As I said in Part 1 of my review, Vectorworks 2010 is a fantastic program for drafting lightplots. But there is much more to the program’s functionality than 2D lightplots. I finally had some downtime this past week to sit with Vectorworks 2010 and get to know it a little better. Up to now I had not gone very far into the functionality of the program and was using it as little more than the rather old version (V10.5) I had been working with prior.
I began working my way through the training manual that came with the program and was given a lot of basic exercises to learn different tools. Basic 3D extrudes, 3D reshaping, curves, and so forth. I was blithely working with these simple shapes when I came to the first big project in the training manual.
Draw a lighthouse.
Presented with an architectural drawing you are tasked with drafting and then rendering the object in 3D.
My first reaction was “there is no way in hell I can do that.” But after taking a second look at the drawing I realized it can be broken down into more or less basic shapes which can be dealt with on an individual level rather easily. Just as I break down the drafting of a lightplot into smaller manageable chunks, so too did this appear much easier once I took that route with the Lighthouse.
I have worked with Vectorworks for over a decade. In that time I have done very little architectural style drafting. From my background of drafting lightplots, the use of symbols became readily apparent as the way to make this project work. Much of the drawing would be composed of a few symbols that repeat and then a handful of sweeps and extrudes.
The most complex shape to deal with, far and away, was going to be the iron supports underneath the first landing. Not only is the basic outline a complex shape with various curves and corners, but it is cut out and recessed in multiple places at varying depths. This is also what makes for a very good learning project. There is a single, very difficult, challenge and then the rest of the project is working with rather basic skills in a more complex way than the previous simple shapes exercises.
My mindset going in to this work was that I was learning a whole new computer program. The upgrade from V10.5 to 2010 is huge and it was far better to treat my knowledge base as coming from a different program. That mindset served me well.
The Spotlight manual is written in a very clear and easy to read manner. I had done the short version of the manual when I first got the program and drafted a simple 3D theater with lighting positions. But that hardly gets at much of what is good with this program.
Wrapping my brain around 3D space took some effort, as did parsing what would be the best way to achieve a particular goal. Some shapes made more sense to create as sweeps while others were better suited to be extrudes along a path. While the manual does not tell you what is best, after some trial and error I began to get a sense of the, sometimes subtle, differences between the two modes of working. The roof and spire were clearly better suited to sweeps, while the floors for the various levels had a bit of a question to them. Should I continue the floor all the way to the center point, or create a circle and extrude along that path? Because this project had a lot of those situations and many circular shapes to work with, I got a lot of experience in determining when one would use one tool or another.
The manual is written clearly. Thus it should be no problem for a novice, or someone upgrading from a much older version like I was, to dive right into the program and begin to do some fun and interesting work.
A tool that was new to me, which I found radically useful on this project, was the snap lupe [Z]. It is not a tool that is very necessary for the drafting of lightplots, but for these more complex and detailed drawings it is an invaluable addition to the Vectorworks tool set.
The exercise itself did not cover renderworks textures or lighting renderings (topics that are covered later in the tutorial) but I was able to stumble my way through some elementary uses of these tools thanks, in no small part, to the clear and well designed user interface of the program.
After working through this next level of exercises I have to say that I would strongly encourage anyone with the means to do so (and I understand that the program is very pricey for many) to consider the upgrade to 2010. The functionality has vastly improved as has the UI.
Along with my Vectorworks upgrade in February, I had upgraded my laptop in January. Before the new laptop, doing any sort of 3D modeling was a bit of a hassle as the rendering time was tedious. While the file I worked with for this review was in no way huge, the faster processor certainly helped make the 3D work a pleasure. If you are planning on an upgrade and getting into the 3D modeling I would strongly encourage you to make sure your computer’s processor is up to speed, and upgrade as necessary. VW2010 is a powerful program, but it needs a strong computer to do that work.
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The first thing I noticed was the visual design. It is quite beautiful. The images for tools in the palettes are very clear and distinguishable as well as good looking. While non-essential to getting work done, it does make a big difference when you are staring at a computer screen for eight or ten hours a day. A small change around tools that I found incredibly useful was the fact the the program now remembers your last choice for tool options rather than returning to a program default every time you launch the software. For example, I often use the mirror tool to layout sidelight systems. The system default is mirror mode but I need mirror and duplicate. I can’t tell you the number of times I am racing to get a plot finished and forget to switch modes and then have to redo the work. It’s only a few seconds but it adds frustration to the process. Now that frustration is gone due to the program remembering my settings. Very nice.
The ideal audience for this book is the student, new to lighting, looking to expand their knowledge base. A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting will take the novice and give them enough information to confidently step into the next phase of their development. But this is more than a college textbook. The working lighting designer can find good tips and tricks in here as well and some of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny.
