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Author Topic: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."  (Read 4291 times)

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Offline zonker3210

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Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« on: 09 May 2009, 19:55:03 »
First I tried following Opteryx's tutorial in the BI Studios forums. Then I found Allie's tutorials here on OFPEC. In both cases, I'm stuck at the same point...when I try using the "Import satellite and mask..." function, the Visitor editor crashes. I think I've done everything correctly but I really have no idea. One thing I do know is that my terrain needs to be smoothed out a bit (it's very jagged/hilly). I plan to worry about that later...for now I just want to get the import working and see what happens afterward.

Assuming someone can help with this, what information is needed? If need be, I suppose I could offer a download link for the project (complete contents of both Data and Source folders) so that someone can download it and look over the actual project files to troubleshoot the issue.

Any constructive suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Offline Gnat

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #1 on: 10 May 2009, 06:51:13 »
Hi zonker
- Can you see your terrain in Buldozer?
- What size is your mask and sat files
- Have you counted the number of colours in your Mask file
- Have you tried with an alternative 1 colour mask
- Does the RGB colours in your mask match the layer file
- What terrain tile files (and layer file) have you got set up

Paste a copy of you layer file.

Offline zonker3210

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #2 on: 11 May 2009, 07:27:48 »
Hello, Gnat. Thanks for the quick response. Here are the answers to your questions...

- Can you see your terrain in Buldozer? Yes, I can see it without a problem.
- What size is your mask and sat files Both are 10240x10240 pixels.
- Have you counted the number of colours in your Mask file If I'm correctly reading the information displayed by the GIMP image editor, I used four colors.
- Have you tried with an alternative 1 colour mask No, I never thought of trying that. Should I just create a single image made up of one single color without any terrain outline?
- Does the RGB colours in your mask match the layer file Yes, they do.
- What terrain tile files (and layer file) have you got set up I'm using rvmat and paa files extracted from some existing terrains - saralite and avgani, I believe. I did rename the files so that it'd be easier to tell at a glance what they contain.

Paste a copy of you layer file. Here it is...

Code: [Select]
class Layers
{

class desert1
{
   texture = "ca\korengal\data\desert1_mco.paa";
   material="ca\korengal\data\desert1.rvmat";
};

class browngrass1
{
   texture = "ca\korengal\data\browngrass1_mco.paa";
   material="ca\korengal\data\browngrass1.rvmat";
};

class grit1
{
   texture = "ca\korengal\data\grit1_mco.paa";
   material="ca\korengal\data\grit1.rvmat";
};

class mud1
{
   texture = "ca\korengal\data\mud1_mco.paa";
   material="ca\korengal\data\mud1.rvmat";
};

};

class Legend
{
picture="ca\korengal\source\mapLegend.png";
class Colors
{
   /// color names should correspond to surface layer names
   browngrass1[]={{255,255,0}};
   grit1[]={{0,255,0}};
   desert1[]={{99,55,0}};
   mud1[]={{0,0,255}};
}
};

Please let me know if additonal information might be helpful. Thanks again for your help!

Offline Planck

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #3 on: 11 May 2009, 09:59:32 »
You should not have your island and its associated files inside BI's namesapace (ca).

Presumably you have the workspace P:\
Inside P:\ you will have P:\ca, which will contain essential and needed game files that will be needed so you can reference them.

Your island should also rest inside P:\
So you would have P:\YourIsland\.....inside which will be all files related to this island.
The texture paths inside your layers.cfg will then need to be edited so they point to this location.

I'm not saying this will solve any particular problem, but putting projects inside P:\ca is not correct, projects should sit in P: root the same way ca does.

P:\
    ca\ ......this will contain all the game files you wish from the game that will be referenced by your projects
    korenga1\ ......an island project
    OtherIsland\ .....another island project
    PinkFairies\ .....some other project
    ....  etc

Apart from that your layers file is syntactically correct.

You do have the png files in your projects data folder I presume, I say this because for some strange reason your layers folder is looking for the .paa versions instead of the png ones.
My layers files always list .png and not .paa.
Although buldozer cannot use png files and immediately converts them to .paa equivalents when you first view the island after importing your sat and mask, it is required that the png files are still there for when it comes to packing so that your packing pipeline can find them and convert for packing.

The process to import sat and mask images requires that buldozer is NOT running, the layers file lists png and not .paa.
Once the import has finished, you can THEN start buldozer, which will immediately make .paa versions of all the .png files in the Layers folder.



Planck
« Last Edit: 12 May 2009, 01:00:10 by Planck »
I know a little about a lot, and a lot about a little.

Offline zonker3210

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #4 on: 11 May 2009, 19:11:37 »
Planck,

Thanks for the info. I double-checked my copy of Allie's tutorials and the folder structure I used is correct....according to the tutorial, at least. If you look at page 2 of the second tutorial, the instructions are to create the project/island folder directly under the CA folder....

Quote
So in the CA folder you create your island folder, to keep it simple  I called mine like the island is really called: ANTIKYTHIRA.

As far as the textures are concerned, I used PAA files since the textures were already in that format when I extracted them from existing terrains. I did, however, download the sample map from BI Studios and try using the PNG texture files from there....no luck. Visitor still crashes.

Also, while looking at the LAYER.CFG file provided in the sample map I noticed that the sample is also intended to exist under the CA folder. For example, here's an excerpt from the LAYER.CFG...

Code: [Select]
  class travajih
  {
    texture = "ca\SampleMap\data\travajih_mco.png";
    material="ca\SampleMap\data\travajih.rvmat";
  };

Whatever I do, Visitor crashes. I'm sure I'm making a simple mistake somewhere but...

Offline Planck

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #5 on: 12 May 2009, 02:16:11 »
It makes perfect sense for BI to reference their own namespace when pointing to their own sampleisland files.

The tutorial is in error to suggest you use the ca namespace to place your project, this may cause you problems later.

For example the rvmats in your projects data folder reference ca\samplemap\data for the terrain files, but you already have these files sitting in your projects data folder anyway.
The reference will work ok until you manage to get your island in-game, then you will find your terrain is all white because it cannot find a place called samplemap\data anywhere in the game.
This is why you should reference these files from your own projects data folder by editing the rvmats to point there for them.

This is not the reason btw that your import is failing, it fails for me too, I suspect either the terrain, the terrain format and cell size or the sat and mask files.

I will attempt to substitute different image files on your terrain to test it.


Planck
I know a little about a lot, and a lot about a little.

Offline zonker3210

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #6 on: 12 May 2009, 04:28:17 »
Okay, that makes sense to me, Planck. Thanks for taking the time to explain how the folders/namespaces work.

As for the terrain itself, I suppose I could start with a really simple terrain (perhaps a perfectly square island) with very limited elevation changes...maybe that'd help me identify the source of the issues. As far as I know, I followed Allie's tutorials exactly, though. I dunno. Any suggestions for fixing the issue would be greatly appreciated.

One thing that I'm not altogether clear on is...how do most people create the textures files? For example, I originally used PAA files extracted from existing terrain models. That didn't work so I tried using PNG files from BI Studio's sample map project. As far as I can tell, that hasn't helped, either. I'm wondering if most people just make custom textures themselves or if they're getting pre-made ones from somewhere.

Anyhow, thanks again for taking the time to look over the project. I do appreciate the help!

Offline Planck

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #7 on: 12 May 2009, 05:31:25 »
Fix for your problem is simple.

I got it working, all you need to do is make sure your sat and mask images are of the same colour depth, in this case I made sure both were of 16 million colours.


Planck
I know a little about a lot, and a lot about a little.

Offline zonker3210

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #8 on: 12 May 2009, 07:32:04 »
Dude, you rock. Seriously, there is no way I would have found that issue or even recognized it as such.

I just used GIMP to convert both images to the same color depth, ran the sat/mask import and it worked! I then fired up Bulldozer and while the map has an oddly-colored checker board pattern (I must pay more attention to the sat/mask files, I guess), things have started to come together quite nicely.

Thank you so very much!

Offline Planck

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #9 on: 12 May 2009, 12:44:45 »
You're welcome.   :cool2:


Planck
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Offline Gnat

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Re: Visitor crash at "Import satellite and mask..."
« Reply #10 on: 14 May 2009, 14:21:21 »
Glad Planck fixed you. (I've been away for work again)