Vectorworks

Vectorworks Training Tasters from Training for Design!

From 1st December until 16th December 2011, each weekday, we brought our customers twelve free gifts: short training tutorials and accompanying example files and resources for you to try for yourself. We've put these together based on frequently asked questions to our free support service. We do hope you enjoy them!

Tutorial: Creating a Snowy Landscape!

In this twelfth in our series of training tasters, we take our Christmas tree model and create a snowy landscape for it to sit on. We add lighting to the scene and alter the render settings to make it look cool. Again, although we're getting a little festive here, you will touch on skills here that are useful for landscape design, architectural design and even outdoor event planning, where you need to create a model of the land. Our one day site modelling course takes you through this process in detail and can even be taken online! Click here to download the supporting file.

Tutorial: Modelling Our Christmas Tree with Vectorworks

It's day eleven of our free training tasters, so it's time to get festive! Today, we'll show you how to create the Christmas Tree model that you can see on the right of this page and in our Christmas emails. You'll learn how to add the decorations and make them glow! If you don't need to design Christmas Trees, don't despair... The skills you'll learn can be applied to all sorts of other things too. We just thought it would be good to get into the Christmas mood. Click here to download the PDF that accompanies this movie.

Tutorial: Trouble-shooting Importing DWG files into Vectorworks

Day Ten sees us tackle the most frequent question that comes into our support question. Vectorworks can import and export DWG (native AutoCAD) files, but we find that many of our customers struggle with getting the imported information at the correct size and scale. This tutorial deals with several common issues encountered with importing. Click here to download the supporting files. Enjoy the movie!

Tutorial: Creating a Plant Worksheet by Plant Category

Day Nine returns to the worksheet capability within Vectorworks, specifically the ability for Vectorworks to count plants and list them however you want. Earlier in this series, we looked at separating the planting list by planting bed (scroll down the page to find that movie). Today, we look at how to create a worksheet that lists the plants by plant category, so that it's easier to send off to the nursery for a quote. As with our other tutorials, even if you don't use plants, do watch the movie. The principles covered can be employed elsewhere within Vectorworks to organise any information that is attached to objects. Click here to download the supporting PDF. We hope you enjoy the movie!

Tutorial: Creating Renderworks Textures for Glass

Day Eight follows on from Friday's movie. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create two glass textures from scratch to apply to the bottles that you modelled on Friday. Of course, Renderworks comes with many glass textures for use in your model, but the purpose of this tutorial is to show you how to use the options within the texture editor to create something more detailed. Click here to download the PDF to accompany the movie.

Tutorial: Modelling 3D Glass Bottles with Vectorworks

Day Seven's tutorial is the first of two parts. Today, you'll learn how to use the Sweep command to create some models of bottles. We've chosen bottles as our example as any Vectorworks user could need something like this to add detail to a visual regardless of design discipline. These bottles then form the starting point for Monday's treat, when you'll see how you can use Renderworks to create textures for glass that can help you avoid more complex modelling. Click here to download the PDF to accompany the movie.

Tutorial: Create an Image Prop with Vectorworks and Renderworks

Day Six is all about using a flat image to represent a 3D element within a 3D model. Image props can be used to represent people, cars, trees, sculpture... the limit is your imagination. But instead of having to model the object, use an image to save yourself hours of modelling time. Image props can cast shadows within the scene so that they appear to be part of the model. In this tutorial, Kate will show you how to prepare an image and use Renderworks to turn it into an image prop. She uses people in her example, but you could create planting or use any other image in the same way. Click here to download the PDF to accompany the movie.

Tutorial: Create a Solar Animation with Vectorworks

Day Five is appropriate for users of Vectorworks Landmark, Vectorworks Architect or Vectorworks Spotlight. It covers the use of the Heliodon tool for creating a Quicktime movie of a solar animation. A solar animation is an ideal tool for demonstrating the effects of the sun and shade across a site or building. We hope you enjoy the tutorial. Click here to download the PDF to accompany the movie.  Note that the Heliodon tool is only available in 2012. However, users of earlier versions of Vectorworks can create a solar animation using a directional light and the Model > Create Solar Animation command.

Tutorial: Create a Plant Schedule for Individual Planting Beds

Day Four takes us to Vectorworks Landmark. Landmark includes many standard plant schedules for counting and listing the plants in a design. By default, these schedules look at the planting scheme as a whole. However, we're often asked by landscape designers how they can create a report that looks only at specific planting beds. There are many ways to approach this, and this movie shows you one option. Even if you're not a Landmark user, I urge you to watch the movie as the concepts introduces can be applied to anything you want to count in a plan. We hope you enjoy the movie! Click here to download the PDF that accompanies the movie.

Tutorial: Using Custom Furniture with the Seating Layout command in Vectorworks Spotlight

Day three takes us to Vectorworks Spotlight, used for Event Planning, Set Design and Lighting Design. We're often asked by clients using Vectorworks Spotlight for event planning, how they can use their own furniture symbols with the Create Event Seating command and still retain the powerful capabilities of the worksheets for counting tables and seats. We hope you enjoy the movie. If you've missed any, just scroll down the page and you'll find them.

Click on the link to download the accompanying sample file and a PDF so you can have a go yourself.

Tutorial: Adding our Lighting Plan Symbols to the Vectorworks Resource Browser

Day two brings you a file containing some standard UK lighting and electrical plan symbols, together with a movie to remind you how you can add these to your Vectorworks Resource Browser. These symbols are ideal for Interior Designers and Architects to use with Vectorworks. Enjoy!

Click on the link to download the resource file and a PDF to accompany the movie.

Tutorial: Creating a Decal Texture with Vectorworks and Renderworks

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

This first in a series of short training tasters shows you how to create a texture that maps on top of another texture using Vectorworks and Renderworks.
Click here to download the sample file and PDF to accompany this free tutorial. We hope you enjoy it!