Saving global properties

[DBLD]

Hello

 

Is there a way to save the global properties such as ambient light, volumetric amount, bloom strength etc so that every time I run Send to Vision I don't need to adjust these settings? They reset to their defaults every time I import from Vectorworks.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[Edward Joseph]

Hey Dan, not yet, it is planned though. Until it's added, you can save a v3s file once you make changes via file>save in Vision, that will save the settings for that file.

 

You shouldn't have to tinker with too much with every file though, my personal workflow follows:

• Load file into Vision 
• Drop Ambient to 2-3
• Volumetric Quality to 100
• Volumetric amount down a peck
• Maybe bring haze amount down a little (to mix in more static haze)

If you are changing things like exposure, contrast, and brightness, I would definitely change my monitor settings around. Nvidia cards have an awesome tool in the form of the control center to do this if your monitor settings are lacking. ATI's CCC is similar in this regard.

[DBLD]

Hey Edward

 

Thanks for this. I guess my issue is when I am making minor updates in Vectorworks and resending to Vision I have to repeatedly change the settings, move the camera view etc. What would be good is a feature to import and merge from VW, so that you are keeping the original Vision file and just reimporting the file from VW.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[DBLD]

I just saw your other post about exporting esc files from VW. This could be what I am looking for!

[Edward Joseph]

Awesome, there are a ton of things the ESC workflow can help with. I usually prefer it for bigger shows - careful though, it's easy to go overboard juggling 10 ESC files. I limit it to Main deck and risers, conventionals (with FoH truss and the like), and movers with stage truss. 

 

Hope that helps!

[DBLD]

The ESC layer thing as been good and it has cut down on the number of times I have to readjust some of the global parameters. However, I often still lose the saved cameras and global parameters. It seems to reset the parameters and saved cameras.

 

Also, when I delete the layer with the lights in it, the models of the lights disappear but the beams are still present, which means they are still patched. If I then remerge an updated esc from vectorworks (with for instance the mode of a light changed or an address updated) I end up with duplicates in the patch- every light is patched twice.

 

Am I doing something wrong here?

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

 

[Gaspar Potocnik]

On 6/13/2018 at 7:46 PM, DBLD said:

The ESC layer thing as been good and it has cut down on the number of times I have to readjust some of the global parameters. However, I often still lose the saved cameras and global parameters. It seems to reset the parameters and saved cameras.

 

This has been happening to me swell, after each merge I lose saved cameras...

 

On 6/13/2018 at 7:46 PM, DBLD said:

Also, when I delete the layer with the lights in it, the models of the lights disappear but the beams are still present, which means they are still patched. If I then remerge an updated esc from vectorworks (with for instance the mode of a light changed or an address updated) I end up with duplicates in the patch- every light is patched twice.

 

This swell, but after restart of vision they disappear. I guess it's a bug?

[DBLD]

Ah, I didn't try restarting Vision. Good to know.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[Edward Joseph]

You know, I can't say I have ever tried making an adjustment to my plot and re-exporting and merging an ESC while Vision was still running. If I ever have changes to make, I usually close out Vision to free up some system resources anyway. I'll verify and if I run into the same thing with the latest service pack, I'll put it in as a bug. It sounds like the duplicates are getting removed when Vision is restarted so it looks like it's mostly there already.

 

Something that is confusing me though, is the workflow here. Maybe if that was clarified I can make a better suggestion in the bug entry. Is this a reoccurring problem in your workflow? Do you often need to make changes and re-export pieces of your rig after changing all of the root properties and saving camera views?

 

I've really only seen a re-export of an esc as necessary when I make a mistake building my file. Do you two have a workflow where often changing the rig after all of the camera and global property setup is complete is normal? This could help in deciding whether I put it in as a bug or feature request - because if this is a workflow issue, maybe we can make it better. 

[Gaspar Potocnik]

12 minutes ago, Edward Joseph said:

Something that is confusing me though, is the workflow here. Maybe if that was clarified I can make a better suggestion in the bug entry. Is this a reoccurring problem in your workflow? Do you often need to make changes and re-export pieces of your rig after changing all of the root properties and saving camera views?

 

I found out these two bug in separate ways so depends. The saved views happens with any merge, so if a set piece is changed or moved I delete the original 3d and merge in the new one, forget about saved views... So yes, this is part of the workflow. Regarding the fixtures, this was a completely random workflow, I wouldn't usually import new fixtures but you never know honestly, specially when doing festivals when floor packages change pretty often...

 

Also I usually have both apps open until I finish my vision file, once its done I'll restart the computer and start programing with a clean start of system resources.

Edited June 20, 2018 by Gaspar Potocnik

[DBLD]

I find myself switching between Vectorworks and Vision quite often. Particularly when coming up with a new design or concept, so the ability to quickly and easily do this without losing saved views and global properties is a must. 

 

Also when coming across the problem of fixture addresses stopping working there is often a bit of back and forth to find an address that works. 

 

The most ideal situation would be for Vision to be built in Vectorworks, so there is no application switching and any update that is made in Vectorworks is automatically updated in the visualiser. 

[Cory Pattak]

On 6/20/2018 at 10:29 AM, Edward Joseph said:

Something that is confusing me though, is the workflow here. Maybe if that was clarified I can make a better suggestion in the bug entry. Is this a reoccurring problem in your workflow? Do you often need to make changes and re-export pieces of your rig after changing all of the root properties and saving camera views?

 

a resounding yes. One of the big touting points of Vision is that most of the work can and should be done VW, the program we are all familiar with. At least for me, a theatre designer, using Vision is not the final step to make a client rendering. It's a process tool. That might mean making adjustments in VW based on what I see and learn in Vision. So yes please, I would love a way to save all those global settings with a custom option. And also an option to restore to defaults.

 

Cory

[Bradley King]

On 6/23/2018 at 8:03 PM, DBLD said:

 

The most ideal situation would be for Vision to be built in Vectorworks, so there is no application switching and any update that is made in Vectorworks is automatically updated in the visualiser. 

 

This this this this this. In my ideal setup, Vision would be a viewing mode just like Renderworks. I want to incorporate Vision into the design process more: if it worked like this, Vision could be used to check and compare angles, positions, etc. How does this light look on the boom versus on an electric? Where should I place this moving light so it's most useful to the overall rig? Where's the best place to hit this piece of scenery from? Vision + something like @JBenghiat's Beam Draw tools could revolutionize the layout process for a lot of theatrical LD's.

 

But right now it seems to function best as a "OK, I am *completely* done with this plot, absolutely no more changes, here we go to Vision" tool, and that's not how I think it's most useful to the most people.

[bbudzon]

I'm catching up on this topic, but a lot of the concerns seem to be related to settings and saved views being lost. There also seems to be some commotion about bidirectional communication and/or Vision's Integration into VW.

 

As far as settings and saved views are concerned, the intended 2018 workflow in this forum posts context would be:

• Prepare VW document
• Send to Vision for first time
• ...work...
• Now you need to update the Vision application with new VW changes without losing settings and views
• So, save a v3s in Vision
  • This should store your saved views and global settings
• In VW, export an ESC with only the updated information contained in the export
• In Vision, delete the geometry/fixtures you are getting ready to update
• In Vision, merge the esc in to pull in your VW update
• Verify your saved views and globals in Vision are still in tact

If this is not working as described, we can check to make sure bugs aren't already opened and open them.

 

For the bi-directional communication and/or Vision's integration into VW; both of these are things that are discussed regularly in the office. It is an issue we are aware of and one we are hoping to find a solution to. GDTF/MVR may help solve a lot of these issues down the road.

[Cory Pattak]

This is the workflow as I understand it. It does seem like certain properties are lost upon that remerge in..like ambient light maybe...but I haven't had enough time to test it out so I can't say for sure. I think the bigger issue, and I know you know this, is that this workflow highly diminishes the attractiveness of the "Send to Vision" command. When this command was introduce, it was touted as a big deal because it simplified the process of getting from VW to Vision. But if that command is really only available the first time, and all other times behaves more like the the way VW info used to get into Vision, then it's not as much as a step forward as one would hope.