Riffraff54 wrote:
"what makes VW better than WYS or Soft
Plot? i know nothing about plotting software."
Well, better is very subjective.
WYSIWYG is a terrific Previs program, probably the most widely used for this functionality. Others are catching up though, the MA program for GrandMA is pretty cool as is ESP
Vision for
Vectorworks.
WYG paperwork sucks though, if that’s important too you (IMHO).
Can’t say much about Softplot. Tried it years ago when it was in it’s infancy. It was easy to learn but had major issues with getting all kinds of bugs fixed. At that time, Softplot could not figure out that a strip light was one
fixture with 3 potential channels, colors, dimmers,
etc… Thus the
hookup was useless. In fact I remember the general paperwork section as useless in general (Note that the
current version of VW has a poor paperwork section as well), and finally gave up when big fixes were not forthcoming.
VW when combined with LW is quickly becoming the standard among LD's though, especially for pure drafting and terrific paperwork.
There's a thread along these lines on the LightNetwork as well as the Stagecraft list. Scott Parker (Pace University, NY) recently did a quickie survey on this list about software used by theater folks, and overwhelmingly,
Vectorworks and Lightwright were mentioned. I think I saw 1 user with A-Cad, possibly 1 who used Softplot and 1 or 2 who used plug-ins for A-Cad. I cannot remember anyone mentioning
WYG. I also see VW/LW used almost exclusively by folks on tour who
play our
road house, as example.
Thus I'm comfortable saying that if you want a drafting program, VW is the way to go, and if you're not an Emphasis user, I'd go with ESP
Vision for
rendering.
SB