Clone wars

[Fidcal]

I've mentioned this before - multiple clones manifesting in Dark Radiant. It's happened again, this time 53 clones. Symptoms: big drop in frame rate (that might depend on what and where.) I cannot imagine what might cause this. Before I had a table with over 100 clones and another I can't remember but I think 20 or so clones of a loot trophy. This is not some accidental keypressing. So either others have lots of clones they don't know about or it is something I do that others rarely do. Is anybody else using s & r?

 

Can't be the space bar sticking or I'd notice while typing text. My mouse sometimes generates a single wheel movement just after use, so scrolling a web page with it then release it sometimes does another. Can't see how that can produce clones.

 

All I can think is to start logging in detail every occurrence in the future to see if there is anything in common.

[Fidcal]

One tenative clue I might have is that I deleted an unwanted stim - one I set up to teleport loot into chests but now I'm using Ishtvan's code I didn't need it. I deleted it. No wait - I see I have forgotten to delete it. What I deleted where the instances of stim and response on chest lids and nearby stims.

 

Now the object that was cloned is a readable in the inventory. It has its own response to a different stim. Not really related. But I wonder if when I deleted the stims and responses on the other items, DR would obviously have to rewrite the map data and is there any way it could multiply this other entity? What occasions are there for cloning apart from pressing SPACE? Or could a routine that is rewriting the map get stuck in a loop for 53 passes? Later on, DR would neatly renumber all the entities and even rename them 1 to 53 ! Just guessing.

[Tels]

One tenative clue I might have is that I deleted an unwanted stim - one I set up to teleport loot into chests but now I'm using Ishtvan's code I didn't need it. I deleted it. No wait - I see I have forgotten to delete it. What I deleted where the instances of stim and response on chest lids and nearby stims.

 

Now the object that was cloned is a readable in the inventory. It has its own response to a different stim. Not really related. But I wonder if when I deleted the stims and responses on the other items, DR would obviously have to rewrite the map data and is there any way it could multiply this other entity? What occasions are there for cloning apart from pressing SPACE? Or could a routine that is rewriting the map get stuck in a loop for 53 passes? Later on, DR would neatly renumber all the entities and even rename them 1 to 53 ! Just guessing.

 

I think it would be really really usefull to have a report functionality that reports entities that share the same set of coordinates (including rounding errors).

 

Also, I would like to get all entities that have some non-integer coordinates or bounds or angles (aka is not snapped to the grid). Especially after rotation, you get sometimes really weird numbers.

[greebo]

@Fidcal: I still have not a single clue what's going on here. I have used DarkRadiant a LOT since version 0.5.3 but I had never such a large number of clones (only the occasional accidental, but single cloned brush - things like that happen). Do you have a cat?

 

There are only the spacebar and the Ctrl-V (Paste) method which can be used to clone stuff. Next time this is happening, can you check out the logfile? There should be a lot of CloneSelected entries in the log. Thinking about this, I think it would be useful to write the system time to the log too, so we could check in which timespan all these clones are created.

 

I think it would be really really usefull to have a report functionality that reports entities that share the same set of coordinates (including rounding errors).

I think such a duplicate finder is not too hard to setup. One would need to think how these duplicates should be handled though (selected, removed, highlighted).

[Tels]

I think such a duplicate finder is not too hard to setup. One would need to think how these duplicates should be handled though (selected, removed, highlighted).

 

I had more thought of a list (tree) view, and then you can select/deselect stuff in the list displayed and/or delete it from there.

 

But whatever is easier to code

[Fidcal]

I only really use paste for textures. It wouldn't surprise me if I didn't sometimes paste a complete entity without realizing it. Suppose an entity is selected and I forget and elsewhere select a surface, Ctrl+C, then start pasting. But wouldn't Ctrl+V paste that entity at the cursor? I don't think I've ever used it to clone deliberately. Anyway, I've certainly not pasted 53 surfaces in one long session ever that I recall and definitely not yesterday.

 

I'm wondering if this is related to the conflict I get between DR & Doom. I mostly avoid them running together. This consists of massive slow down in DR. One keypress takes 15 to 20 seconds. With very tiny test maps, if I open Doom first, I can get away with it. With other maps, even something like Thief's Den, which is very small, it is still large enough to get conflict. But sometimes I can get away without conflict for a while. But it is so tedious to have to close one and open the other over and over while testing very small adjustments that I am sometimes tempted to tolerate the conflict for a few minutes. Maybe I pressed SPACE too firmly and it stored up 53 presses in a buffer.

 

All I can do is to watch the situation and try to keep notes next time.

 

Added to bugtracker @ http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=426 but I'm not sure what would work. A tool that the user could select now and again to scan, to check for odd clones would be good. With the facility to delete any unwanted ones. But auto-scan during other operations (say during a save) with a "Clone Alert", might be better if possible.

[Fidcal]

It just occurred to me that I use Ctrl+V a lot for other pastes such as copying a property value from one entity to another. Is there any way that could past a copy of the entity? I sometimes get the opposite effect when I hit a control key, say L to list entities or U for transform dialog, and the keypress goes into the entity input because that's where the focus is. But no harm done there. And anyway, still doesn't explain 53 copies!

 

It might be a good idea if Ctrl+Copy for cloning could be disabled. I personally never use it.

 

Talking about copying, why does copy shader take so long the first time to work (15 to 30 seconds) and why does it lose its entry so frequently? Ever? So you paste a few surfaces, then it won't work any more and you have to go back and copy again. I had this a lot with a recent big caulking operation.

[Tels]

Talking about copying, why does copy shader take so long the first time to work (15 to 30 seconds) and why does it lose its entry so frequently? Ever? So you paste a few surfaces, then it won't work any more and you have to go back and copy again. I had this a lot with a recent big caulking operation.

 

Yes, this happens here, too. Long start (3..7 seconds), and it loses the entry quite often - I thought it does this on save, but I can't replicated it when I try to.

[Tels]

I only really use paste for textures. It wouldn't surprise me if I didn't sometimes paste a complete entity without realizing it. Suppose an entity is selected and I forget and elsewhere select a surface, Ctrl+C, then start pasting. But wouldn't Ctrl+V paste that entity at the cursor? I don't think I've ever used it to clone deliberately. Anyway, I've certainly not pasted 53 surfaces in one long session ever that I recall and definitely not yesterday.

 

I'm wondering if this is related to the conflict I get between DR & Doom. I mostly avoid them running together. This consists of massive slow down in DR. One keypress takes 15 to 20 seconds. With very tiny test maps, if I open Doom first, I can get away with it. With other maps, even something like Thief's Den, which is very small, it is still large enough to get conflict. But sometimes I can get away without conflict for a while. But it is so tedious to have to close one and open the other over and over while testing very small adjustments that I am sometimes tempted to tolerate the conflict for a few minutes. Maybe I pressed SPACE too firmly and it stored up 53 presses in a buffer.

 

Heh, this is quite strange. My system is very capable of running doom and DR next to each other, but for some reasons, sometimes DR slows down to a crawl. I _think_ it is when I start DR after D3, but I am not sure, when I try I can never replicate it, and the nex day, *bam* DR gets stuck and I have to terminate it.

[Fidcal]

Try a bigger more complex map? I sometimes think it is not the size but certain types of thing in the map maybe so a larger map is more likely to have them. At one time I thought it was a certain texture - another I thought it was when there were any patches. Might be my old graphics card NVidia FX5900.

[greebo]

Talking about copying, why does copy shader take so long the first time to work (15 to 30 seconds) and why does it lose its entry so frequently? Ever? So you paste a few surfaces, then it won't work any more and you have to go back and copy again. I had this a lot with a recent big caulking operation.

This is due to a feature request a while back: when you pick a shader by MMB, the texture is looked up in the Media Browser. At program start, the Media Browser is still unpopulated, and populating it takes a few seconds. That's the delay you're experiencing.

[Komag]

And that is a very nice feature that I use a lot!

[Tels]

Yes, this happens here, too. Long start (3..7 seconds), and it loses the entry quite often - I thought it does this on save, but I can't replicated it when I try to.

 

I am still on the quest to document all functions of DR, and I stumbled over some wiki articles that already explain a few functions - saves me work And it also explains this:

 

http://www.thirdfilms.com/darkwiki/index.p..._-_Copy_Texture

 

The ShaderClipboard gets cleared as soon as you load a map, start a new map or undo an operation.

[Fidcal]

I am still on the quest to document all functions of DR

I assume you are aware that all control functions are already defined, at least in brief @ http://www.thirdfilms.com/darkwiki/index.p..._Keys_%26_Mouse

 

Do you plan a more detailed documentation? That will be useful but hate to think you hadn't realized that was there - both to avoid re-inventing the wheel and so you can draw on it as a start reference for your own material.

 

BTW, if you know of any way to name anchors anywhere in a wiki page I'd be glad to hear it; I had to duplicate many things in that article. I tried html in vain.