ZoneManagers are only allowed to belong to one and only one zone
by Ulf Maagaard · in Torque Game Engine · 11/25/2005 (6:37 am) · 6 replies
I know this error message has been up before. Searching the forum, I get several threads relating to the same problem, but because of the division of the forum, I cannot access these threads. Even though this problem does appear in TGE.
So, I'll ask it again:
Why does the following message appear:
ZoneManagers are only allowed to belong to one and only one zone!
It clearly relates to buildings and somehow overlapping zones or zonemanagers.
Searching the code, it appears in SceneGraph::findZone, with the following comment:
// Since there is no zone information maintained by the sceneGraph
// any more, this is quite brain-dead. Maybe fix this? DMM
Anyone has an idea of what to make of this?
So, I'll ask it again:
Why does the following message appear:
ZoneManagers are only allowed to belong to one and only one zone!
It clearly relates to buildings and somehow overlapping zones or zonemanagers.
Searching the code, it appears in SceneGraph::findZone, with the following comment:
// Since there is no zone information maintained by the sceneGraph
// any more, this is quite brain-dead. Maybe fix this? DMM
Anyone has an idea of what to make of this?
#3
GG: Do you have any plans of recategorizing forum threads like the above, given it deals with the mentioned problem, and that you agree on this problem relating to TGE?
12/04/2005 (10:35 am)
Gonzo: When you only own a TGE license, you do not have access to that thread.GG: Do you have any plans of recategorizing forum threads like the above, given it deals with the mentioned problem, and that you agree on this problem relating to TGE?
#4
@gonzo or someone w/ access to whatever forum that is,
could you vet that potential solution for TGE okay-ness and copy it here ?
12/15/2005 (11:09 am)
Bump, we're suddenly getting this as well, TGE 1.3.@gonzo or someone w/ access to whatever forum that is,
could you vet that potential solution for TGE okay-ness and copy it here ?
#5
If this describes your problem, then the information below probably applies:
and finally:
Based on this discussion (thanks John Kabus and Desmond Fletcher!), the root cause is most likely having interiors placed extremely tightly together, and when the mission loads Torque is trying to optimize the zone mangers and causing issues. It's best to make sure you are running DEBUG builds whenever possible so you get the appropriate asserts that warn about issues such as this.
12/15/2005 (11:19 am)
Apropos information from that thread:Quote:
If i am in the external zone, no problem. Once i walk into one of the portaled zones the error starts hitting.
In sceneGraph.cc it hits: SceneGraph::scopeScene
In sceneTraversal it hits: SceneGraph::buildSceneTree
It never halts, the two error messages just alternate and keep repeating until i leave the zone. Ill put a break point there and see if i can check out the object type.
Edit:
I dont know the objectType but its being returned as Null; also, there are 5 zoneManagers for this interior. I don't know how the zoneManagers are created (map2dif?).
Ran in debug mode and got these warnings which Ive never seen before:
a) interiorinstance.cc @ 805) There should be one and only one zone for an interior that manages zones
(I do have an interior inside another one and it has multiple LOD--so that might account for this warning--I just dont understand why I havent gotten this warning until now--Im guessing that the number of zones is changing with the change in LOD)
b) sceneGraph.cc @ 818) ZoneManagers are only allowed to belong to one and only one zone!
If this describes your problem, then the information below probably applies:
Quote:
Placing zoned interiors inside of interior zones is very bad for TGE. Technically you can get away with it, however if you move one of the zoned interiors, so that the bounding box is not entirely inside one zone, TGE will complain. So if youve recently repositioned a zoned interior so the bounding box extends across two zones (either through a portal or a dividing wall) TGE will throw an assert.
I dont believe this will happen in the mission editor, because interiors are static and probably don't rezone in real-time, but if you save and reload the mission youll run into problems.
Quote:
Apparently the problem is having LOD and portals. I have some situations where the portals are ineffective (long views) and wanted the LOD to reduce the surface count even though I could still see the basic structure. hmmm, going to rethink this.
Followup:
I got to thinking about this and realized I have created countless maps with both LOD and portals so I began experimenting. What I think is happening is when I have several interiors placed side by side some sort of new zone might be created. When I changed the order in which I added some of the interiors the problem (for now) went away. Too bizarre.
Quote:
Zone managers need to tell Torque about both the zones they manage and their current zone, so order is important, because determining the interior's current zone is dependent on the zones that have already been registered (hope that makes sense).
You could change TGE's code to force zone managers into zone 0 (and only this zone). That would allow you to place zoned interiors close together with out a problem.
and finally:
Quote:
That appears to be exactly what I need. Why isnt the code set up that way to begin with? Do you know (or anybody) where to start? Scenegraph and sceneTraversal would be my guess. I realize this topic is way off this section of the forums--Ill start it up elsewhere.
Thanks John for your insights--sometimes it's just great to having a good sounding board!!! And you're the best :)
Based on this discussion (thanks John Kabus and Desmond Fletcher!), the root cause is most likely having interiors placed extremely tightly together, and when the mission loads Torque is trying to optimize the zone mangers and causing issues. It's best to make sure you are running DEBUG builds whenever possible so you get the appropriate asserts that warn about issues such as this.
#6
12/15/2005 (11:38 am)
Thanks stephen. 
Torque 3D Owner Jesse Liles