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Help! Darkradiant throwing errors


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Hi all,

 

Now that the semester has wound down and I have some time on my hands, I thought I'd look into a problem that's been affecting me for awhile now.

 

Times past, I configured TDM and DR, and they were all fine. TDM worked when it was installed on my desktop, and DR found it and wrote to the folder with no issues. That was before upgrading to TDM 2.06 and DR 2.6.0 x64. Ever since then, I've been getting errors from DR.

 

Two major things appear to be broken: the particle system and the readable editor. I get the following errors from them:

 

j6oAm4f.jpg

 

1fu0OZE.jpg

 

CzBm7m0.jpg

 

This is strange, because previously all my settings worked without complaint. I also think this may have something to do with TDM 2.06, as previous versions of DR also threw these errors, where they hadn't with TDM 2.05. For reference, here are my DR path settings:

 

PjTMgbL.jpg

 

I don't have a mission set, because I tend to hop back and forth between projects. Again, I previously had no problems with this.

 

Also noteworthy is this is happening on two separate machines, one with Windows 7 64-bit and one with Windows 10 64-bit installed. The Windows 10 version would even crash sometimes when these errors came up, though I don't currently have the error logs for them.

 

Am I just an idiot and doing something wrong here? On my one Windows 10 machine, I've tried repeatedly reinstalling everything in different places, and I still got these errors.

 

I do have one more, brand new Windows 10 machine, completely untouched, that I want to try installing everything on, though I'd appreciate help in doing so as I'm afraid of setting things up incorrectly and getting these errors again. If possible, I'd also like to fix my Windows 7 installation, though that will have to wait since I won't have access to that machine for a spell.

 

So, any ideas on what's causing these errors? And how to I correctly install TDM and DR, if indeed I've been setting it up wrong?

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That readable editor message is more of a warning rather than an error. It informs you that the readable you opened is located in a pk4 which means that any changes you make to the readable cannot be stored unless you change the filename. The readable editor does not support editing files inside pk4s by design.

 

I can't say anything about your other question, though.

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The thing is, the readables aren't in a .pk4. They're either in the xdata folder in my main darkmod directory, or they're in the mission folder itself.

 

Opening DR as an administrator does sort of help with successfully writing readables (if I recall correctly) but is very much a band-aid solution, and also has some sort of problem with it. I forget what the exact behavior was, but I think it was an issue with editing a preexisting readable.

Edited by Aosys
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Seems like the DR doesn't have the access right it needs to write in that location. Maybe move it from the desktop to some other place outside your user directory, e.g., at the root of your C or D drive, or something like that.

 

Also, please verify that no duplicate of that xdata definition is located inside a pk4.

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I've seen that as well; it can be worked around by switching the path settings from TDM Standalone to Doom 3, which does have fs_game and fs_game_base paths. (Set both to your darkmod folder, and the engine path to its parent.) If it still won't play nicely, going to Preferences -> Readable Editor and setting a custom path may help.

 

Under TDM Standalone, I think setting a custom path allowed me to save a file to /xdata/ but I still got the misleading PK4 error on trying to read it.

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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I have no idea if it's related, but I've encountered weird permission issues on Windows if you have executable files in strange locations (I guess it's some anti-malware tactic). I was trying to build DR in my Documents and Settings folder and it got blocked from doing all sorts of things which should have been allowed.

 

Do you still get the problem if you move your installation out of Desktop into something like C:\Games\Darkmod?

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The only thing I might say is that the readables editor is something I avoid.

In order to facilitate localisation, it's necessary to edit the .xd files to include text as strings anyhow - it might be a pain to have to adjust for whatever font you're using on the page, but DR handles it quite well and there are only a few typographic issues (which aren't due to DR, but the font files themselves). Unless that has been implemented and I haven't been keeping up with changes.

Sometimes it's good practise to write the readables / .xd files yourself - I've never had a successful experience using the readables editor in DR and I know there are a few recreatable bugs that cause issues with readables made using it (which may be down to how I use it) that can cause frob to fail or the grabber to glitch out, etc...

Also, as Orbweaver says - it's good to keep to the convention and install everything as per the "standard" set-up.

I have a dedicated partition on an SSD for TDM and DR, plus another win user account that has access to TDM on an HDD so that it can be tested "on a fresh copy" and also transfer it to another machine to see how any map is shaping up.

At the very beginning, I had some problems and it was also because I chose to not follow convention and install TDM and DR in my own way - once I RTFI and followed the instructions - everything worked.

(except readables editor, that still drives me nuts and causes problems).

Sometimes it helps to have all the readables out in notepad++ or a word processor, so that it's possible to simply copy-paste any alterations to your narrative into the .xd direct - but in order to do that, it helps to know how an .xd is made and how it works to produce something.

Once this understanding is reached, it's possible to then expand upon this and enter the realm of custom fonts and doing more with your readables - is a message in blood on a wall a readable, or is it a decal?
Depends on the method used to create it.

Perhaps I'd like that message in blood to be localised, therefore I have to figure a way to get a custom font and place a readable on a wall, so it appears as a decal.

It's not so difficult to achieve, but might require to learn about the readbles GUI's and how they work also.

A good starting place is here;

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=XData_File_Creation

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The prefs>readables - I don't have a custom path set, because it is mod\xdata and I create my own xd's and don't want DR putting them in other places - they go where I know they are and I can move them wherever they are required in my organisational system for DR (incl. snapshots for maps, when hopping between missions).

You're using DR 2.6 and TDM 2.06.

Looking at why you might be having issues with particles also.

Seems pathing issue, but without knowing your win10 setup and permissions - might be because the files are "locked" to the user location on desktop, no cross priv's, as Orbweaver has said.

I've gone back to DR 2.2.1 from Feb 2017, because I do not like the new ones and they sometimes crash for no apparent reason or not function as it did (eg, can't save a collision model, because the file is in use by DR, when using .ase export and import of model that is in use by DR... simple logic error, file's locked so crash - have to workaround by simply adding triggerhurt with 0 damage so it causes bounceback to model and disregard collision model for baked brushwork).

Unity can suffer similar issue in some saved prefs, as some methods to store prefs use win registry and this can have permission issues that prevent users from, e g, changing resolution, because SYSTEM has full rights, while "owner" of the key doesn't - so system overrides and "owner/user" is left not being able to save their preferences between instances.

Letting DR chuck everything where it wants to and then going in and organising it - it seems to fix a lot of problems I've encountered like this.

It also helps me keep on top of my things by knowing where I put things and not messing with paths all the time - simply shuffling files and keeping an organised file-cabinet and clear workspace.

Edited by teh_saccade
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I have no idea if it's related, but I've encountered weird permission issues on Windows if you have executable files in strange locations (I guess it's some anti-malware tactic). I was trying to build DR in my Documents and Settings folder and it got blocked from doing all sorts of things which should have been allowed.

 

Do you still get the problem if you move your installation out of Desktop into something like C:\Games\Darkmod?

My installation has always been under C:\Games.

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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