New Focus Lighting Devices Dialog

[Jesse Cogswell]

Good morning.  Just downloaded the new 2021 and am playing around with the Spotlight features.  When I tried to focus the lighting fixtures, I discovered the new dialog box.  Unless I'm missing something, there's not a way to select existing Focus Point objects in this window.  While I certainly appreciate being able to focus a light without having to need a focus point, a big part of my design process is laying out my focus points first and using their location to place my lighting fixtures.

 

I understand that I can still enter the information in manually in the Focus field of the Object Info Palette, I miss being able to set it from a list.  Am I missing something with the new tool or has this functionality been removed?  If it's been removed, could we file a feature request to add either a list box or pop-up menu to the Focus Lighting Devices dialog box?

 

In the meantime, I've copied the original Focus Instruments plug-in from VW2020 as a workaround, but it would be lovely to be able to quickly focus fixtures with existing points without needing a second menu command.

 

 - Jesse

[markdd]

I think the intention was that you use the Edit DIalog instead. I think it's the same amount of clicks, just a different route. Oddly enough, its exactly your workflow which made me find the new Focus Lighting devices command.

 

1. double-click a selection of lighting devices
   Edit Dialog opens
2. Light information Tab
3. Focus Menu (first field)

 

[Jesse Cogswell]

Aha!  Quite right.  My muscle memory is stuck to using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F to select a focus point, I'll just have to get used to double-clicking the selection instead.

 

Actually, after playing with this for a bit, I think I discovered a bug with the Edit Lighting Device dialog.  If only one fixture is selected, the dialog is shifted to one side, hiding the OK and Cancel buttons.  It looks like they offset the elements of the dialog for having the Lighting Devices list browser (which doesn't appear if only one fixture is selected), but set the window dimension without it.