Map2Dif Errors and solutions : Feedback

#21 Your right about mitreing and thanks for the tip. That helps get rid of some problems.

I actually I found the problem with a lot of leaks. When you add items like molding to the bottom of walls or around doorways it causes light to illuminate from the moldings in long straight lines. This happens even on walls that don't directly touch an exterior wall. See the screen shot. The picture shows modling moved away from the wall to see how the light emanates from the molding. The molding is a structural brush not a detail brush.


In regards to the portal I want light to pass through because they cover windows and holes. Holes that allow the player to enter. I tried setting the portal to a null texture but that didn't do anything.

#22 Those features should be details brushes, keep structural brushed for main walls. The problem there is that your frame is dividing the floor into more structural brushes and they pick the lighting up from wierd places. To see if its that move the bottom of those brushes off the floor by 2 units and see if the anomolies dissapear, if they do, make them detail.

#23 I made those details (Added some more functionality to my parsee) and some of it went away, others I can't figure out. I will look into this some more and see how it goes. I still have to remove my miters and other brush oddities that I found.

One last question... I hope. Is it better to have the walls on top of the floor or the floor butt up to the wall? In other words, if you were looking at the outside of the structure should you see the side of the floors? Or should the floors be contained inside the exterior walls?

Thanks for your help, I hope I'm not taking too much time. But I figure these are some good questions for your document.

#24 The vast majority of my lights are seperate USL from the lighting pack. I prefer (usually) to not include any lights in my dif itself. I also don't get these wierd problems you guys get.
Just something to consider....

#25

Quote:I hope. Is it better to have the walls on top of the floor or the floor butt up to the wall?

To be honest I don't think it makes a real difference. It depends on how you do your texturing and how tight you want the model. You seem to get similar light leaks no matter which way you do the walls,

#26 I have a question about detail polys.

Will having the vast majority of your pollies set as details increase the amount of buildings you can place within the TGE itself before the performance begins to lag?

#27 @Kjell:

No: If all the polies were set to detail you would have worse performance than if they were set up in the manner that they are meant to be used.

If most of your extra details are set as detail brushes, but the core structure is not, then it will speed up performance.

It takes a bit of finesse on the part of the artist to know when and when not to use detail to best effect. Look at the reports on number of surfaces being generated by map2dif when you are experimenting with this, and look at your interiors in debug render mode. You'll start to get a feeling for how to best use detail brushes in your maps.

#28 I have a question, and this seems like just the place to ask it. I'm tryin to take a .qrk file and make a small change to it, i just want to move some table legs in and delete one poly, and then re-export it as a dif for use in a game. i did not make the map, it was made by someone else and now i am being asked to make this small change as my first real project with quark. i know that the guy who made it in the first place got it to export, 'cuz i've played the game. but when i try to export it after making my changes, i get an error that says 'error: div by zero attempted' i use the method suggested in that book, 3d game prgramming all in one, where you first export just the .map file, then export just the .dif file, and also prepare used textures. i've not seen this error on any of the maps i've created myself or any of the other ones i've opened and edited. plus, when i open the map file i exported as the first part of the process, i get a message saying there are 44 broken polyhedrons, and 117 broken polyhedron faces, what does that mean!? and there's all kinds of blue planes floating around the map. anyway, i'm kinda being asked to fix this as soon as i can, so if someone has experienced this and knows what to do, i'd really appreciate it, thanks.

#29 @James:

First thing to do is oopen the original file and see if that compiles on its own.

If it does, chances are you are deleteing a face, not a brush when editing the table. Under the command menu, find search for broken polys and faces and delte them, then check if the map compiles. If ot does you will probably have lighting problems and be in a world of trouble, but if your lucky, that should fix it.

#30 Nice to see Quarkers unite! :) Could someone please explain to me what lightmaps are? Are they connected with "increase light geometry" and if so, what would be the effect of changing the value there?
Also, I have a map with a tunnel in it which is made via a path duplicator that has two portals - one at each end and it exports fine giving me the zones I need...however, after disassociating path entities (so that I can properly texture the tunnel) my zones dissapear without making any other changes at all. Any ideas?

#31 Still hoping for some help here...I think I got the zoning figured but what are lightmaps?

#32 Lightmaps
Lightmaps are images that have the lighting and shading information baked into them. They affect how each area of the map/texture is lighted/darkened depending on the lights set up in the map whilst editing.
The Lightscale in the QuArK worldspawn entity sets how much detail is put into the lightmap

#33 Thanks...where are the lightmaps stored and how does one use them? I read the modeler's guide that John included in the Lighting Pack and he mentiones that "All textures have been lit with this lightmap:" and the pic is below. Would I use a png or jpeg that looks like that pic with my textures in Photoshop or does it go into Quark somehow? Also, if I use only USL from the LP and no lights in Quark at all, how do lightmaps apply? I appreciate the help!

#34 I am talking off base here, that is, I don't really know but I think the lightmaps are stored in the dif as bitmaps. If you have no light entities and are using radiosity or USL, the information is still baked into the lightmap. I guess that the LP does this in real time.
That bit in the LP documentation is not very clear, hes on about overlaying that inside your image editor (photoshop, paint shop pro) to give a varied light effect I think.

#35

Fatal: (c:\torque\tools\map2dif\morianutil.cc @ 772)
Error, too many solid nodes affecting poly. Plase ask DMoore to increase the allowed number!

Thanks DMoore.... I can't figure out what this is, i've increased the default number from 96 to 512 and it still whines (Assuming that the number had some reference to powers of 2, like 64 plus 32, I slowly progressed up the ladder to get there and just gave up). What could cause this? I added a bunch of detail railings to my level and that would be the only thing I could think of caused it.

#36 @F B I S Thanks, I just wanted to see if it's something that I would have control over, since there was that pic in the modeler's guide. I am sure I'll come upon the answer, if what you said isn't right on.

#37 @jonathan: are those detail railings, detail brushes? There is a solid limit about the number of planes a brush can have, I think its 32. If you have a brush that is divided into more faces than that, it will not work properly. Try these two options, try 1 then compile, if that doesn't work try 2 and compile. If it isn't the railings, i'd look at any fancy geometry with faces that have more the 4 sides, copy those objects into a folder, ignore from build until you find the error.

1. Change those detail railings to detail brushes
2. Move the railing into a new folder, right click on the folder and select 'ignore to build'

#38 @fruitbat: on of the issues in my notes was this error message:

Parsing mapfile...Error processing entity brushlist on or near line: ./maps/out.map: 17Error parsing map file: ./maps/out.map

which happens when you get to feed non-valve220 format to map2dif.

#39 Hey guys. Since this seems to be the place to talk portals i have something for ya. Take a look here and look at the last pic down at the bottom. You can plainly see where the portal is. I need some suggestions on how to fix that problem. That window is some non-optimal angles for leakage.

Was thinking i might be able to sorta wrap a portal around the outcropped windows. Think this could work? Could really use some help on this one guys.

Thanks.

#40 IT is not QuArK that stops you doing complicated portals, its map2dif. The problem with the area inside a portal brush being a different light is a common problem. As far as I am aware there is no workaround. The portal itself does not need to be complicated, less portal brushes is better. They tell torque which sections of a map can be zoned off. Putting a portal brush in every pain of glass in a latticed window would be bad practice. Just dragging the brush through the whole window is correct.
On those windows you should have 3 portals, I covering each latticed window. The best option is to put the portal OUTSIDE the lattice on the exterior, the light difference will not be as strong then.

Quote: If you try to walk up em the engine just kicks you back down.

This is usually due to there not being enough room for your characters bounding box or the step height being too high.