Tileset Questions

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               I'm currently working on my next module, Sanctum of the Archmage 3, and have been running into issues with some of the tilesets I've been using to build it. Knowing that folks with more technical knowledge about tilesets than I have tend to frequent the forums here, I thought I'd try posting them to a thread and asking if anyone might know how to resolve them. '>

• Rocky Mountains tilseset by Lord Rosenkrantz. I'm seeing an artifact that looks like a "hole" in the four corners of the tileset. The corners are roughly at water / ground level (z =-1 to +1) and the vantage point is on a castle roof on a mountain (z = 38).
• Seasonal Forest by Lord of Worms. I'd very much like to use the "Cathedral" group, but I'm finding that the game freezes anytime I try to load an area in which it has been placed. Has anyone else seen this, and could it be a GPU specific problem? (I'm testing on a laptop with an NVIDIA 9800M GS).

I'm hoping that these might be things that could be patched in a module specific hak, but don't know the causes or how to go about diagnosing them. Any help or feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks - Andarian
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Can't say for Rocky Mountains - been ages since I've used it, but it is possible that the "hole" you are seeing could be a bad transition along a tile seam. However, LR is exceptionally good at catching that sort of thing. Could you provide a screenshot?



Seasonal Forest - Beautiful tileset, but very hi-poly. When I was working with it I noticed that certain features or groups didn't seem to play well if the area contained a lot of other features. Have you tried loading an area that just has the cathedral?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               Pstemarie: thanks for the feedback! Regarding the Seasonal Forest cathedral: it happens even when it's the only tile placed in an otherwise blank (12x15) area.

I did just now think to check the log, though, and I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the door. The log ends with this following text (before I had to kill the process):
 

Failed to load Door model .mdl
Unknown Update sub-message

No door is visible in the toolset (except for the blue "arrow" on the floor); and when I try to open its properties from the resource pane, it says "The selected model does not exist. Please choose another one." I've seen this problem before on door models that do have a visible appearance in the toolset, but never on one that doesn't and causes the area to hang on load.

I had to do extensive 2DA merges to combine Project Q, CEP 2.2, CTP (+Generic Doors), Goudea's Futuristic City Interiors, and some custom Sanctum content. So it's possible that Seasonal Forest is counting on a door model being there that somehow got lost along the way in that process.  

Regarding the LR Rocky Mountains: I included a screenshot of the "hole" artifact in my original post (the text 'an artifact that looks like a "hole"' is a hyperlink to it). Here it is inline:


               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 02 décembre 2010 - 12:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               I looked at the seasonal forest tileset and didn't find a cathedral. If you mean the evil temple 3x2 group, I can tell you what is wrong with that. It is a building taken from NWN2 and one or more of those tiles have shadows turned on. NWN1 can't handle the shadows of those NWN2 buildings. If you want shadows for them you have to turn off the shadows of the buildings and make simple meshes that won't be rendered but cast the shadows. If the shadows of the buildings themselves are turned on, you get strange shadows across half the map at best, or worse the whole game can crash if the building's texture has an alpha layer.
The evil temple group also has lots of small gaps. Those won't crash or freeze the game, but should be fixed too.

[Edit] I typed this before you replied to pstmarie's post, but checked
out the temple groups in the toolset before I posted it, so I didn't see
you had already replied that a door is missing. If a door model or dwk
is missing this will always crash the game.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Zwerkules, 02 décembre 2010 - 01:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               

Zwerkules wrote...

I looked at the seasonal forest tileset and didn't find a cathedral. If you mean the evil temple 3x2 group...

No, I'm using that elsewhere with no problem. The Cathedral I'm talking about is under Groups: [Cobblestone]_Cathedral 5x3.

[Edit] I typed this before you replied to pstmarie's post, but checked out the temple groups in the toolset before I posted it, so I didn't see you had already replied that a door is missing. If a door model or dwk is missing this will always crash the game.

Then I need to figure out which door model is involved. Let me see if I can find the Cathedal model files in the hak and figure it out.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 02 décembre 2010 - 01:22 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               OK, I'm a bit of a doofus. I didn't realize and just noticed that Seasonal Forest has its own doortypes.2da, which I never merged with my module's top hak. That's likely the source of the problem. I'm going to have to check all the other custom tilesets I'm using to make sure I haven't missed the same issue elsewhere. Thanks for helping to nudge me in the right direction!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               Yep, that was it for Seasonal Forest. It's working now, and I caught and merged a couple of other tilesets with custom doortypes and loadscreens as well. Still looking at trying to solve the Rocky Mountains "corner hole" issue, though. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 02 décembre 2010 - 06:26 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_FunkySwerve]

               Try using fog clip to cover it, matching color to the sky.



Funky
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Michael DarkAngel]

               Could you try pin-pointing that position in the toolset.  Pass your mouse over the area and in the status bar you should see what tile is placed there.

From that we can better determine what the problem may be.  It could be as simple as the mesh not being positioned properly.


  MDA
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               

Michael DarkAngel wrote...

Could you try pin-pointing that position in the toolset.  Pass your mouse over the area and in the status bar you should see what tile is placed there.

From that we can better determine what the problem may be.  It could be as simple as the mesh not being positioned properly.

It's different in each corner, but the same problem (looking roughly the same) is visible in all four of them. They're as follows:

Northeast and Northwest corners (water): rkm__l_l_l_l_01
Southeast (water with wall crosser coming in from the west): rkm__l_l_gwg_01
Southwest (2nd level mountain raised terrain): rkm_m_g_geg_01

The "hole" starts out small and barely visible from ground level, and grows in size as the camera rises in height. Here's a short video showing what I mean. You can see the hole growing in the upper left corner as the player ascends the terrain.

Thanks! - Andarian
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               

FunkySwerve wrote...

Try using fog clip to cover it, matching color to the sky.

Reducing the fog clip distance has no effect on the visibility of these artifacts. They show up the same with the fog clip distance set to 30 meters or 80 meters (the area is 18x10). And even if that did help it would ruin the look of the area, which currently produces screenshots like this.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 décembre 2010 - 03:59 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               OK, I have more information on the "hole" artifact. It occurred to me to wonder whether this could be a problem with the skybox instead of the tileset, since it is occurring where the two meet in the corners of the area. I tried a couple of tests and it turns out that is in fact the case.

The problem appears to be in the TROD_Vale skybox from the Community Skybox Pack (CSP). It looks like it may be common to at least some of the other TROD skyboxes, since it also happens with TROD_Clear. When I switch to the grass_clear skybox, however, it disappears.

So I guess my question shifts now to: does anyone know what's causing the problem with the TROD_Vale skybox, or how to fix it? Or alternatively, can anyone recommend any other / better quality skybox sources that I might be able to use?

Thanks -- Andarian
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 décembre 2010 - 02:58 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Tyndrel]

               The latest version of CEP includes some nice skyboxes by a number of artists, you could however take a look at this and see if any meet your requirements.

CEP Skybox Pictures

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[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               

Tyndrel wrote...

The latest version of CEP includes some nice skyboxes by a number of artists, you could however take a look at this and see if any meet your requirements.

CEP Skybox Pictures

Tyndrel,

Thanks for pointing that out. I checked through your document, though, and every one of the skyboxes in it has been part of the Community Skybox Pack (CSP) for years. My modules already use the CSP and have since 2007.

Do you know if the CEP folks fixed them up at all? The TROD skyboxes obviously need it. Unless they did, the CEP 2.3 material wouldn't be of any help to me.

Thanks -- Andarian
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 décembre 2010 - 06:41 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_FunkySwerve]

               Acaos did some fixes on a few CSP skyboxes which should have made it into CEP, though I'm not sure about that one (only one I remember for a certainty is the inferno sky one, pictured here in our elemental plane of fire, though I think he worked on a couple). If fog clip isn't cutting it, there's not much to do short of fixing the skybox, since at that altitude, any tiles you throw down likely won't obscure it. I vaguely recall getting away with covering a few such gaps with higher elevation tiles, but not when the players are so high up. I think on the fog I was remembering using it to hide the edges of the area.



Funky