[solved-ish] Why might a tileset crash the game?

[Legacy_BCH]

               I've been running a VPnP game for my friends for 2-3 years now, gradually adding more areas to my module (got at least 100 now).  From the beginning, I included WoRMs' Mirkwood Swamp tileset, intending to build areas using it later.  For at least two years, I've had a test area built using that tileset to try things out in, and it worked just fine.

Recently, I built a second area using that same tileset, and when any PC sets foot in it, they take 4-5 steps, then Freeze, Crash, game exits.

I've tried removing the areas and re-creating them, copying over the tileset hak with a fresh copy in case the old one got corrupted somehow, doing a full build of the module, each several times in different orders, but no dice.  I've even tried making an 8x8 area using that tileset, in case my others were too big.  No luck.

Any ideas what else I might try?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par BCH, 22 mai 2012 - 05:42 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Hmmm, if its a single bad tile, try chopping your area up and test each part, hopefully you can narrow down the offending component that way...

Another possibility is its a terrain type, make a super simple area of the most basic terrain, test it, then add to it and test one step at a time until you can find what makes it crash...

make many small areas each with something different, do they all crash or just some, if the latter, what do they have in common?

As to the Why?

Possible culprits: Super big textures video-cards can't handle. Textures inside textures, doublesided textures, tranparencies, VFX overloads.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 21 mai 2012 - 10:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_BCH]

               Even when I made an 8x8 bare area with no other modifications, a PC couldn't walk more than 10m before Freeze, Crash.

Happened the same no matter which direction the PC tried to walk.  Happened when I put the Start marker in that area, also happened when I used DebugMode to teleport into the area using the Chooser menu.

It even happened twice when I put the Start marker in that area and the game crashed before the game even completed loading.  The game loading screen finished, the area loading screen almost finished, then Crash.

(Disclaimer) If I knew anything about tilesets, I might say this means that there is some sort of "bad" tile, and when a PC steps on it the game crashes, and if the Start marker is on it, the crash happens as soon as the game even tries to put the PC on the Start marker.

However, I know nothing about tilesets. (End Disclaimer)

Edit:  Also, this ain't no obscure, shoddy tileset.  This is WoRMs' Mirkwood Forest, which has been successfully used by lots of folks.  This makes me totally think it's something in my module that's causing this.

Also, this didn't happen for the first 1-2 years I had this tileset in my module.  Hrm.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par BCH, 21 mai 2012 - 11:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Try it in a demo mod, worm's tileset only...

If it works fine then u may have a content conflict, try placing worms tileset hak above all other tilesets, and also check any 2das and other info files your mod/pw uses.  the area area_g  file or such might be a culprit

I dont know a lot about em either, i just break stuff often im my pw too, heh...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 21 mai 2012 - 11:45 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_BCH]

               

Carcerian wrote...

Try it in a demo mod, worm's tileset only...

If it works fine then u may have a content conflict, try placing worms tileset hak above all other tilesets, and also check any 2das and other info files your mod/pw uses.  the area area_g  file or such might be a culprit

Ah!  I did try putting that tileset at the top of the hak list, but I did not think to try starting a module from scratch and adding in haks to see when it breaks.

Thanks!  Now I have many hours of work ahead of me...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               That swamp tileset will crash certain vid cards when environment shadows are turned on.
 I don't know which particular tile it is that does it, but I thought I'd seen somewhere that he'd released a fixed version for it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_BCH]

               

Failed.Bard wrote...

That swamp tileset will crash certain vid cards when environment shadows are turned on.
 I don't know which particular tile it is that does it, but I thought I'd seen somewhere that he'd released a fixed version for it.

Turning off Environment Shadows did the trick!  Thanks, FB.

I definitely have an older version of that tileset.  I have found the newer version, but unfortunately it is posted in a four-part 7z archive that I have not successfully opened yet.  (7zip won't install on this machine for some reason, and the software I use to unzip 7z files won't handle multi-part archives.)

If you (or anyone) has a link to a fixed version of that tileset that comes in a single download, I'd really appreciate that!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               WinRar Will handle multipart .7z, zip, rar and other archive types with no issues.  There is also a rar util for Apple OS as well.  Although I don't have the link handy for that one.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 22 mai 2012 - 06:37 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

                Zipeg is a GUI app that decompresses most archive types on OSX. (There are a million possibilities to do so from command line)

Somewhat on topic: I had an issue with an area crashing the toolset recently, but I suspect it had something to do with the area being corrupted as other areas using the same tileset are still working fine. The area had not previously caused any crashing.