Red beams and other bugs

[SB Lighting]

I created Vision files on my desktop PC at home that are very buggy when I open them on my MacBook at work.  When I select a light, it either turns on with a red beam or doesn't turn on at all.  Many of the beams also seem to pass through objects or have strange shadows in the middle of the beam.  This was a problem my students had frequently last semester but which I could never replicate.  Now it has happened to me and I'm not sure how to fix it.  I've tried dropping all of the settings to low quality and it still happens.  Maybe it has something to do with screen resolution?  My monitor is 3072 x 1920, which is not a resolution option in Vision.  Or it could be PC to Mac conversion?  Or is it from transferring files via DropBox?  I've moved the file from DropBox to my desktop and still have the same issue.

 

Has anyone else experienced (and solved) this issue?

[bbudzon]

I'm not sure what would cause this in the most recent builds, but there are a few things we can play with to try to further understand what might be happening.

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

I created Vision files on my desktop PC at home

Was this a single V3S file or more than one? Is this issue specific to a single V3S?

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

that are very buggy when I open them on my MacBook at work.

Did you happen to transfer the textures folder alongside the V3S?

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

When I select a light, it either turns on with a red beam or doesn't turn on at all.

Does changing the fixtures Candela / Color Temperature / Color Wheels / Gobos in the Properties Palette effect this at all? What about the Force Emissive flag?

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

Many of the beams also seem to pass through objects

This could happen if shadows are off or if the Shadow Quality is set too low. It is recommended to run without shadows while diagnosing issues if at all possible, as shadows put stress on the machine. (Note: To explain a little further, lowering the shadow quality lowers the maximum number of pixels the fixture can "see". Because at very low qualities geometry becomes very pixelated, you might see areas where shadows pass through things they shouldn't and don't pass through things they should.)

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

have strange shadows in the middle of the beam.

This sounds like it could also be caused by very low Shadow Quality. It is also possible that this a bug related to rendering updated shadows. When a light pans/tilts, the code must update the shadows map to ensure proper shadows are cast based on the geometry they are pointing at. Assuming shadows are on and that the Shadow Quality is set to, say, Medium; if this is a moving head, does panning/tilting resolve the strange shadow? If this is a conventional, does moving the focus of the light with the arrow keys resolve the strange shadow?

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

This was a problem my students had frequently last semester but which I could never replicate.  Now it has happened to me and I'm not sure how to fix it.  I've tried dropping all of the settings to low quality and it still happens.

We have had reports of this in the past as well. I have had trouble reproducing it in most cases. However, some time ago, I found an issue with how Color Temperature (I believe) was being parsed. I was able to fix "red lights" in this very specific instance in the code. Perhaps, ensure you are on the most recent releases of Vectorworks and Vision just to be safe (and ensure you have that specific fix).

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

Maybe it has something to do with screen resolution?  My monitor is 3072 x 1920, which is not a resolution option in Vision.

Just an FYI: This resolution option in Vision is not necessarily a setting you should match to your monitor. When you do, Vision will attempt to leverage every pixel on the display and this could result in poor performance if many lights are on. This resolution option is intended to give you control over Vision's performance and quality. When you are experiencing issues with Vision, it is generally recommended to use lower resolution values (such as 800x600 or 640x480) as higher resolution values (such as 1920x1080) can put stress on the system.

 

3 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

Or it could be PC to Mac conversion?  Or is it from transferring files via DropBox?  I've moved the file from DropBox to my desktop and still have the same issue.

It could be possibly due to file corruption / transfer issues, but I'd expect many more issues than this (in fact, I'd be surprised if it even loaded). Perhaps, you can attach the V3S along with the textures folder in a zip attached to a post here in the forums. This way we would be able to verify if the issue is with the file post-transfer/post-dropbox or not.

Edited February 8, 2021 by bbudzon
grammar and spelling errors

[SB Lighting]

Thanks for your quick response! In answer to your questions:

• Two different files have the same issues so I don't think it is a file issue. 
• I did transfer the textures folder.
• Changing Candela / Color Temperature / Color Wheels / Gobos has no effect.
• Changing "force emissive" to "true" turns off the light.
• I turned off shadows and got a slightly different kind of strangeness but still very strange and unusable.
• The weird shadows are not fixed by changing the shadow quality or refocusing the light.  They persist even when render shadows is turned off.
• I transferred the files using a thumb drive and had the same issues so I do not think that DropBox is the culprit.

I'm attaching the files and textures to this message.  I am using a 16" MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630).

 

Thanks again!

 

Scott

 

 

Archive.zip

[bbudzon]

19 hours ago, SB Lighting said:

 

 

There's a few things I've noticed when looking at your screenshot above and looking at the file on my machine.

1. The lens and beam of the "red light" isn't red. Only when the light hits a surface does it become red.

2. Textures are not loading in your file where they are loading in mine.

 

I'm not sure why all files on your machine are not rendering properly. What are you system specs?

 

FWIW, here is a large number of screenshots on my machine with various lights turned on/off in the two documents you provided. I tried to show in the following screenshots that both the color of beams and surface lights are rendering properly; and shadows appear to be rendering properly, also.

 

[SB Lighting]

Thanks for continuing to look at this @bbudzon!  Yes, those images look the same as the Vision files when I look at them on my PC.  Not sure why they render differently on my Mac(s).

 

Sometimes the beam is red as well.  When the beam is red, though, it doesn't interact with surfaces. (see attached photo)  There are so many different weird things happening that I haven't documented them all.

 

You say the file isn't loading textures properly.  Is there anyway to help Vision locate the textures?  Both the Vision file and textures folder are on my computer's desktop so I'm not sure why Vision is having trouble finding them.

 

I am using a 16" MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630).  I also tried it on a 13" Macbook and had the same issues. (1.4Ghz quad-core Intel I5 128 MB DRAM Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645)

 

Thanks!

Scott

 

[bbudzon]

52 minutes ago, SB Lighting said:

Thanks for continuing to look at this @bbudzon!

👍 Not a problem at all!

 

52 minutes ago, SB Lighting said:

Sometimes the beam is red as well.  When the beam is red, though, it doesn't interact with surfaces. (see attached photo)  There are so many different weird things happening that I haven't documented them all.

Ahh, I see. Based on the variety of issues you are seeing, the red beam not interacting may be more of a coincidence. Either way, none of it is desirable 😂

 

52 minutes ago, SB Lighting said:

You say the file isn't loading textures properly.  Is there anyway to help Vision locate the textures?

So long as the textures folder is next to the v3s, that should be all that is needed. It may be that there is some issue tied to the Texture Quality that we are unaware of. You may try various Texture Quality settings to see if that resolves the issue (and if so, report back as I had not tested that yet). Our default setting is Medium. High and Very High can be used when HQ Textures are desired. Low and Very Low enables an often unused (and therefore less tested) feature involving "static geometry". In theory, grouping that static geometry together would help with performance. But, it can also be a bit more finicky at times (when compared to, say, Medium).

 

52 minutes ago, SB Lighting said:

I am using a 16" MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630).  I also tried it on a 13" Macbook and had the same issues. (1.4Ghz quad-core Intel I5 128 MB DRAM Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645)

One potential issue with these machines is the integrated graphics card. Even though we have found that we often can run on integrated hardware, Vision's demands at a foundational level (meaning the simplest of files) has caused issues with them in the past and present. As we continue to push Vision further and further, integrated hardware will become less adequate. When we state minimum system requirements, it is often because this is the hardware we have tested on and believe it to work best (providing tiers of performance). Due to the current technical demands of Vision and the hardware we have tested on, we have set our minimum system requirements to a dedicated graphics card with 2GB of VRAM (we recommend 8GB of VRAM on the high end).

 

Perhaps, playing with various application and document settings will result in the ability for Vision to run on these machines. As at least one of the graphics cards listed appears to share RAM with the CPU, I'd recommend closing out of all applications so that only Vision is running (stop background processes as well if you can). This will free up more memory for the graphics card. It may be possible that upgrading the CPU RAM (and thus the GPU RAM as it is shared) would help alleviate this, but it is too hard to say as CPU RAM will never be as fast and as reliable as dedicated GPU VRAM.