OK I made a map (sort of) imported easily from C2 (for a start)

[timmy76]

OoOoOo I might have to give this a try.

Cheers for the tip Trent.

[starbuck]

OoOoOo I might have to give this a try.

Cheers for the tip Trent.

Well at least there was someone else trying to solve the problem.

I exported the Level.CNT and it crashed again . Will try again later a little more clear headed. Its not much to start from scratch.

[Errol]

OoOoOo I might have to give this a try.

Cheers for the tip Trent.

Well at least there was someone else trying to solve the problem.

I exported the Level.CNT and it crashed again . Will try again later a little more clear headed.

Could you pop the crashing level somewhere for me to take a look at?

[starbuck]

OoOoOo I might have to give this a try.

Cheers for the tip Trent.

Well at least there was someone else trying to solve the problem.

I exported the Level.CNT and it crashed again . Will try again later a little more clear headed.

Could you pop the crashing level somewhere for me to take a look at?

I meant the GAME crashed so what can I get for you. I am trying to avoid flummery. If you meant the files I can UL those again give me time to add an EDIT.

EDIT here is the files. Use Minge to load the folder. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4d129qsv8p4t1np/desert1%20for%20errol.rar?dl=0

[Errol]

OoOoOo I might have to give this a try.

Cheers for the tip Trent.

Well at least there was someone else trying to solve the problem.

I exported the Level.CNT and it crashed again . Will try again later a little more clear headed.

Could you pop the crashing level somewhere for me to take a look at?

I meant the GAME crashed so what can I get for you. I am trying to avoid flummery. If you meant the files I can UL those again give me time to add an EDIT.

Yes, I mean the level you made following trents instructions. The one that caused the game to crash.

[starbuck]

Re loaded the file for you. PS Watching Moana with the wife kind of distracted.

[Errol]

Grabbed the rar, cheers. Have fun with Moana, I liked Tamatoa

The problem seems to be the sun.cnt and sun.light files. Grab different ones from one of Trents C1 ports or from a stock C:MD level.

Here is your desert level (just with all the extraneous files removed, tifs, pngs, imgs, etc) http://temporarydomainname.co.uk/desert1.zip (2.18mb).

All I've done is swapped the old sun.cnt and sun.light files for ones from one of Trents levels and added a grid in the level.lol. It should work.

It is 4am here and my painkillers have finally kicked in so I'm going to sleep. I'll pick up any messages/replies when I wake up in 3 hours.

[starbuck]

A LOT of shows on Netflix, glad we went back with it but could NOT get used to The Rock singing. Saw Captain Underpants as well as that show with Will Smith "Bright". CU was funny all the way thru. Bright was pretty good as well . good special effects for an HD signal.

The "sun" files worked before it was odd they crashed it before. Be good to see a newer "set" of textured cars. Thanks.

EDIT Its odd though, Errols remade map works but once I compile the level.lol thru Trents Tools the game crashes again following Trents detailed directions. As well as the textures get screwed up when you drive up the steps into the pyramid area.

NEW EDIT Errols cleaned up ZIP file works great. I deleted my whole DESERT1 Directory and worked from the MAX file he kept in there and it ran thru the game with no crashes whatsoever. Perhaps one of my other files were crashing the game ?

Still wondering whats caused me to be able to drive 50 below the surface ?

But again thanks errol problem solved.

[Trent]

I compile the level.lol thru Trents Tools

Did you overwrite the level.lol with the CNT file or the level.cnt? If you did the former then that would be why it crashed.

I assume the sun.light you used previously was generated by Flummery? Errol says the old code generated lights which crash C:MD. It should still have worked in C:R though so if it didn't then I've got no idea what you were doing to it.

The reason why you could drive around below the level's surface is because you weren't physically beneth the level's surface, you were only visually beneath it. The game always positions the collision mesh for the level's root object at 0,0,0 regardless of the positions defined in the CNT. The mesh it renders, however, is positioned exactly where the CNT tells it to. This means if you do not have the root object in your CNT positioned at 0,0,0 then the mesh you drive on and the mesh you see will be in completely different positions. This is why I advised you to make a null node at 0,0,0 and make it the parent of the actual level.

[Errol]

I assume the sun.light you used previously was generated by Flummery? Errol says the old code generated lights which crash C:MD. It should still have worked in C:R though so if it didn't then I've got no idea what you were doing to it.

v0.3.7.5 was a horrid mess. I'll try to get v4.0 out this week. 99% less problems!

[Trent]

Flummery's got 99 problems and a glitch ain't one.

[starbuck]

I assume the sun.light you used previously was generated by Flummery? Errol says the old code generated lights which crash C:MD. It should still have worked in C:R though so if it didn't then I've got no idea what you were doing to it.

v0.3.7.5 was a horrid mess. I'll try to get v4.0 out this week. 99% less problems!

Most of the files were from previous maps like the Industrial map Trent created and TerntsTest map. I copied them over and never touched them.

When I was driving under the map The Models were at 0,0,0 even when I compiled the CNT files. If the models were labeled as position 0,0,0 Then I assume when I generate the CNT they would be listed as being at 0,0,0.

[Trent]

That would probably explain it, those were ancient and probably quite broken in themselves. If you want a map as reference then you should be looking at CityA from the pack I released for C:MD the other week. That is the most complete and up to date level.

Regarding driving under the map, are you referring to the version of the level which I looked at and gave you the instructions on? The mesh was not positioned at 0,0,0 in that, it was quite far away from the world origin.

[starbuck]

That would probably explain it, those were ancient and probably quite broken in themselves. If you want a map as reference then you should be looking at CityA from the pack I released for C:MD the other week. That is the most complete and up to date level.

Regarding driving under the map, are you referring to the version of the level which I looked at and gave you the instructions on? The mesh was not positioned at 0,0,0 in that, it was quite far away from the world origin.

Tired, cant remember but it did have the Center Point at the center of the model and the Pivot Point at 0,0,0. The Max files is in the posting I referenced the driving under the map in.

50 feet under was the closest I got to it and I had the level.lol at way above the map. Here is the link to all those files again. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4q2iopzm4pfov8e/partially%20working%20desert1.rar?dl=0. (including the race files.) So if you still have MAX you can see it.

[Trent]

I was going off the actual Level.cnt you had in the folder, not a source Max file, as the level.cnt had the issue and I was telling you how to fix it. I can tell you exactly what you did wrong now I've looked at the Max file though.

You're right the mesh in the Max file is positioned at 0,0,0, however it is not scaled up 6.9x and it does not have the pivot in the center of the mesh. What you did is you took that mesh, scaled it up to C:R/MD size and then hit Center To Object which made the object's pivot point end up at 285.561, 332.02, 58.189 in 3dsMax coordinates (as it is in the level.cnt file which I had been using to tell you what was wrong), which you then exported. This is why the mesh was being rendered in that position but the collision mesh was positioned at the origin. This is a result of doing things in the wrong order and not taking enough care to make sure what you're doing is correct at export time. I know how important that is from much experience not taking enough care and spending ages on an issue which ends up my own dumb fault for not doing something right!

I keep mentioning the null root node at 0,0,0 because it is always best have the root object as a null node at the world origin so you don't ever have to worry about these positioning issues causing shit to break. It's not required but it is advised.

[starbuck]

As I said I WAS doing something wrong , all I did was ask you to find it.

Forgive me for having a senior moment.

And as I said having it connected to the root object sometimes made nothing show up. The CNT file can have many mistakes if you dont have the updated MAX file saved in MAX before creating the CNT file.

EDIT HERE is one question that has never been asked and not answered. Why does the map disappear and you are still driving on it, and yet the camera swings around to the the rear view and you can see the map again ? Then you go forward again and it disappears again , etc ,etc , etc, but the visual map is there sometimes and not there the next (and you do not fall) ?

[Trent]

Sorry it looked like you were claiming you did everything correctly and what I was saying wasn't working, when what I was telling you to do for the last couple of pages was actually what would have fixed the problem I was giving the solution to.

If nothing was showing up then it was not related to connecting the main level mesh to a root object, it was due to doing something wrong. My best guess is either you didn't actually connect the mesh to the root object and just exported a CNT containing just the root node and not the level; or you didn't click Setup Hierarchy in the Tools tab on the mesh so it wasn't actually configured for export. The export scripts don't act differently "sometimes", they will always export exactly the same files if you export the same objects. If they sometimes export things incorrectly then that means sometimes it is not set up correctly. I would advise you to download CUNT and use that to inspect your CNT files when you have problems. It will allow you to look at the structure of the CNT, make sure all the objects are there in the correct hierarchy, check their positions, check the type of node an object is and see if they are referring to the correct MDL or Light files. It saves a lot of guess work when debugging these problems.

And, no, whether you have saved the MAX file or not has absolutely no impact on the CNT file which is exported. The scripts work entirely on the active scene currently in memory and they don't have any awareness of MAX files at all. If a CNT file has "mistakes" then, again, it is because something was done wrong. There's no magic going on here, the exporter will grab the selected object, write it's data to the CNT file, loop over the object's children, write their data to the CNT and repeat all the way down the hierarchy. If an object is not in that hierarchy then it will not be included in the CNT. If the object is not set up with a CNT Hierarchy modifier to tell it what to type of node it is then it will be treated as a null node. That's all there is to it, it exports exactly what you tell it to export.

We are trying our best to help you. It is quite difficult to help when you argue that what we are suggesting doesn't work or causes strange things to happen even after we do exactly what we are suggesting for you and demonstrate that it works. Instead of arguing that what we are telling you is wrong, you need to accept that what we are saying is correct and accept that if you have problems then either you are doing something wrong when trying to follow our instructions or the problem is caused by something else entirely. It's best to take your time to carefully explain exactly what is happening and exactly what you did to get to that point instead of making incorrect assumptions about what you did, what you think is wrong and what you think the cause of the problem is. We can only go on what you're telling us and if what you're telling us isn't what you actually did or what is actually happening then we can't easily help. Help us to help you.

Regarding the "disappearing" map, that's related to the broken bounding box calculation I was talking about before. If a model's bounding box is outside of the camera's frustum then the game won't render it as it shouldn't be visible. The broken calculation means that in some cases the mesh will actually go outside the bounding box, hence it turns invisible when the camera is in a certain position. Having the pivot point in the center of the mesh should work around the bug in the exporter, but here is the latest version of the CRExport.ms which has the fixed calculation if you want to give that a try: https://pastebin.com/raw/x4X9U2fF

I really need to release an updated version of the entire script pack but it's quite a mess right now with debug shit all over the place and most of the big new features (ped/driver animations, SKIN exporting, level routes, ped placement etc.) aren't in the UI to them so they can only be used by typing commands in th correct order into the console at the moment which is less than user friendly!

[starbuck]

No worries, I just typed a response out of reflex. It would be GREAT if you could make a tutorial for your scripts.

I will read that long post later but thank you for suggesting CUNT. I was looking for a script that could read all the positioning data back to me.

I accept what you say is correct but I dont understand it. I dont remember calling you wrong but I do remember telling you what you are suggesting doesnt always work or I am not understanding it. This whole "positioning" is very difficult when you are talking about CNT files and MDL files etc, especially when one day I remember something and the next day I forget, I am trying to do just ONE thing in life where I can feel I accomplished something, and feel as if I succeeded.

Trust me I know you are WAY smarter than I ever was back in my "day" Now Almost everyday its like "Here I go again I fucked up again." Mostly because of memory problems. Not pointing the finger at you, its just a part of getting OLDer. Sadly my wife has to deal with it a little and I know you have to deal with it a LOT because of my posts and because of my misunderstanding of what you call "not rocket science". But I just am trying real hard to understand, and glad its not in a chatroom cause you would be probably throwing chairs :P

PS I recently sent you a PM , you dont have to accept what I said in the PM just offering my hand in gratitude. Reason I talk here in this forum is for other people to also learn your words of wisdom :D

EDIT BTW I AM doing exactly as you say but when for example Max moves the center when I resize, how can I know that when I barely use Max ? Its very hard for me to go thru such repetitive steps over and over and forget where I left off. And now I am at a point where I lose track for example if I made a ZIP using Minge and forget if I did that 30 seconds later so I zip it up again and later I forget again. But thats a me issue and I admit that. When I hit a hurdle all thoughts and memories go out the window.

Without looking at my PC setup and concentrating on typing I assume I just over write the CRExport.ms file in the Reincarnation tools folder ?

Thanks again for that detailed response. I hope that at this post I made, made some sense. This was typed on one of my "good days" a couple hours after I ate a good meal.

PS I am glad that the student version of Max is free cause I would hate to pay over 2 grand for software I cant even earn correctly.

[starbuck]

Thanks a TON Trent for mentioning the CUNT program.

At first I was falling thru the sky again even though MAX told me the level.CNT was at 0,0,0. CUNT said it was at 0,0,0.00000017. All I did in CUNT was retype that last number to be zero, save the CNT file over again and my map showed up perfectly.

EDIT Even MORE Thanks a ton I have been able to flow thru working these broken maps easier. I thought the "canter to object" was to move the objects center and boy was I wrong. Most of them I just need to drop the map a bit lower or type up a new level.lol file.

In my spare time I have worked thru half the broken maps. And thanks to Errol I can easily find "newer" missing textures in Flummery and get a preview of what they look like in Plaything 2

[starbuck]

OK another odd question. How do I make a map so it doesnt come up with flashing purple polygons ? I solved it a week ago, some way by accident in one of the city maps. So how do I do it again ?

Tried Flummery, gibbed tools, importing a folder with TIFs, copying PNGs to the main folder...

Thanks.

EDIT Oh Hell I am getting so old I forgot C1 ran in a different setup than C2. Editing both sets of PIX files now for the regular and the splat pack.

Update you in a few days, too many projects going on right now. Gotta do that IWANTTOFIDDLE etc etc etc.

EDIT I changed one texture in MAX now ALL of them are flashing purple. So much for that post I read about missing textures or something.