schleicher on 29/10/2015 at 22:56

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Hi

I have here a strange problem:

All worked fine, till I deleted an Solid-Brush (this brush was
already a long time there).

Then, after "complete processing", the 3-D-View showed only wireframe. And sometimes, not
everytime, I see a red warning:

----------- cut -------------

ERROR: error occurred in the proximity of 502. 318. 426.
ERROR: SplitPortalPolyhedronByPlane: polyhedron didn't cross plane

ERROR: portalization failed, no WR was generated (try to locate and
tweak problematic location or brush)

----------- cut -------------


I located an air-brush. If I delete that Brush or move it far away from
its position, then all is ok. But if I move that brush (or create a new one)
an place it into a certain range around the "problematic" position, I have
the problem again.

But in this area there is nothing ! No overlapping elements etc.

And 502. 318. 426 is far away from the magic-position 0,0,0
and far away from the world-boundary.

Has anyone an Idea, what could be up here ?

LarryG on 30/10/2015 at 00:39

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Take a look at the geometry near the indicated location (502., 318., 426.). Odds are you have one brush which is getting intersected by a large number of other brushes. There's a limit that DromEd has for the number of intersections that a single brush may have (IIRC it's 32, but I could be wrong) In any event, often you can just split the offending into two or more adjoining pieces and the problem will go away.

Whenever you get a "no WR was generated" message, take it seriously and follow the advice: "... locate and tweak problematic location or brush". Fortunate for you the prior error tells you where to look. You are dead in the water until you fix this.

schleicher on 30/10/2015 at 18:54

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Thanks for the answers. I can confirm, what Yandros said: Even error-messages,
that seems to make no sense will go away, after other bugs are solved.

My experience: It seems, if there are too much mistakes and one ignore that
("I will care about that later..") one mistake will mask other mistakes. And
then DromEd gets "messed-up". I repaired all demurred brushes. But a certain
Air-Brush caused still the red alert that I mentioned above (ERROR: error
occurred in the proximity of 502. 318. 426.)

I simply moved the Brush to another position and made "Complete Processing":
All was ok.

Then I moved that Brush back to its old position, and then again "Complete Processing".
So absolutely same situation again !

But all is ok now.

It seems, this Brush was falsely recognized as problem, because DromEd was
messed-up because of too many problems. And DromEd stored that information
"This certain Brush is a problem" and cared no longer about it.

But since I changed the position of that Brush, DromEd had the first time
a closer look after a longer time, where it simply "remembered", that the Brush
is a problem.

I hope, my english is not too bad, to make my thoughts clear.


What I've learned (and this is a question too):

1. Repair problems instantly; don't move it to a later time.
2. You cannot trust every DromEd-error-message. Sometimes DromEd
stumbles over his own feet and confused itself and you as well.

3. Even if such strange things happened, the mission-file is ok, after
the problems are solved and no other error-messages appear.

I hope, the latter point is the case. Or can it happen, that a mission-file
is that much messed-up, that it would be better, to start the project "new" from
an earlier backup? I mean NOT, that there is too much to repair. I mean, could
it be, that DromEd itself "destroys" a mission-file, so that it would make
no sense, to continue working with that file ?

This last point is very important, I think.

LarryG on 30/10/2015 at 20:34

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World Representation

If your brushes cannot be processed to result in valid geometry, then you get the WR Failed message. Simplistically, you can think of the thief world rep as a complex 3d solid object which is the result of applying boolean operations on the brushes in a time sequenced order. If any of those operations fails, then you don't get a valid world rep. Having too many intersections on a single brush can cause the WR to fail.

LarryG on 31/10/2015 at 23:09

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Do not ignore error messages! Investigate and fix as soon as possible. Make a habit of watching and reviewing monolog after every portalize, room build, AI room build, complete processing, etc.. An error means something is wrong that can destroy your mission. A warning means something is non-standard which might destroy your mission. Hunt down and resolve everything written to monolog. You may decide to live on the wildside and ignore a specific warning that you have looked into and decided that everything is OK, but only do so after you have made certain that you understand the warning and are certain that all is fine. The longer you delay fixing the situations giving the errors and warnings, the harder it will be to fix them, as you won't remember what you did to cause them. That's why it is so important to monitor monolog.

Also, save frequently with a new name each time so that you will have backups that you can use to restart from if you totally screw up your mission. I like to use a base name, followed by a rolling 3 digit number, followed by an alpha character. Every day that I work in dromed gets a new 3 digit number, and every save that day gets a new alpha. For example, Miss23_192h.cow is the 8th save on the 192nd day that I worked on Mission 23. Use whatever naming convention floats your boat, but be sure to save early and save often.

It is possible that you have done things which are bloody hard to undo and thus force you to abandon a mission build & restart from an earlier save. In the bad old days before new dark, anything which destroyed the world rep caused a crash and you lost everything done after your last prior save. With NewDark, there is no crash and you get a chance to fix your screw-up. I have never heard of an instance where an author did everything right and NewDark destroyed the author's work out of malice (or whatever). Maybe New dark doesn't hold your hand and keep you from making every possible mistake you can make, but if you pay attention, it will warn you about your stupidities as you go.