BigZapArc freezes Thief 2 on TurnOn

john9818a on 25/1/2016 at 04:31

I have several BigZapArc objects in my mission. If I start the mission with them active they work fine, but if I start with them off and try to turn them on Thief freezes my pc and I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to get out of it. The same BigZapArc objects work fine in Dromed though. btw I am using a new bitmap which is basically the same as the blue zap except that it is red and is named zapp. The bitmaps are 8 bit PCX just like the original zap bitmaps.

This is the configuration I am using:

Inline Image:

http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a555/jdenison1/Clipboard01_zpsjdyibrvb.jpg

Inline Image:

http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a555/jdenison1/Clipboard02_zpsgmeib1h5.jpg

Inline Image:

http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a555/jdenison1/Clipboard03_zps87z7islj.jpg

I tried using a BigZapArc with the default settings and it works fine.

Any ideas?

LarryG on 25/1/2016 at 04:38

My only idea is to change only one parameter from the default at a time. When you find which change causes the issue, undo it.

Yandros on 25/1/2016 at 05:33

Before going through that trouble, I would try saving as PNG first and make sure your image editing program isn't doing something odd in the PCX headers that Dark doesn't like. There's really no reason to use PCX any more. Ever.

john9818a on 25/1/2016 at 20:53

Changing to PNG would be the quickest to try but I'll try yours Larry if changing format doesn't work.

R Soul on 25/1/2016 at 22:59

Make sure you have all the right files in place. The game assumes bitmaps are animated, so you have to have a base image (to show in the editor) and frame 1 in one of the txt subfolders. In your case bitmap\zapp.pcx and bitmap\txt16\zapp00.pcx (or .png or .gif or even .dds if you want to be fancy).

john9818a on 25/1/2016 at 23:55

IIRC there were four, one in bitmap as zapp.pcx and three in bitmap\txt as zapp00.pcx, zapp01.pcx, and zapp02.pcx.

In a test I can start the mission with the particles on and I can even turn it off. Once I turn it on again Thief freezes. I substituted my zapp with the original zap and it still froze, so I don't think it is bitmap related. That was last night. Now I'm going to revert the effect back to default and change each parameter until it freezes.

voodoo47 on 26/1/2016 at 00:07

make sure there are no non-power of two textures.

john9818a on 26/1/2016 at 02:13

I changed a few of the parameters starting with bounding box and orientation and it still didn't crash. I did however find the culprit when I changed the number of particles from 60 to 360. Maybe that was too many. Anyway the lower number did not reduce the visual effect by much.