Export is HELL

#21 Constructor is quite irritating sometimes, but I fear I don't share all of your problems as my project is still young enough to upgrade... Anyway, if I accidentally change any of the alignment values to a negative number, the changes are irreversible... The texture becomes completely disorted. That's just one of the many little "quirks" Constructor is infested with. After a period of time, Constructor becomes impossible to use. I can transform brushes, but I can't select faces, vertices, or create new primitives if I use it long enough. I think everyone knows that Constructor crashes if you give a sphere enough polys... There's just so much to say, and so little time -- how the hell did the testers miss all of this if I found all these bugs within the first hour of using constructor?

#22 Lee, thanks i ran it aginst my spell checker and could not find a correct spelling, so in great forum tradition i slaughter it!

Its only logical a tool like Constructor is going to have problems, its still VERY young. My only hope was to point out some of the SHOW-STOPPING problems. I never expected to get a 'upgrade or die' type of reply, OR "TGE 1.4.2 is a dead repository that we no longer support..." comment, as truly TGE version do not play much of a role in this.

Im having this problem with EVERYTHING. Any BSP i push into Constructor at some point will output odd cuts, bright brush seams, missing brush face, BLACK brush face(no light map at all). Even maps i build INSIDE Constructor. Of course it all depend on WHAT export path i pick to test the map in, 'Export as Legacy' and the Constructor version of map2dif both have different types of problems. Matt already helped me solve the OLD2005 version of map2dif problems i was havening (omni lights! Duh..). And i know fully well the other problems will not be fixed until the next version of Constructor. I just thought i would point out the problems NOW so they can be addressed for future versions. (never expected it to sound like i was complaining and a future GREAT product...)

#23 Greetings!

I don't have anything to offer regarding the BSP cutting on export as that is not my area of expertise, but I do have a question for Maddermadcat.

Maddermadcat:
Have you made any detailed, step-by-step, reproducible postings regarding the problems you've run into? Please don't assume that we know what all of the problems are. Those that we don't know about are a challenge to repair. :o)

Thanks!

- LightWave Dave

#24 Caylo, I'm not getting any odd cuts on that version of Map2Dif i pointed you to, have you tried that one yet?

It isnt too hard to add extra exporting options in constructor so you could have a bunch of different versions of map2dif set up to try.

have you changed your light geometry setting? i've found you get the best looking brushes if you make them in sizes that are exponent of your light map size

Also im sure you know structure brushes will make new cuts in structure brushes they're touching, or intersecting, and same with detail/detail they cut each other too

I'll have to send you some screenshots of my interiors

I'm voting we get some more info in the TDN on all these exporters and all of their features/pro's/con's
i started a thread for it here... www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=60986

edit.. Brackets, grr

#25 Jeff, Yes the version you pointed to in the LAST thread do work; it is the same version as the 2005Map2Dif,(i cant find anything different with it). And in last thread Matt did help me getting that Map2Diff working correctly.

I would love to use the 'Export as Legacy' or the new Constructor Version of map2dif, because they both do light smoothing and all the NEW constructor 'light' types. Not to mention placing Constructor TYPE lights, is about 85% True-to-TORQUE, what i see in Constructor is ALMOST what i get during runtime. (I expect my in game SUN settings have something to do with this...)

Also using Constructor to place OMNI lights is just SAD, its slightly less worse then using QUARK, Constructor is NOT computing OMNI lights true-to-TORQUE, its hardly even trying.

#26 Edit: the size of the file is different from what I had, 1.13 Mb -rustycode map2difplus compared to 1.24 Mb for my 2005 map2difplus so i know theres some difference

Someone was telling me something about a game type setting, it can be set to torque or constructor, they also said if you set it to constructor you can use all the new constructor entities, but you cant mix them with entities from quark, or entities created under the torque gametype, I'm not sure what they were talking about exactly since I havnt had time to look yet since I've been off work, but maybe thats the option you're looking for...?

edit: I know that wont fix export as legacy, but that may just be a feature we'll have to wait to improve in coming versions

#27 Also, I think this may come in very handy for a fellow like yourself, I got it up and going in 1.5.1 with minimal effort I'll bet it should slide into 1.42 for you easily.

interior render modes, easy metrics gathering, and sun position calculator
www.garagegames.com/newsletter/community/jun2002/#article_4
alternate url
holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tutorials/editing/interiorRender.shtml

download
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=2565

#28 Yeah, I just wanted to confirm a lot of Caylo's issues as well. Chopped models, missing textures, lighting gone bad, varied results on each export is pretty much the standard and I'm pumping maps into 1.5. I haven't tried the new versions 1.5.1 since I'm having issues getting the MDK and AFX merged with it. Anyhow, out of the 2000+ constructor users not having issues this will be 2 that are having many similar issues.

And why when you overlap models in tge it does some weird flicker thing at the seams? First time I've run across that one.