RickR Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 It's been years since I did this... but my ellips shutter cuts aren't rendering to match the wireframe beams. The cuts show, but nowhere near where they should. I've since adjusted them in rendering mode, but how does this @%^$%^ happen? Quote Link to comment
RickR Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 Add to this, 2 identical fixtures with identical settings (except X location and focus) have rotated shutter rendering. "Cast Beam" shows the same for both! Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 What height are your focus points at? Having them just above deck height will make it easier to see what the shutters are doing in draw beam. Hope this helps Quote Link to comment
RickR Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 The usual 5', but I could see the rotated cuts easily. They were roughly 45d off and not as deep. These are all cuts at the front edge. In plan it was a straight line across the stage. Rendering showed zigzagging several feet deep. Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 That does sound strange, are you able to share the file? Quote Link to comment
RickR Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 My NDA was written by lawyers used to inventions and patents... These should tell the story. On a possibly related note, I can't open yesterdays file, or the previous 2 backups! Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 Does the issue persist if you bring the lights, focus points, and stage into a separate VWX file? Quote Link to comment
RickR Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 Exactly the same 😣 Just one light, for clarity. 17' above stage floor, 55d to vertical and side. I added a cut that renders properly. I've shown the just the beam at focus and floor. The rendering isn't even close to right. Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 Are you able to share the file that you pasted objects into? Quote Link to comment
RickR Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 I deleted it, but here's another. Cuts aren't so far off on this one. ?? Bad cuts.vwx FYI gotta run. Won't spend VW time for a few days. Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 Good news: nothing seems terribly broken, but this can be a confusing workflow. This picture illustrates what is happening: In Top/Plan it would appear as though draw beam is showing the shutter cuts relative to the stage. But it is actually showing how the shutter cuts would play out on an imaginary plane 5' above the stage deck. Where the shadows from the shutters land on this imaginary plane will not be consistent with where the shadows from the shutters would land on stage. Light traveling, trigonometry, and all that good stuff... From here you can go one of two directions, I'll start with what I recommend. Take all of your focus points and put them at the same elevation as the top of the stage. Now, draw beam will match up much more closely to how the light will land on stage in rendering. I know this isn't proper given the height of the hot spot, but it will make life much easier and you can still move them up and make final adjustments later. I will say in 2019 I did occasionally have some strange results from shutter cuts using RW but it was significantly more accurate in 2020. Option 2 is to leave the focus point where it is at and dial things in from a Top view using Fast RW. One thing I noticed about your file was that you didn't have any shutter cut info in your Object Info Palette. This leads me to believe your were going to the edit lighting device dialogue every time you needed to make a change. You can save a lot of time by going to File>Document Settings>Spotlight Preferences and locating Lighting Device Parameters. From the list set the "Show in Shape Pane" check mark for all the shutter fields. You can now make these changes for multiple fixtures in the OIP. Again hope this helps. Like I said earlier there is certainly something weird in 2019 and I will look into that further. Quote Link to comment
RickR Posted November 20, 2019 Author Share Posted November 20, 2019 FYI I've been using VW heavily for over 10 years, the workflow is not confusing, merely tedious. Look at those first two images closely! That is not plane confusion. Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted November 20, 2019 Share Posted November 20, 2019 For sure, I simply do not know what you do not know and over-explanantion is the safer way to train. Especially for any user that discovers this forum post in the future. You are correct, there is something strange going on in those images and it appears to be specific to 2019. I still want to test it some more before submitting the bug later this afternoon. For now, working in 2020 should alleviate some frustration from this workflow. Quote Link to comment
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