Default Sketch Style in Vectorworks 2008 (Architect & Renderworks)

[littlenev]

Hi folks

Does anyone have any idea why when I set the 'Certain' style of sketch as default and then save the drawing, why when re-opening the file, does the sketch style revert to the over exagerated 'rough' style?

This never happened with ver 12.5!

Regards

littlenev

Using Vectorworks 2008 (Architect & Renderworks)on Windows XP64 OS

[billtheia]

According to the following post, this is "performing as designed" and has done so since sketch was introduced.

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=9&Number=86818&Searchpage=1&Main=18876&Words=%2Bsketch+%2Bdefault&topic=0&Search=true#Post86818

Is there a way to set the default sketch style? I too think that rough is too...rough. I've created my own sketch style (modification of certain) and would love for this to be the default instead of having to manually set it EVERY TIME.

[Ray Libby]

No help here, but this would be good to post in the wish list forum.

[Pat Stanford]

Create a .vwx file that has your sketch style in it and put it into the user libraries in the Defaults:Sketch Styles folder.

On the Mac this is located at:

User_Name:Library:Application Support:VectorWorks:2008:Libraries:Defaults:Sketch Styles:Your_File_Name.vwx

Any sketch styles you put in this file(s) will automatically show up in the default content for all future files (provided you have Use Default Content checked in the preferences).

There is an equivalent spot on Windows, but I can't remember the exact path.

Ray, do you know the path? I think it is different between XP and Vista and on some machines it is hidden and hard to get to.

Pat

[brudgers]

Where are you assiging the sketch style?

A viewport on a sheet layer will be consistent.

On a design layer the style will often (always?) be assigned to the object.

[billtheia]

Pat, I already have that working (.vwx file in my user library) but I'd like to be able to set my preferred style as the default so that any time I assign a sketch style, it automatically uses my preferred style.

Brudgers, Huh? I'm generally assigning sketch style to sheet layer viewports - plans and perspectives. As it is now, every time I create a new viewport and select sketch (or hidden line sketch) VW defaults to Rough. I'd like it to default to my preferred style so that I don't have to configure the darn things every single time.

[maarten.]

Bill, the default sketchstyle is document bounded, so you have to change it in your template.

Open your template, go to your resourcebrowser (I hope it's called like that), right click on your sketchstyle and choose "use sketchstyle as default".

To make sure everybody knows what i'm talking about, it's this option:

If your sketchstyle doesn't show up in the list, make a rectangle first, change it's sketchstyle in the OIP and then it will apear in the list.

Then save that drawing as your template, that chould do the trick.

[billtheia]

Thanks for the try, Maarten but that didn't work.

In fact, it did worse than not work, now my template defaults to sketch ALL THE TIME and it's not the sketch style that I selected, it's ROUGH. [insert scream here]

Thank goodness for backups - I can retrieve my old templates.

OK, NNA - I give up. At this point I've wasted more time than I'll ever recover with the "time savings" that I might enjoy if I could set a default sketch style.

[mike m oz]

Bill, the document default Sketch Style is not 'sticking' with the file when you Save and Close it (I have bug reported this).

You can restore the Default Sketch Style whenever you reopen the file by going into the Sketch Options and setting it back to what you want (menu View/Rendering/Sketch Options). Make sure you don't have anything selected when you do this.

This will correct the Sketch Rendering for your current session. Until the problem is fixed though you will have to repeat this process each time you reopen the file.

[maarten.]

That's odd, i'm pretty sure it used to work, i've changed this at work long time ago... But that was still in version 12, so maybe it changed since then?

Sorry to have caused you trouble Bill, that was never my intention.

[billtheia]

No worries, Maarten. I certainly didn't think that you meant any ill will.

[Pat Stanford]

The following script will set the sketch style for a document. Change the PTS Sketch to whatever your favorite sketch style is named.

Procedure DefaultSketch;

Var B1:Boolean;

Begin

B1:=SetDocumentDefaultSketchStyle('PTS Sketch');

end;

run(DefaultSketch);

Pat

[mr. iagea]

Bill, the document default Sketch Style is not 'sticking' with the file when you Save and Close it (I have bug reported this).

You can restore the Default Sketch Style whenever you reopen the file by going into the Sketch Options and setting it back to what you want (menu View/Rendering/Sketch Options). Make sure you don't have anything selected when you do this.

This will correct the Sketch Rendering for your current session. Until the problem is fixed though you will have to repeat this process each time you reopen the file.

I have an update to this problem, which I am experiencing as well with a great deal of frustration. I have noticed that my sketch style not only defaults to Rough when opening the file, but also after a period of time after the file is opened, even if I have changed it back to "No Sketch". Tracking this, I noticed that it seems to happen soon after a Autosave backup is made.

I've noticed that this sketch anomaly seems to happen when I select the Final Polygon Shaded render mode. That comes up as rough sketch, rather than a crisp shaded drawing.

Frustrating. Also, I noticed that my Sketch Preview (the little window with the house, roof and gable) simply does not draw the updates on the screen when I adjust the various sliders, making that completely useless. I spoke at great length about this with NNA, only to discover that they had no idea what the problem was.

I do hope these things were fixed in 2009. Can someone who has 2009 please try it and let the forum know?

Thanks!

[mike m oz]

Charlie, the sketch style does 'stick' in VW 2009 so the default document sketch style is remembered when you close a document. The default setting is for this to be Rough. If you want it to be one of the others you need to set this in Sketch Options...

On your second problem. If you have invoked Sketch by selecting it via the View/Rendering menu it will continue to happen until you cancel it. ie by removing the menu checkmark. You do this by selecting Wireframe on the View/Rendering menu.

[mr. iagea]

Cool. Good to know the Sketch default issue was fixed.

In regard to my second problem, the trouble seems to be when I go from Wireframe to Polygon Final Shaded. I never use Sketch, so it's not checked in the View > Rendering menu. What IS checked in that menu is Polygon Final Shaded. However, once I switch to PFS from the Render Mode dropdown menu in the main drawing window, the drawing renders using the default document sketch mode (which always slips back to "Rough"), instead of crisply lined and shaded polygons. This seems to be coincidental with the sketch mode default issue of this current thread. I took a look in the "Options for Other Render Modes" in that Render Modes dropdown menu and unchecked all the boxes having anything to do with Sketch. I'm hoping this remedies the trouble.

Lastly, I'm also interested in knowing if the Sketch Preview problem was fixed in 2009. In my version of 2008, when I select any of the Sketch Modes (from View > Rendering > Sketch Options... (then select any Sketch Mode, then the subsequent "Edit" button which becomes available), a window is presented that allows the user to alter the discrete attributes of the chosen sketch style (such as "Wobble", "Stroke" and "Randomness"). There is an image of a house gable end, which is ostensibly meant to dynamically preview the attribute changes in real time. This does not happen on my machine at all. It's minor, but it was one of the first things I discovered as broken when I initially purchased the software. Extensive discussions with NNA, as well as a hardware upgrade, did not solve the problem and I cannot recall if I submitted it as a bug. I think I may have. I know it's a minor thing compared to some other workflow-halting issues, but I'm curious if this was addressed in 2009.

Edited December 13, 2008 by mr. iagea

[mike m oz]

Charlie, My computer is similar to yours, but the OS is Tiger. I've just checked in VW 2008 and the 'house preview' shows any adjustments I make to the sketch characteristics. Maybe your installation is faulty and needs redoing, or perhaps it is a quirk of Leopard and VW 2008. Either way upgrading to VW 2009 will overcome the problem.