But you could import the whole thing to your single scenery layer since you may not need to work on that and will only be using it for reference. These design layers also make collaborative working easier, your set designer could supply you with a drawing of the set which he or she may have as several layers of his own. This separation makes it easy to hide layers you don’t need to see, for example when working on the set you might want to hide all the lighting instruments so they don’t get in the way. A scenery layer where you would place all the set, then the lighting positions layer where you would detail all your lighting bars, or truss etc and then the Light Plot layer where you would position all your fixtures. They include a Theatre Floor Plan, where you can place all the venue specific objects such as the stage dimensions and auditorium if desired. Vectorworks provides a system of saved views and design layers which makes organising your drawings incredibly simple and keeps even the most complex of designs manageable.Ī Spotlight workspace will create some default Design Layers and for most projects they will be adequate for your needs. The basic method I employed was to draw everything in 2D as a traditional plan view, then use the 3D tools to ‘trace’ over my plan and extrude them. Once I’d got to grips with the modelling tools provided it was a fairly simple task to transfer the rough drawings I had on paper into 3D models in Vectorworks. Vectorworks Spotlight with Renderworks includes all the tools you need to draw your venue, set and lighting design in 2D and 3D and generate plans for printing. This isn’t a criticism though, you simply can’t expect a program of this nature to be “pick up and play”, if you’re going to get into the world of CAD you need to be ready to invest some serious hours to learning the software package! Of course it will help if you have some prior experience in CAD to help your initial induction. The fact I’ve been using it since December and only now almost five months later I feel in a position to contemplate this review should give you some idea of just how big a task it is to learn. The first thing to say is that an application such as Vectorworks isn’t for the faint of heart, the sheer size and amount of features means that getting to grips with it is a monumental task. Instead I’ll focus on what’s new and my experiences with it as a new user. It would be fair to say that a thorough review of all the aspects of a package as comprehensive as Vectorworks would require thousands of words and is something I simply couldn’t do full justice to. However, as long as you have Vectorworks Spotlight 2010 with Renderworks, then everything in this review is applicable to that version. The Designer edition includes all the various tools and is actually the edition that I’m reviewing here. Vectorworks is actually a whole suite of CAD products which includes Architect, Landmark, Machine Design, Renderworks and of course Spotlight. This is one of the things that really impressed me as a user, if I wanted to do something specific it was nearly always a simple job to get it done. Since then it has grown to become one of the most popular programs for creating set and lighting designs.įrom very early stages Spotlight has been developed in conjunction with experts in the theatre industry to make sure the features and functionality are exactly those you expect and need. To begin with Vectorworks was a fairly generic CAD program but in 2001 Nemetschek added the Spotlight package. So, Vectorworks certainly has maturity on its side and years of continual improvements. The first official version of Vectorworks was actually called Vectorworks 8, before then it existed under the name MiniCAD which originated on the Mac way back in 1985. Vectorworks is a CAD (Computer Aided Design) package that started life many years ago. I’m sure the majority of people reading this will have used earlier versions and I’m sorry that I can’t draw comparisons for you.įor those of you who don’t even know what Vectorworks is, perhaps a quick summary is required before going any further. Before I begin this review I should point out that I am new to Vectorworks, I have had no prior experience with previous versions and the only real exposure I’ve had to it are the paper designs that other designers have created.
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