Common Mistakes
Table of Contents
The following is a collection of common mistakes reported by new and not-so-new users of Ventuz. While all the information presented here is also available throughout this documentation, you might want to have a look here and at the F.A.Q. in case of trouble.
Everything is Black
When creating a new scene, the render output will be completely black since there is no geometry to render in the scene yet. This is normal, simply drag a Cube Node from the Toolbox to the Hierarchy Editor and you should see the cube in the renderer output.
Everything is White
If you add a Rectangle to an empty scene and put a Material in front of it, the rectangle still stays white. Since no Light Node has been added to the scene, Ventuz uses a headlight, which is a directional light source originating from the point of view. Since the normals of the material point directly to the viewer, the specular amount of the material will be maxed out, thus appearing completely white. Either add a light source, decrease the specular portion of the material or use a Color Node instead of the material.
Where do I get that Node?
All Nodes available in Ventuz can be found in one of the Three Toolboxes. Some nodes are "hidden" behind others, as similar nodes are often grouped to one entry in the toolbox. If the Icon in the toolbox has two additional lines at the bottom and right, it is a Stack of Nodes. Click 
on it to see all nodes hiding underneath it. Note: There sometimes is a difference between dragging the "master node" of a stack into the scene vs. dragging one of the individual nodes. The former often launches a selection wizard which will implicitly create additional required nodes for you. To see an example of this, drag a Texture Node from the Toolbox to the Hierarchy Editor and choose Image Loader. The Content Editor will show a Texture Node, a 2D Mapping Node, an Image Loader and an Image To Texture Node.
Have you seen my Property?
Either some very useful/obvious functionality seems to be missing or a property is simply not where the documentation says it would be. This is often caused by Ventuz default behavior to only show favorized properties (the ones marked as commonly used) when doing a selection in the Hierarchy Editor. The reason for this is to not overburden new users with the large amount of flexibility in Ventuz, but as helpful as it is, it can also be the cause of a lot distress. Either select the node in the Content Editor or deactivate the respective option under Tools/Options in the main menu bar.
Current and not so Current Values
When starting to use Mover Nodes or doing other animations, the Property Editor might still show old values instead of the current ones. Events also won't show they are fired. To always show the correct values, activate Monitor Values in the Property Editor. This is deactivated by default because refreshing the UI at every frame can reduce performance.
Why isn't it doing anything?
A lot of scenes require some form of trigger to start their animations. For some, this is a key stroke, for others an external device that sends data. Use the Scene Statistics from the Tools menu in the menu bar and look out for nodes in the I/O category (i.e. Keyboard, Mouse, OSC). If the scene contains a slide presentation, look for the Slide Manager Toolbar.
Trouble at Show Time
Running a show is different from designing one. First, check out the document on Deployment. Do not use the Ventuz Designer to run a show but the Ventuz Presenter. The Designer does many things that can stall a presentation as for example doing automatic backups. Make sure you are running in exclusive fullscreen and not in virtual fullscreen. Above all, make sure to test the scene on the final hardware setup well before the show.