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Can new lighting devices be defaulted to off in existing viewports


MattG

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I do not believe this to have always been the case but at some point I believe things changed where when a new lighting device is inserted in a design layer the default setting for the light in existing viewports is set to on.  

 

This is very frustrating for me personally but hoping there is a setting somewhere I'm not aware of and cannot find to change the default insert function someone can lead me to.

 

I have prebuilt templates with viewports already created.  Many are just to show lighting systems in 3D space and have separate non spotlight light lighting devices in them.  I render most of them in Shaded/Open GL.  For one speed and secondly for the light limit in that render mode I would greatly prefer any new lights are defaulted to off.  When drawing a light plot every new light is defaulted to on. 

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This was a change made in VW2021, every version that I've used back to VW2010 would have devices default to off.  I also find it incredibly frustrating but have found no way to reset it back to the old behavior.  I got so fed up with it that I wrote a script to toggle the embedded Light on/off state for any selected Lighting Device object, then bound that to Ctrl+Shift+L, so I can drop a fixture and quickly hit the keys to turn it back off.  This is less than ideal compared to having a tickbox somewhere in Spotlight Document Settings to set default behavior, but at least it's relatively quick.

 

I've attached the script below.  To install it, download the attached .vsm file to your <User Folder>\Plug-ins folder.  The easiest way to get to this folder if you're not used to accessing it is to navigate to the User Folders section of Vectorworks Preferences.  There should be a button labeled either Explore or Open in Finder (depending on operating system).  Just make sure the .vsm file is in the Plug-ins folder there.  Then restart Vectorworks.

 

Now, you'll need to get the menu command into your workspace.  Follow the steps below:

  1. Go to Tools - Workspaces - Edit Current Workspace
  2. Make sure the Menus tab is active
  3. In the box on the left, scroll down and expand the category labeled JNC
  4. In the box on the right, find a menu location where you want the command to live (like Spotlight)
  5. Click and drag the command Toggle Light On-Off State from the box on the left to the box on the right
  6. Assign a shortcut to the command, I use Ctrl+Shift+L since it kind of makes sense and isn't used by a default Vectorworks function.
  7. Click OK

The command will not run if nothing is selected, and will throw an error if no Lighting Device objects are selected.  This command will work for all selected fixtures on the active layer and will toggle their existing states.  So if you have four fixtures selected, but only one currently "on", running the command will turn that one "off" and the other three "on".  It can be super handy if you want to quickly jump back and forth between two lighting looks without changing each light individually.

 

I should also mention that the command will work for any version of Vectorworks from 2019 and up.

Toggle Light On-Off State.vsm

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