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Renderworks Light color by Class


Ryan Seybert

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Hi All,

 

I recently watched a Vectorworks webinar that discussed some rendering workflows for the Entertainment industry.  One of them was to use a renderworks light embedded in a generic 2d/3d symbol instead of an actual Lighting device to skirt around having to create a bunch of focus points all the work load that comes with that.  I agree.  

 

The way the presenter controlled the color of the lists was through classing overrides in the various viewports, giving them enough flexibility to quickly make different lighting looks. they did this with the lens of fixture as well, allowing for a more realistic representation of a theatrical light.  Whats was achieved by setting the texture assigned to the lens as color fill by object... which is set to class style.

 

I'm trying to replicate this workflow and I cannot seem to get the render lights to behave correctly according to the webinar.  Is it possible to control the lights in this fashion or is this another case of VW changing something between 2019 and 2020?  The lens texture works just fine.

 

I can see the light in the visualization palette but cannot edit its properties there as its buried inside a symbol definition.  

 

Thanks!

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I don’t think you can control the actual colour of the light from a lighting device’s emitter using classes. I have never actually tried though.

 

however, a light object can be assigned a colour by class and be placed within a 3D symbol and controlled that way. Was that not the workflow in the webinar?

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@Luis M Ruiz I've checked that a few times.  I did notice that the fill color displays as set by class but the fill type displays as solid.  When I try to change it to "by class" it snaps back to solid.  Probably not related but perhaps worth mentioning.

 

This is issue does only happen in viewports when the class has an override.  Seems to work properly in design space.

Screen Shot 2020-02-13 at 8.47.15 PM.png

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I have tried setting the color of a Vectorworks light object by class in prior versions and it does not work. Even thou you can use the attributes palette to set the color of the light, coloring by class will not work. I put in a wish list request as coloring a Vectorworks light object by class has been requested by several users.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

@rseybert I just tried in 2020 with VP class overrides for class color for the light and I could not get it to work. I looked at Jim's presentation and he was changing the class color of the lens not the light. He was one of the people I had the discussion about class coloring of the light with VP overrides. It works fine for the geometry but not for the light source.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I build my own symbols for rendering purposes and create them in individual classes per type of light and it’s orientation (floor or suspended). The lenses and lighting objects all receive their color by being assigned to “color by class”. Works like a charm. The 2D element also changes fill color to make it easier to track changes. 

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Here are some screen grabs.  I avoid anything to do with Spotlight symbols so all of mine are custom geometry.  Very simple to draw but how they are drawn and textured makes all the difference.  In the instance of this gobo fixture, I create the body as a hollow object and a generic texture, not using a translucent texture.  The lens is translucent and by building it this way, I can place the lighting object where I want to optimize the beam spread across the lens.  Any additional spill is captured by the shell of the fixture body.  

Screen Shot 2020-02-29 at 2.41.08 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-02-29 at 2.44.00 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-02-29 at 2.44.24 PM.png

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If I am following you correctly, yes I can adjust the color of the instrument lens and light in a viewport by class, independently of the actual class setting.  I have duplicated two viewports on a sheet layer.  In one, I have a set of wash fixtures I have manually set to yellow by editing the class of the viewport.  In the other, I have set them to green.  On the design layer, the class in question is still blue.  So, I am assuming that is what you are hoping to achieve,  

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Attached is a test file.  My assumption is you may still be relying on some bit of Spotlight functionality for lens and lamp coloration.  This particular symbol  is created from scratch and created on the specific classes that will line up with my design template.  Basically, they are designed to be used specifically for rendering purposes.  

 

test.vwx

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Hi Scott

 

Thanks for sharing your file. Sadly your method doesn't seem to work for me.

 

I rendered your viewports with a black background and turned off the ambient light to see the beams and sadly the class overrides do not seem to have worked on the light objects.

1693030216_classoverrides.thumb.png.ee3c73ae6271522bb1d668c2362fc2c1.png

 

I'm wracking my brains to think what you could be doing differently....

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  • 1 month later...

@scottmoore Great Symbol. Simple and good.

@rseybert I tested it as well and it did not work for me. Here is what I did to fix this issue and be able to change the color of the light in the viewport. 

Edit the symbol - assign the lens and light beam to a new class light beam 1 - copy the lens and beam and past in place - create class Light beam 2.

Light beam 1 class is yellow, Light beam 2 class is white.

in the view port you just pick which class to be on... now to edit the color of the light you need to change that in the navigation class pallete and not in the viewport class pallete. The only issue is that now the body of the fixture in 2d view will not have the correct color as the beam... but i can live with that... 

By doing this you can create 2 viewports on a sheet one with yellow lights and one with white lights

 

Screen Shot 2020-04-28 at 12.36.49 PM.png

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