Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[Sotha]

Entity 0 is the worldspawn..

Find the offending brushes and delete them. Rebuild them.

 

DR has a "find brush #" somewhere in the menus. Try to find it.

 

Stop using the CSG subtract already!

(Now, I really don't know if that is the cause, but it is evident there are some weird WORLDSPAWN brushes that cause the failure.)

[Kvorning]

@Fidcal

I don't think it works with rotated objects though, I only used it with custom func_statics. If I use objects, I still have to to make sure their rotation is 0 0 0, so it's not an universal win trick unfortunately Some situations it's a time saver though, that keeps world spawn parts from going off grid.

 

@Lux

If you just need to align two objects, I think the easiest way is just to copy the rotation arg value from the chest to the lid.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Kvorning

[Tr00pertj]

Entity 0 is the worldspawn..

Find the offending brushes and delete them. Rebuild them.

 

DR has a "find brush #" somewhere in the menus. Try to find it.

 

Stop using the CSG subtract already!

(Now, I really don't know if that is the cause, but it is evident there are some weird WORLDSPAWN brushes that cause the failure.)

 

Thanks Sotha:

I'd like to know where the option is to search for brush work? Can't find it?

If I convert to fun static the offending brushes will that fix the problem I wonder?

 

I did use CSG to cut rectangles out of rectangles and move and rotate them to position. After this I will only use CGS for one non-moveable cut of a box or rectangle. Would you agree?

Edited August 23, 2013 by Tr00pertj

[Tr00pertj]

@Kvorning:

@Sotha: Found it. Doh MAP.

 

Looking forward to your mission release.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Tr00pertj

[Tr00pertj]

For some reason I don't think this is my problem:

 

But for some reason the error points to it (a brush).

[grayman]

My last two "unbounded" messages concerned spiral step brushes like yours.

 

I notice that the step is cut in two. It's probably worth the effort to make sure that each step of the staircase is a single brush.

[Tr00pertj]

It seems the prefab is not a prefab and that consists of:

 

 

I'll work around it.

[Tr00pertj]

Ahh I might as well just start from a back up file. Unfortunately for me it requires 20 or so hours of mapping.

[grayman]

I seem to recall coming across that prefab in the past.

 

It's a disaster waiting to happen, and should be removed from darkmod's prefab set and replaced with a good spiral staircase where the steps haven't been sliced and diced to death.

[grayman]

Ahh I might as well just start from a back up file. Unfortunately for me it requires 20 or so hours of mapping.

 

If the backup file contains the same spiral staircase, the problem is just going to occur again somewhere down the road. Though the problem of DR's shifting planes has been mitigated for 6+ months, it can still happen. Brush corners will still shift off their original locations, and that staircase offers far too many opportunities for brushes to become corrupted.

[Tr00pertj]

Hay greyman: So what your saying is that a prefab that is included with the TDM release is invalid and inoperable? I thought a prefab is ready to go in map and it was fine until today then suddenly it crashes my execution of TDM.

 

I only write this because I have to replace the unfinished prefab with something that either fits or is easy to fit.

[Tr00pertj]

If the backup file contains the same spiral staircase, the problem is just going to occur again somewhere down the road. Though the problem of DR's shifting planes has been mitigated for 6+ months, it can still happen. Brush corners will still shift off their original locations, and that staircase offers far too many opportunities for brushes to become corrupted.

 

Though the problem of DR's shifting planes has been mitigated for 6+ months

:

 

What does this mean? That I should select every thing and align to map grid at a specific time every 6 months and then go through every thing to make sure it all fits? Makes no sense to me?

 

I don't understand how a brush can become corrupt, Please explain?

[Obsttorte]

There is a model for a spiral staircase. It's somewhere under architecture/stairs IIRC.

 

Btw: Did you try to convert the whole prefab into a fs?

[Obsttorte]

I don't understand how a brush can become corrupt, Please explain?

Everytime you save your map, func statics are translated to origin, and vice versa upon load. In the original code, there where an unneccessary but very error-sensitive part in that specif code which causes a slight movement of the vertices upon every save. I provided a fix for that problem, but if the vertices don't hit the grid there can still be a small rounding error accumulation, which can leed to a high divergence after a while. (That's what the second quote from grayman means).

 

If you build aligned to grid, you can reduce or even avoid this problem.

 

To fix this, it sometimes help therefore to align the specific parts, like the staircase, to grid. The grid size you do this on shouldn't play a role, though, as they are all a power of two. So if you want do it on the lowest grid size.

 

I hope this was understandable.

[Sotha]

If you want a decent spiral staircase, feel free to copy one from the LQD. Those are good ones and conform to the modular size in LQD. Grabbing it should be simple.

[Tr00pertj]

@Obstortte

 

It was understandable to a degree:

 

func statics are translated to origin. What the?

 

What you said means I either select every thing and align to a 2 or multiple there of at the map grid array and fix the remaining off set vertices of all I can find, or I find the rounding error of accumulation due to the off set over shifting planes which I don't understand.

[Tr00pertj]

@ Sotha:

 

I wish I knew what LQD meant, Is it liquid quality dynamic ? Because that sounds cool.

 

I also would like to ask "modular size in LQD" Does this relate to a 4 or 8 grid size?

[grayman]

What you said means I either select every thing and align to a 2 or multiple there of at the map grid array and fix the remaining off set vertices of all I can find, or I find the rounding error of accumulation due to the off set over shifting planes which I don't understand.

 

Don't take this as a call to redo tons of stuff. Nearly all of your off-grid architecture will be fine as is.

 

Just keep an eye out for func_statics that begin to look a little odd after LOTS of DR sessions. If they get to looking really odd, or start causing "unbounded" messages, you might want to revisit them to get them back into their original state.

 

99.99% of your brushes will be fine. But spiral staircase steps provide lots of odd angles, and starting with a prefab that's all cut up only magnifies the potential problem.

 

The prefabs in question (there's also a separate prefab of just monsterclip steps to go with the main staircase) were not created properly, so until they're replaced, they should not be used.

[grayman]

I wish I knew what LQD meant, Is it liquid quality dynamic ? Because that sounds cool.

 

I also would like to ask "modular size in LQD" Does this relate to a 4 or 8 grid size?

 

The Lich Queen's Demise

 

Sotha's reference to "modular" means the map is comprised of modular pieces plugged together and locally detailed. This cuts down on design time. The staircases he offers are sized to fit the size of his modules, but may very well be useful in your map.

[Tr00pertj]

Thank you grayman:

 

I will replace it and see how I go but the strange thing is, It started happening well after the prefab was inserted into the map. I put that in the map well before 2.0 and it was working OK after upgrade from 1.08 to 2.0. Now after a few edits of the map it's buggered. Can't work it out as I know I have followed a methodical mapping method, even if it's not so creative.

 

The prefabs in question (there's also a separate prefab of just monsterclip steps to go with the main staircase) were not created properly, so until they're replaced, they should not be used.

 

Why where they not completed correctly? Is there a reason beyond laziness I can assist with? Or though I am quite lazy.

[grayman]

I will replace it and see how I go but the strange thing is, It started happening well after the prefab was inserted into the map. I put that in the map well before 2.0 and it was working OK after upgrade from 1.08 to 2.0. Now after a few edits of the map it's buggered. Can't work it out as I know I have followed a methodical mapping method, even if it's not so creative.

 

The shifting probably started and continued very subtly and was not noticeable until the error popped up.

 

Why where they not completed correctly? Is there a reason beyond laziness I can assist with? Or though I am quite lazy.

 

Whoever did them created a central square column and placed the nice whole-brush steps around that column to form the staircase. The top few steps, however, are not placed correctly.

 

Then they selected everything and clipped the column corners to change it from a square to an decagon. This not only clipped the column (good), but it clipped all the steps as well (bad). They then removed all the step bits inside the decagon, and left all the sliced-up steps as they were.

 

Then they saved it as a prefab w/o centering it at [0,0,0], so it's hugely offset when you insert it into your map.

 

Ditto for the staircase itself.

[Obsttorte]

I have a problem with a skin/texture not working properly. I've created a copy of an existing texture and changed it's appearence. New shader, skin file etc...

 

I have done this several times and it always worked, but this time not. The skin shows up properly in DarkRadiant, but in game the specific surfaces appear black.

 

The only difference to any former texture replacements is that it uses dds format. I've tried both dds and tga for the replacement, always with the same result.

 

Any suggestions?

[Moonbo]

It could be something wrong with the material file. Have you tried just pasting the material onto a brush and seeing if it shows up properly in-game?

Edited August 23, 2013 by Moonbo

[Obsttorte]

No, I haven't. But if the mtr was broken, then the texture should not show up properly in DR, too.

 

I think it is something else, but I'm not sure what.

[Moonbo]

I had a situation where I had a broken mtr but it was showing up fine in DR for some reason (maybe because the base texture itself and not the full shader shows up in the editor?). That might not be the case w/ your shader but it definitely caused me a headache :-P.