Entertainment Design Special Interest Group December 2016

This is the first session for this Special Interest Group. In this session we looked at creating symbols, creating Record Formats, and reporting. In particular we looked at the problem of creating stage platforms, placing them in the design and reporting the number of stages needed.

Topics covered:

• 00:50    in these sessions we will be using the Spotlight workspace, so the first thing to do is to change the workspace.
• 01:22   we need to create a backdrop for our stage sets. If we had a DXF/DWG file, then we can import that and build a 3D from the imported information. But for this example we do not have any files we can import for background information, so I just use the wall tool to draw simple outline.
• 01:42    the Spotlight toolset has a Stage Deck Tool that makes it easy to create a stage deck. This object will create a deck to the correct size and elevation. You can also choose handrails and other options and these remain part of the object.
• 06:23    now that we have the object we need (stage deck) we realise that it would be very handy to have the size of that deck as part of the symbol. Since we going to be using a regular size for these objects you could use the Stage Deck object to create your symbols. When you do this you could certainly attach some text of the symbol so that you can easily see the size of each deck. If you going to make these objects into symbols then you should also create a class for these objects so that every time you use them they are automatically assigned to the correct class
• 11:00    after we have created our stage deck symbol, we realise that there is no Record Format attached to this object yet. So at this part of the movie we went ahead and created a Record Format so that we can attach the information we require to each object. Not only can we attach the information to the objects we can make this information change the size of the text on each symbol and we can also report this information in a worksheet.
• 19:52    now that we have a few symbols, it is time to make the report. The easy way to make the report is to use the command from the Tools menu that is designed to Create report…. All we need to do is to select the record format that were trying to report in Vectorworks will create the columns and look for all the objects to fill in the report. It will only report objects that have this Record Format attached. Once we have the report then we can modify our stage deck in report changing the column width and changing how the report counts the information. We can ask the report to group together all the decks that are the same size in the same height and then tell us how many of those there are. We can also assign a cost to each object and get the report to total up the budget.
• 30:00    now that we have the report working and we have our symbols it might be handy to find a way that would allow the report to only report the objects that are on stage. This would allow you to create your symbols and have them off the stage and they would not show up in the report until you drag them onto the stage. The worksheet reporting has an ability to filter information by a location (usually a polygon) as well as making a shape to represent the stage we could also convert that to a 3D object using the Floor… Command. That way not only does it serve a useful purpose as the location, it also serves a useful purpose in 3D.
• 31:30    we can now open our report again and edit the search criteria so that it will only report objects that are on the stage. You need to see the database edit in order to edit the search criteria and then on the search criteria make sure that you use the Loc (location) option along with the name of the stage to make sure that it finds all the stage objects that are on the stage. This will allow you to have a whole lot of objects off stage which will not show up in the report.
• 39:19    there is a manual that covers these concepts of Record Format, symbols, reporting, and location. The manual is SST_0901 – Creating an Asset Database. Although this manual is old, the concepts are still useful.

We were going to call this group Art Directors Special Interest Group, and that’s what the opening of the movie shows, so don’t be surprised.
Entertainment Design December 2016 am
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