorworks y=0

5ab974cea9d15_LEDbarsvisiony0.thumb.jpg.268a3d6e40c37d9af5671bd752bf3a50.jpg

 

I am having the exact same issue with the LED bars and JDC-1 strobes on the boom poles behind the band. In Vectorworks they are all facing backwards so that they will face forwards in Vision.

 

3. Thanks for the tip here for the fixture properties. I can change it in fixture properties but not in patch where I was originally trying to do it. You can change the universe and address but not unit number within patch.

 

Thanks for you time.

 

Dan

 

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hey Dan,

 

The black box (or colored box) is a GPU artifact, volumetric amount (or even quality) could contribute to this for sure. Basically, it happens when the GPU sort of...gives up on trying to calculate it. What GPU do you have in this machine?

 

the curved LEDs....that's maybe the weirdest thing I've seen happen in a long time. I'll run some tests and talk to our main fixture guy. Do you have them focused to a focus point on that person? I honestly didn't know fixtures could...bend like that. 

 

The last time I saw a backwards fixture was when someone was importing old vision symbols. Make sure to use vectorworks symbols to get the correct rotation -but if you're getting that issue anyway - let me know. We changed thousands of fixtures around when we combined symbol libraries, and there is a chance a few got missed. 

 

Feel free to send a message over to me at tech@vectorworks.net with maybe the VWX file and I can take a look as well.

 

Also, thank you for explaining this so clearly - screenshots and paragraphs! 

 

Lastly - make sure you've manually updated to SP2 via: 

 

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Hi Edward

 

The GPU I have is an Asus GeForce GTX 1070 with 8GB memory. The drivers are up to date and I do this regularly when prompted their software (maybe once a month?). The volumetric thing is a real problem for me and it slows me down quite a bit when plotting.

 

The curved LED's really threw me at first and I couldn't work out what or why it was happening. The focus point is on the person which is quite close to the light and so it makes sense that if it was going to happen it would be noticeable there. 

 

I will email you my Vectorworks file so you can have a look at the flipped fixtures yourself. I could go into detail here but its probably better for you to have a look yourself.

 

Vectorworks is fully up to date I believe and there is no old or custom fixture libraries there. Vision is running on version 23.0.2.405396.

 

Thanks again for your time on this.

 

Cheers,


Dan

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Hi Edward

 

Just following up on this, the black box problem makes this software very unusable. I cannot adjust the settings to get rid of the black boxes, have haze in the air and see lights outputting.

 

This is a major problem, and disappointing that the software costs top dollar and has a yearly subscription fee, yet a free visualiser that comes with free console software does not.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

 

IMG_9452.MOV

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hey Dan, the black box is easy to make go away, just turn bloom strength to 0. It looks crazy high in that video.

 

Bringing down bloom strength, bloom light strength and upping bloom threshold makes that artifact go away.  

 

I remember tinkering with your file and not seeing the artifacting myself on a gtx 980ti, which should be about on par with the 1070 (i'd have to check my charts) so it's very likely it's a bloom issue. Try turning that down and let me know. 

 

Oh, and sorry for the delayed response! I was out all last week trying to buy a house! 

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Hi Edward

 

Turning the bloom strength to zero fixes the issue, but having it at zero makes the front of fixtures not light up, so in the case of blinders or LED bars you cant see if they're on.

 

Where is the best place to report problems with fixtures?

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

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