LDAsh

So, I went ahead and ripped some guts out of my registry - references to those 'serialised' folders a particular installation was looking for. Rebooted, tried to install, and bam - it behaved nicely!!! And now Unreal Engine is actually launching instead of sitting twiddling its thumbs from the launcher. So yes, it did work and yes it's supported on Windows 7. A side-effect is that the package extracted and made itself at home in my root Y:, of all places. I don't know why, maybe because it has the most free space? Well, Microsoft, don't expect me to just leave all that junk there. What I recommend is a tool to fix these issues with ESPECIALLY these runtimes, which are vital system files that many pieces of software requires to run. I would even do it myself if I was skilled enough to. If anyone else stumbles on this and has the same issue, please consider the following advice:- - A system restore point, even just 1. - Image your C:\ with something like Acronis True Image. - Backup your registry with something like Acelogix Registry Backup. ...only then attempt to rip chunks out of your registry, in a desperate attempt to right the wrongs of Microsoft. . . .

This isn't the first time I've had this issue, but previously I tackled it on WinXP and that wasn't so bad. Now it's Win7 time and far more of a headache than I remember it being. I'm yet to dive into the registry and hack chunks out of that, but I may have to resort to that... This all started when needing to install the 2019 runtime for UE4. Some runtimes are refusing to uninstall, and some newer releases are refusing to install unless that happens. I run into this error:- Windows Installer The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable. And here's a list I've made of the packages that are being stubborn:- __________________________________________ 2005 x86:- ..\\Users\_______\AppData\Local\Temp\IXP001.TMP\vcredist.msi 560KB 2008 9.0.30729.6161 x64:- ..\\dc2935d289eddfed8abe7f5a57\vc_red.msi 788KB 2008 9.0.21022 x86:- ..\\db2e604ea13629ba9f36e7d1\vc_red.msi 2.06MB 2008 9.0.30729.17 x86:- ..\\1db3a11f542711aa258f8d39c90e\vc_red.msi 594KB 2008 9.0.30729.6161 x86:- ..\\c3d074dacbfc78a3885977c0\vc_red.msi 600KB 2010 10.0.30319 x64:- ..\\e370fe1f9610bf9212639a92\vc_red.msi 13.6MB 2010 10.0.40219 x64:- ..\\32ca29e0ac6330298a58c1\vc_red.msi 13.8MB 2010 10.0.40219 x86:- ..\\8aa5c006360cf2ac3ed515\vc_red.msi 11.1MB 2013 12.0.40664 x64:- ..\\ProgramData\Package Cache\{929FBD26-9020-399B-9A7A-751D61F0B942}v12.0.21005\packages\vcRuntimeAdditional_amd64\vc_runtimeAdditional_x64.msi ?MB 2013 12.0.40664 x86:- ..\\ProgramData\Package Cache\{F8CFEB22-A2E7-3971-9EDA-4B11EDEFC185}v12.0.21005\packages\vcRuntimeAdditional_x86\vc_runtimeAdditional_x86.msi ?MB 2019 14.25.28508 x64:- ..\\ProgramData\Package Cache\{B0037450-526D-3448-A370-CACBD87769A0}v14.11.25325\packages\vcRuntimeMinimum_amd64\vc_runtimeMinimum_x64.msi ?MB __________________________________________ Others uninstalled without any complaints, but these just will not. It's ridiculous that Microsoft put these files into temp folders, or even worse - into root directories, and expect them to still exist months or years later, and outright refuse to uninstall otherwise! The pages and pages I've read about similar issues - Microsoft support are the LAST people who know what the hell is going on. "Reinstall Windows" is a common 'final solution'. Oh yeah, and then what, start from scratch just to crash head-first into the same brick wall all over again? Thanks... I've tried some all-in-one solutions and a "total uninstaller" I found, but none of them solve the issue. The Windows Installer dialog pops up and expects an MSI file. Links:- https://www.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Components-Libraries/Visual-C-Installer-Uninstaller.shtml https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/ https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/visual_c_runtime_installer.html https://mpvci.b-cdn.net/MPVCI_2.6_setup.exe https://github.com/Microsoft/VisualStudioUninstaller/releases https://github.com/tsasioglu/Total-Uninstaller I've tried tracking down the MSI files, both online and locally, but no luck there. I've tried to extract the EXEs but I don't get proper filenames when doing that. Perhaps one of the extracted files is the MSI file but I have no idea how to identify it. It doesn't seem to be the case. Anyway, I thought I'd try to post this here too, since TDM/DR relies on these runtimes, and maybe some of you might be kind enough to scan your systems for these MSI files, package them up and send them my way somehow? Thanks. I'll be sure to follow up on this if/when I find a non-nuclear solution. . . .

https://www.texturecan.com

https://texturefun.com/ & https://texturebox.com/

It depends on how your files are originally organised, but you can try this approach... Generate a TXT file which lists all textures filenames within it, using something like this:- https://www.karenware.com/powertools/karens-directory-printer Then use Regex to prefix/suffix the surrounding material script, using something like this:- http://dngrep.github.io/ Regex will also allow you to duplicate lines within the file along with special delimiters to differentiate them in case of order.

After all these years, I had no idea this was possible.

Yeah, I've seen the Mandelbrot-like art created by AI, and some more advanced stuff after AI has been fed with references to guide itself, to the point of outright ventriloquism. We're a very long way away from replacing a team of game developers with software. It seems you've been reading a lot of the fantastical articles and are all excited, like many others, but I'm just saying that I'm personally far from being overwhelmed by much of it. It's mostly boomer-noob media parroting Silicon Valley geeks looking to bolster more investment opportunities. They are just mostly other tools to use and that is all. I don't want you to get worked up over it so I won't reply anymore, we can easily just disagree. I just want to clarify about the upscaling techniques (as relevant to the thread) - if a software can automagically perform a task (or a million) it's because a human programmed it to, because another human already developed that technique. It's not something mystical, and that kind of thinking bugs me. Hence why I mentioned emulator filters and Gigapixel results, they don't look so similar by accident. If that's me being misinformed, well, I'll just carry on actually manually working, and wish you the best of luck.

I would like to politely and respectfully disagree. Yeah, there are some emulators that already attempt to do this kind of stuff with textures, but the results are never pretty when weighed against the performance hit. It's interesting to toy with, but usually get turned off for long serious play sessions. A human being is always going to bring better and more significant details into the scene than a computer program ever can. A human already has all of the filters and effects the computer can use, and infinitely more. The real question is speed, time and money - that's the only reason for considering these approaches. Here's a comparison of Gigapixel in use, it's basically like using a median filter and sharpen/soften combination, much like the HQ*X/'SuperEagle' filters you can find in modern emulators, which FYI many people think makes games look ugly:- https://media.indiedb.com/images/downloads/1/191/190440/F.png Judge for yourself, if it's worth 4X the video memory demand or not, compared to what dedicated artists could do with the same demands. Once again, quite a huff made over AI that doesn't pay off on closer inspection quite as much as the runaway imagination of it. The thing is - why not batch-process every texture in the game, if humans are never going to do it. In the future, I can see developers forcing the end-user to compile textures for themselves during install, using something similar to Allegorithmic Substance, if players want 8K or even 16K+ textures without needing to download 500GB worth of content - but that's not upscaling and that's during install, not runtime, because there would be no need for that even if it was possible.

There are a lot of "HQ Texture Mod" packs for everything coming out (and a lot more to come!) thanks to the growing popularity of Topaz Gigapixel AI. I see a future of a lot of wasted HDD space for very little discernible improvement. We already have texture filtering since ~1997, any software that attempts to take those sharp original texels and blur them into each other is doing so in the face of that. That's what folks need to understand. Any 'upscaling' is inevitably going to take artistic effort and the same skills as it did to originally create the asset.

This is really cool, as powerful free software really is. A little warning though - this is a 7GB install and requires an Epic/Quixel account. I have doubts this software will function offline, but we will see...

Ability for "Fixed Subdivisions" of "Patch Tesselation" in "Patch Inspector" to be higher than 32, or at least not cap patches back to 32. NetRadiant can currently load map files with higher values even though the GUI still says 32. I managed to get up to 4444 4444 which was many millions of triangles. I think this is a good move to help future-proof the software.

Maybe I'm naive but I always associate Linux with WINE and virtual machines. If someone "switches" to Linux as their grand-daddy OS, that doesn't mean they are giving up Windows, it just means they can shove Windows into the corner and use it how and when they want, in a confined environment. After all, this is how Microsoft have been treating us, so why not us treat Windows the same way.

The inconsistency is with this fork of Radiant, as the built-in editors for Doom3/Quake IV/etc display the "edge winding" of patch triangles as they actually would be in the engine:- I wouldn't hold my breath on this ever being fixed as it goes pretty far back.

I think it's because it's an OS and not just a site or a program (that can be contained) we're talking about. There's not much you can do to protect your privacy if the OS itself is poking you in the back door. It's also because Microsoft are one of the very few companies to have been around for so long and have built up such a positive reputation, a legacy, for many of us since we used our first PC. Also because there are almost no other suitable alternatives except Linux and even then we'd be looking into virtualising a Windows OS or 2 with it, in order to do everything we want. I see the 20s as being the age of multiple systems, multiple HDDs and partitions that multiboot/virtualise multiple OSes for various purposes. I also see many of these companies (trying to) demand more and more of our data (even passports, etc.) just for basic use.

Does not appear to be smoking any weed... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udlMSe5-zP8

Indeed and we're doing exactly that. Radiant is still one of the fastest "level-creators" I'm personally aware of, once it's set up correctly. There are also a lot of other mappers out there who know how to use it and would love to get involved in a new project, so plenty of opportunity for recruitment. There's just nothing faster than dragging a brush and slapping textures on its faces. I have a workflow that mostly automates the process of exporting from Radiant(s) and into Blender, which I'd be happy to share privately. A custom OBJ importer and Python scripts that clean everything up and texture everything. The one thing anyone needs to be aware of is that you'd be exporting ASE/OBJ from Radiant, not the BSP/PROC files that carve and merge all geometry during compile. This has a lot of implications for all mappers to understand, especially however you'll end up portalising your worlds, but certainly not a deal-breaker. There are some fuzzy legal grey-areas about using BSP/PROC formats commercially, but everything else is fine. If you're going to use an engine that can make heavy use of vertex-buffer LOD stages, then check this out as something that can be automated for LOD sake:- http://www.violationentertainment.com/temp/VE_patchtess_190714.mp4

If I really don't want to touch Blender?:- http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20008-brushwork-generators-mapgen/&do=findComment&comment=438388 I already agreed with you, batching and atlasing is important. Where I disagree is the implication that it's something that suddenly became an issue within this thread, because of this technique. You could still LOD these chunks of details like anything else, but it comes down to TDM not having a very good LOD implementation (from the HDD with limited stages VS from within vertex-buffer using more stages) and/or smooth distance-culling. You're actually pointing out issues with the engine itself rather than issues with any editing approaches or tricks. Takes much much longer, it's not very noob-friendly, and you end up with something that can't be edited in Radiant afterward, which is actually the whooole point of this (and my other terrain thread) in the first place. To do as much as possible in Radiant. Anyway, use it or don't, whatever, I just posted it here because somebody else might find it nifty. Sorry to be a nuisance. . . .

But have you actually thought it through? Scatter _where_? What's the difference between exporting all the mapobjects after they've been placed in Radiant, and exporting large chunks of map (that won't be textured) into Blender, so you can see exactly where each object will be positioned in the map? Either way it would take the same amount of time, unless you're blindly littering objects on a flat surface. This is also something that should be done right at the final moment of the creation of a map, so you can always tweak these things right there in Radiant instead of having to go back to Blender and export everything over again. This is why I ask if you've actually thought this through or not. In my experience, this is easier to do in Radiant than in Blender, so a better approach is to merge and atlas everything after you have positioned them. This is mainly because texture features of a map can matter in terms of where small objects would be positioned, along with positions of other entities, and in Blender you'll just be seeing flat grey geometry everywhere and be at a disadvantage. Some folks are just more comfortable with Radiant than Blender anyway and don't wish to constantly jump back and forth between them. The other thing is, it would take longer to prep (import and fix material headers, etc) all your mapobjects in Blender, that you wish to scatter around - meanwhile they are already set and ready in Radiant. I also said in the first post this works with brushes and patches too, and other entities, it's not only concerning mapobjects. So the argument that it's somehow worse than any other approach has flopped. All this is doing is making an existing creation process quicker, it's not some bad voodoo that suddenly makes your triangles choke your GPU more. Once again - this is absolutely no different than any other occasion a mapper copy+pastes large amounts of mapobjects around manually. This is just quicker and simply just another technique I decided to try and share...

Well that's true for any bunch of objects and in any real-time engine, regardless of how they're put in. If a mapper is put off using this technique by alarm bells about batches and drawcalls so instead places 50 mapobjects in, one at a time, it's not going to change anything except how long it took them to do it.

There are a few reasons why this is different from SEED. You can control where you position objects exactly using CTRL+MMB during pasting, not just up to 25 you bring from the clipboard, but collections of objects. You can then adjust each one individually from within Radiant, as I was doing in the video, just because I accidentally placed objects in the same location. As far as I understand, SEED operates during the map compile process and each object can't be fine-tuned in Radiant. It's the same with the concept of bringing terrain in from Blender as individual brushes, so mappers have control over everything right there in Radiant.

I probably haven't explained it clearly enough, so here's a video of what I'm talking about with this:- http://www.violationentertainment.com/temp/VE_Radiant&101_1907.mp4

Thought I might mention a handy piece of software that I've started using to complement Radiant... It's called 101 Clips - https://101clips.com/freeclip.htm v22.10 - http://www.violationentertainment.com/files/software/101%20Clips%2022.10.zip It works with both (collections of) brushes, patches and mapobjects. Likely other entities too. It's pretty straight-forward to use but one thing I recommend is to go into 'Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts' and swap 'Paste' and 'PasteToCamera' entries, although you might prefer not to, I just find it less confusing that way. The main reason for this is to use in combination with CTRL+MMB in the orthographic view, usually Z, after getting the camera aligned with the surface you want to paste to. You can place the camera instantly and paste to that location, instead of pasting in 1 location and then manually moving the object around, it's much faster than that. You would also want to get a keyboard shortcut for "Floor Selection" in there to hit right after pasting, if the camera isn't perfectly aligned or where you're pasting isn't flat. The whole point is for decorating a lot of different details like trash, rubble, vegetation, etc, where you want to quickly cycle different objects and paste like crazy. One downside is that there is no quick preview, each entry shows up as "Version 3" in the list, but you can get used to recognising mapobject names and material headers in the preview that pops up. If you make copies carefully in a specific order, it's still very usable. On a side note - you might find it interesting to use this in combination with AutoHotkey and X-Mouse. If you have a 5-button mouse you'd be able to do stuff like automate the pasting/list-cycling/floor-drop process in 1 click. This would make the whole technique very rapid and spitfire your details. So yeah anyway, hope some of you find this handy too... Happy mappin'. ____________________________________________ (EDIT: Please be aware that because of the hackety Visual Basic involved, it does get 2 alerts on OPSWAT MetaDefender as a worm/backdoor. I believe it's a false positive and even why this software does work with Radiant while alternatives don't, but it's up to you if you want to take risks or not... Just saying, I do know.) . . .

Beyond creepy... Also notice the reflection as they touch the mirror, there should be at least a few millimeters of glass there. If the reflections are flush together then it could likely be a two-way mirror. Darkening that room and shining a strong enough light through the mirror (up against it and fairly powerful) should make the opposite side visible.

Oh, some interest? I should make a video, but will get around to that later. For now I'll try my best to talk through the steps. I'm exporting from 2.69 but whichever version supports the 'Quake MAP' exporter, should be all the same. _________________________________ --> On the right-hand tool panel of the 3D view, under 'Display', set the grid scale to 0.64 with subdivision of 8. --> Create a plane, go to 'Edit Mode' and 'Subdivide', then CTRL+T to triangulate. (instead of scaling your plane (before subdivide) use 'Dimensions' (under Transform) and set X and Y to "81.920"). --> Displace & Sculpt (etc) as desired... (keep in mind you can do these first steps in any software, so long as the grid is the same, which is very important). (above I used a heightmap and 'Displace' modifier, but only a little sculpting, but there are plenty of other ways to deform your mesh). (be sure to click 'Apply' on the modifier when you're happy with it so it actually takes). (stay within 4096 units from origin (=40.96) because 'Q3toD3' doesn't seem to like anything bigger than this (*needs more testing!)). (workaround is to just split your terrain into pieces and export them separately)... --> Edit Mode > select all > Edges > Edge Split. --> Select all faces in Edit Mode and 'Flip Direction'. --> Go to side/front view and 'Extrude Region' down. (you've essentially just turned your deformed plane into individual solid (8-poly) objects = brushes). --> Select all bottom vertices and scale 0 on Z axis. (S > Z > 0). (*make sure you're using grid snapping and all vertices below align with the above). --> Set grid scale to 'a decimal left' (=0.064). --> Snap all vertices to grid. (select all vertices > SHIFT+S > Selection to Grid). --> Tris to quads. (select all faces and ALT+J). --> Select all in Object Mode and CTRL+A to actualise. (Location\Rotation & Scale\Visual Transform). --> Select all in Object Mode and go to File > Export > Quake MAP (.map). (check 'Grid Snap' and click 'Export MAP'). (if all goes well, you now have a .MAP file with your brushes from Blender!) --> Use 'Q3toD3' to convert your MAP file into the Doom3 format. (http://www.violationentertainment.com/files/software/q3tod3+gui.zip). --> Open the MAP file in a text editor and change 'version 2' to 'version 3', remove worldspawn name and other comments. --> CTRL+H to replace " 0 0 0 with ", so the trailing 'tokens' on each brush are removed. --> Remove the last entity entries, so the file ends at the final brush and the bottom of the file ends with 3 }s. (3 closing curlies). _________________________________ Open the map in DarkRadiant and in the 3D view, CTRL+SHIFT to select a face below the surface, then while holding CTRL+SHIFT you can drag-click to texture all of these multiple faces with caulk. This could probably be done in Blender but I didn't try that because this works well enough, for the most part. This is not even really important, except to avoid confusion during editing. You can now select multiple brushes, press V and select multiple vertices, and (with care) adjust them around to deform your terrain. Note that texturing hasn't come into it yet because ideally once you're happy with the formation, you would export as ASE and bring it back into Blender to unwrap and vertex-paint etc. to polish it up for the final product. Here's an example of how I began to create "lips" that overlap each other and fold into themselves, to create features like cliff-faces and caves:- . . .

...and just incase anyone is wondering why this is a big deal:-