AC 27 Solo Edition - Sketch Rendering Engine missing?

[Florin Luca]

I'm running AC27 Solo and have noticed it is missing the Sketch Rendering Engine. Tech support confirmed this, but they were not sure if it is missing by design or it's a bug, so they're checking with HQ.

In the mean time, those of you running AC27 Full, do you have this engine or is it missing too?

[Karl Ottenstein]

The Sketch engine is included in the full AC 27 license.  I always get confused about Solo vs Start (and why GS doesn't make it easier to compare "editions") ... but thought that they did not include any advanced rendering, Teamwork and some other features...

This article:
https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Getting-started/Archicad-Solo/ta-p/369114

lists what is not included.  The Sketch engine is not specifically mentioned, but I thought it was part of the advanced features that are omitted from Solo.

Hmmm.  Yet this article on Start edition specifically mentions that Sketch rendering is not included there:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Getting-started/Archicad-Start-Edition-2023/ta-p/367617

[Florin Luca]

Thank you, Karl. I only had Solo and it always included some basic renderer AND Sketch. I skipped AC26 Solo, so I don't know if that version had the Sketch engine, AC25 Solo has it.

I'd be pretty pissed if they decided to cut cost and take it out, especially after the SSA price went up! I mean, Solo is cheaper than Full, but not dirt cheap. I originally paid US$4,000 for it, and the SSA this year was US$975! And for all this we got a half-backed Physically Based Rendering, which it appears to dislike white color! See my post: https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Visualization/Physically-Based-Rendering-in-3D-in-AC27/td-p/4010...

Anyway, I'll wait to see what HQ says.

[Nicholas Jones]

Sketch Rendering has been in SOLO since I started using it in version 19, in 27 it is absent.

Has it been removed? it was one of my favourite features for in program visualisation with Solo. 

[Karl Ottenstein]

@Nicholas Jones  We're waiting to hear what @Florin Luca hears from Tech Support.   For it to be present in all versions through 26 and missing in 27 sounds like a mistake.  Let's see what Graphisoft says.

[Trioso]

Hello Florin,

I have not tried this, but here is what Graphisoft sent me as a temp solution. Here is a link to DB (PDFs not allowed here and link not condensed for trust reasons) and the email I just recieved. 

[Moderator edit/note:  The PDF is attached to this post now.  PDF's aren't allowed as in-line insertions, but are allowed as attachments.]

"After your ticket we noticed others having the same issue, started looking into why that was happening. It is still unknown whether this was a purposeful, or an accident on the development side, but we were able to create a workaround solution. We have already tested it and are able to confirm that it works. Please see the attachment below."

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tcd674kbjjv3yil1geikd/Add-Sketch-Render-to-Archicad-Add-Ons-Folder.pd...

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thanks for posting this, Trioso!  Can you, and others, confirm that the downloaded add-on indeed does work with 27 Solo?  If so, then we can mark this issue solved (sort of ) for now.   For affected 27 Solo users, please download the PDF from the DropBox link above.  But, here is a screenshot for posterity...  Being a screenshot, the link doesn't work, so use: https://graphisoft.sharefile.com/d-s2c511afc5a7f4d6d84510521d2439564

 

[Trioso]

Hello Karl,

After trying to get this going for quite a long bit now with my own capabilities, and a wall-of text troubleshooting procedure from Tech Support, I tried the solution in the PDF and this happened:

 

When you uninstall Solo, the Uninstaller App calls out those two items as 'Not Recoginized', and says they must be manually removed.

Community,

First off, to all Windows users reading, I don't think the prescribed fix will work for you. If I 'Show Package Contents' of the .bundle file, it has a MacOs folder and I don't think that belongs on your computer, but I am not a professional, so please consult those who are. However, I did get it working by other methods on the ARM infrastructure. I will not post my fix here because I don't want to solicit software file modifications that could cause you issues or data loss. All perfectly legal too, by the way. I think the Solo installation package is broken in a certain area and should be fixed soon by the amazing Devs at Graphisoft, or they just dropped Sketch for Solo, but that isn't what it looks like to me. 

[Florin Luca]

I got the same result like @Trioso , same dialog box plus this message before AC27 Solo loaded:

 I moved on and AC27 Solo loaded. I checked for the Sketch engine and it wasn't there. I did check the Add-On manager and it showed this:

It is the same out of date message I got when I tried to get creative and copied the same files from the AC25 Solo into the Add-on folder of AC27 Solo. It is possible that the files we were sent are actually out of date or we are not using the same regional version (or we weren't sent the correct regional version) – just my guess.

I have an idea: AC27 Full has the engine, as confirmed by @Karl Ottenstein . What if we download that respective regional version and copy the Sketch files from that install and see if that works. It should be the correct version and region!

The question is: how legal would that be? Any thoughts? Maybe HQ can weigh on that as well. On its face, it is the same thing they have recommended, adding some files.

As of now, I am still waiting on an answer from tech support and HQ.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I've reported the failure of the GSNA advice/download to Graphisoft Tech Support with a link to this thread.  I hope we'll hear something soon.