VW 11.5 Beam Rendering

[RiskyWaves]

I have cussed discussed and read the manuals, and can not figure out how to make my beam projections project in color, and intensity. Can someone please tell me what the thing is I'm missing.... I have an entire Black Box Theatre with a grid set as a lighting position. All along the grid I have 36 degree source 4 lights, all pointed at the appropriate focus points, and beam projections turned on. What am I missing?

Thanks, Josh

 

[disc2slick]

Hey Josh,

There are two ways that VW displays light beams. The "Draw Beam" option in the Object Info window shows a phyiscal representation of the beam of light in lines. This is just for the purpose of determining how much of the stage will be covered by a given unit, but you can't vary the color or intensity. In order to make this work you have to make sure that the units are not only pointing at the focus point but in the Object info window there is a text field that says "focus" or something like that. enter the object name of the focus point you want to use, click draw beam and the click refresh labels.

However, what I think you're trying to do is be able to actually display, somewhat artistically, what the beam of light will look like (color and what not). To do this you need Renderworks as well as vectorworks. It's more involved than I care to outline here but you can get some good tutorials here:
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/thetr263/VW8/VW8Tutr.html
they're for vectorworks 8, but they still apply to the newer versions as well.

hope that cleared this up a bit

 

[RiskyWaves]

Thanks for the reply. I have render works and all of that..... but so far I can only get it to work if i make it a Gobo projection first and then erase the gobo?

Thanks, Josh

 

[Inaki]

I'm sorry, but VW won't render beams, since it doesn't have the ability to insert fog or any medium in the air. You'll need other type of software like ESP or Cinema4D to do that.

 

[RiskyWaves]

Thanks that makes since. Is it possible to transfer my file from VW into one of those programs? What I'm still confused on is what is the process between hanging the light and getting it to throw light on the stage? My process is as of right now inserting gobo projectors, and then erasing them, but it some how activates the light so that i can change the gel colors, and such. I know Im doing it wrong, any ideas? Does WW render beams with fog?

Thanks, Josh