Spline problem

[Fixer]

Sounds like it's the gate you are using? I had to manually adjust all the "vectors" in the .scn to use the MXU gates for the  MXU remakes Laurie & I did.

[JvdL]

Hmm, have anymore info on what exactly to change then please?

I tried rotating it, as it was completely off in the begining. When the gate was supposed to be up, it was kissing the floor, when it dropped, it would stand up.

This didn't change the bike/rider posistion though. That stayed the same through the whole process.

Thanks in advance!

John

[mcm2boys]

Sorry John

i remember seeing the problem but i don't remember what the solution was. It may have been something to do with the TOY file, [dropgate] settings but i really don't know..

You'll need fixer for this i think..


Laurie

[Fixer]

I assume you are using a MXU gate? I never came up with a formula to reset the angles because it depended on the direction it was facing relative to the map. You do need to change the amount of rotation to 90 degrees instead of 60. This will get the bike's wheel off the gate (toy file). If it's not dropping  in the right direction then it gets a little more complicated.
It's been so long since I did those I forgot about what I did but I think I could do it again if I had to. You basically have to flip some of the up and look values. It's easier if the gate is facing exactly N,S,E or West.

[JvdL]

I'm just using the stock  MVA gate at the moment. And the problem only occures when riding with bikes, all other vehicles just line up like they should.

The gate is facing directly North (Upwards on the displacement map).

I'll give it a shot though and let you know what the result is as soon as I have some.

Thanks again.

John

[JvdL]

Seem editing the terrain to something more flat fixed the problem with the floating front wheel.

Thanks again for the advice.

[hotshotzig]

I need some help.... i got the spline from editor and its in ue2 but it wont let me move it... how do i fix that!?!

[hotshotzig]

...ive edited each node indivudally so it lines up with the track but now when i go to save it give me the error floating point divsion by error

[mcm2boys]

There's a help file in the zip for UE2 which should tell you how to do most things in UE2. I think you already found out how to move the spline points so i won't go into that now, except to say you can move all 3pts in a node instead of just 1 pt at a time by holding down the CTRL key.

I'm afraid the divide by zero error is a bug, are you trying to save the whole track when this error happens or just export the spline? I think it is caused by messing with the sections - like deleting pts in a section. I would like to hear what you did before trying to save to help me work out where the bug is if you have the time..

You might want to try exporting the spline if you haven't but my guess is that you will get the same error again.


To save a lot of time moving pts you could use the spline scaling function. Since I'm guessing you're making  a HD track, put all the DispMap tiles together in photoshop, and shrink the smallest square area that covers you're whole track down to 257x257 (make a note of the percentage of the shrinking because you'll need to use that to scale it back up later in UE2), then save the TGA file.

Import this shrunk dispmap into the RBW editor, and plot out your spline ( adding extra points to allow for the spline to get bigger in UE2 and still give you some extra to play with if you need to later.

Export the spline file from the RBW editor and import it into UE2. Then scale it by 100 / shrink percentage, to get it back to full size for the actual track. You will also need to shift it across and up/down to put it exactly over the track area.

Because if the way this method works in UE2 it's less likely to cause errors like you got..

Laurie

[no27]

having problems with getting the drop gate to show up in game! any ideas?
Also wondering what this option is for?

[yFMX]

It's the distance for objects placing. For the bales, for example, you place the first one then each time you click to place a bale the next bale will be at the same distance from the last one you placed.

[mcm2boys]

Hey 27

Like yFMX said it's a distance multiplier for automatic object placement. It's multiplied by the size of the object and controls how far away from the last object the next one is placed. So set to 1 = the exact length of the object, 1.5 = 1 1/2 times the length etc..

For fences you want it set to 1 or just a little less so that they join up, for bales a little more so you don't get the exploding bale effect when 1 of them is hit..

Depending on which axis was used to model the object you might also need to click the 1/4 turn button, you'll know when you need that because you're objects will be placed side by side instead of end to end..

The Dropgate placement is a bug, UE2 doesn't add the object to the SCN file like it should which is why it doesn't appear, I also need to add support for the EndGate object..

No27 wasn't there some more text in your post, i was in the middle of replying to it yesterday and my laptop crashed. This is something like what i was writing.

I understand your frustration and i wish that UE2 was more stable, but it just hasn't had the use and testing it needs to knock the bugs out of it. I think i have some bug fixes in the version i am working on that will sort out some of the problems that you talked about. There is no multiple spline point selection and that might take a while to put in. But i have improved the spline editing and i hope made it more stable buidling new splines. I have been trying to get DispMap importing working but it's a pretty big job and it's taking longer than i hoped so probably won't make the next version.

Thanks for your feedback, i don't mind criticism so there was no need to delete your comments, in fact without it i can't fix what's wrong with UE2 because i just don't get the time to test by making tracks so the bugs creep in..

If you have trouble with the spline still send me the TDF and i will take a look..

Sorry i didn't get back to you sooner but time isn't always my friend.

Laurie

[Garasaki]

If I may, my biggest frustration right now with UE2 is that it will crash while you are manipulating spline points.

It's hard to pinpoint what causes the crash, it will just suddenly happen while you are working your way thru your track.

When making multi tile or even standard style HD tracks the math dosen't seem to work out on the scaling procedure as easily as it should, so I often end up having to move each node on the track at least a little bit.  If it weren't for the crashes, it would only take a few minutes to do....

[mcm2boys]

Ok thanks for letting me know i'll take a look at it. Just so i can try to reproduce the error, it crashes while you are dragging the point? Is it random or do you have to drag a few points or the same pt more than once?


Have you got some examples of the maths not working out, i can take a look at that as well.. 


Laurie

[no27]

Ok thanks for letting me know i'll take a look at it. Just so i can try to reproduce the error, it crashes while you are dragging the point? Is it random or do you have to drag a few points or the same pt more than once?


Have you got some examples of the maths not working out, i can take a look at that as well.. 


Laurie

lol Hey mate! i was getting a bit carried away so i deleted it...but on the subject that crash seem's to happen when you try to make you spline in a rush and miss the nodes its like uetoo has an epileptic fit lol.

[Garasaki]

Yeah it's a nasty little error.  cntl alt delete ftw!!

Maybe no27 has it right, maybe it's when you try to grab a node and miss.

Otherwise it just happens when I'm tryign to move individual nodes (by node, I mean one of the 3 points that makes up what you would probably call a spline node).

Whilst I'm bug reporting, if you load up a disp map and texture into RBW on both the perimeter tile and main tile, then open the project in UE2 and export those 2 tiles out, the perimeter tile will export with the correct displacement map and the the wrong texture - it takes the texture of the main tile.

PS Your program is awesome Laurie, thanks a bunch.

[Nikhil]

There's an easier way to do splines for HD. You can move splines off the tile in RBW editor and still have them read ingame. So import one tile, spline it, then import the 2nd tile, move the spline off the tile and continue it, etc.

I actually create different tiles for splining that have overlap in them, so I can position the spline over an already splined area... If that makes sense :p . Once you've splined the track, be sure you change the terrain scale back to whatever you had it at, and export the track. Then just grab the spline out of the pak.

[Garasaki]

Hmmm

Frankly that was a bit confusing but I think I get the gist of what you are saying.  I'll have to try that.

[Nikhil]

Basically, you can move the spline off track and still have it be read by MVA. Just get the spline lined up each time you move it.

I've uploaded an example of this here: http://nn.nsquared.googlepages.com/Offtilesplineexample.rar