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Export Issues with L3DT 2.5c

by Gary Willhight · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 07/09/2008 (9:55 pm) · 12 replies

I have been learning to create atlas terrains with L3DT ver. 2.5c which includes the export plugin.
I have an issue where it gets most of the way through the export process then appears to stall.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what did you do to resolve it? or is this normal and will eventually run to completion?

The computer is an HP notebook (so I can work on things on the road) AMD64 dual core 1.8GHz. 2 GB DDRAM. 12 GB free space on HDD.
Operating System Windows XP Media Center.

I am using L3DT Pro version 2.5c Build 7 purchased through GarageGames. I used the Torque Atlas2 plugin (console) ran from the export pull-down.

The maps are 4196x using the arctic climate.

TEGA Path ~/Stronghold/game/stronghold.exe
filename ~/Stronghold/game/scritpsandassets/data/terrain/IceTrack.atlas

Max error .125
tree Depth 4
virt tex rex 8

once I click ok it waits for a few minutes, then a torque console open up with the following information:


Starting Atlas Build!

Generating chunked geometry (depth=4, baseMaxError=0.125000)
o Calculating activation levels...
- done.
o Propagating activation levels...
- done.
o Writing file header...
- done.
o Generating empty TOC...
- done.
o Generating meshes...
%


This is where it freezes. I made a similar terrain using the tropical and temperate climates and had no problems. the export process took about 3 minutes to run and started in a torque mission fine.
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Associate Rene Damm
#1
07/10/2008 (1:29 am)
Yes, one of the quirks of the current generators. Had this too with certain setups.

Increasing baseMaxError should get you out of the dilemma. 0.125 is pretty low anyways and will probably result in a much more finely tesselated terrain than actually necessary.

Torque Owner Gary Willhight
Default Studio Name
#2
07/10/2008 (11:17 am)
Thanks for the insite. I changed the export parameters to the following:
Max error 2
tree Depth 5
virt tex rex 8

It exports, but when I put it into a mission file I just get the water. I checked the log and got this error:
MissionAreaEditor::onWake: no TerrainBlock object

any help?

Thanks,
Gary

Associate Rene Damm
#3
07/10/2008 (11:32 am)
You can ignore the error from the mission editor; it's just not happy about not having a legacy terrain object.

Are you constructing the Atlas instance correctly? Are there any errors you are getting from Atlas?

The only times I remember that Atlas didn't render anything at all was when initialization failed (you should be seeing errors of the form "AtlasInstance2::onAdd -- ").

Torque Owner Gary Willhight
Default Studio Name
#4
07/10/2008 (11:44 am)
This is what I get:

*** LOADING MISSION: C:/Torque/TGEA_1_7_1/GameExamples/AtlasDemo/game/scriptsAndAssets/data/missions/IceTrack.mis
*** Stage 1 load
*** Stage 2 load
AtlasFile::load - cannot open atlas file 'scriptsAndAssets/data/terrains/IceTrack.atlas'.
AtlasInstance::onAdd - cannot open atlas file.
scriptsAndAssets/data/missions/IceTrack.mis (0): Register object failed for object NewTerrain of class AtlasInstance.
*** Mission loaded

Thi atlas file is in the location specified.

Associate Rene Damm
#5
07/10/2008 (11:51 am)
Ah, there we are. The resource manager isn't finding the Atlas file.

Try "~/data/terrains/IceTrack.atlas".

Associate Rene Damm
#6
07/10/2008 (11:53 am)
And be sure you've restarted Torque after generating the file to sync up the resource dictionaries.

Torque Owner Gary Willhight
Default Studio Name
#7
07/10/2008 (11:55 am)
Here is what the mission file entry that produced the issue:

new AtlasInstance(NewTerrain) {
position = "-1024 -1024 0";
rotation = "1 0 0 0";
scale = "1 1 1";
detailTex = "~/data/terrains/details/detail1";
atlasFile = "~/data/terrains/IceTrack.atlas";
};

Associate Rene Damm
#8
07/10/2008 (12:04 pm)
Looks good. As long as you've restarted and as long as the filename is really actually correct, you shouldn't be seeing resource lookup failures here.

Torque Owner Gary Willhight
Default Studio Name
#9
07/10/2008 (12:22 pm)
Could it be that the export from L3DT had problems and the atlas file is corrupted?

I'm putting the project and exports in a subdirectory under terrains to see if that helps.
I ran through the tutorial with a smaller/simpler design and had no problems.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks,
Gary

Associate Rene Damm
#10
07/10/2008 (12:35 pm)
Quote:Could it be that the export from L3DT had problems and the atlas file is corrupted?

Not really. The log dump you've posted above unambiguously indicates that Atlas never gets to access the file, but rather gets stuck immediately after the ResourceManager->load call in AtlasFile::load. Otherwise you'd be seeing a load confirmation during mission load stage 2.

Torque Owner Gary Willhight
Default Studio Name
#11
07/10/2008 (12:57 pm)
Ok, it works. I was calling the mission file under the wrong instance...

Thanks for all the help.

Associate Rene Damm
#12
07/10/2008 (1:00 pm)
Great. Glad it works.

Have fun with Torque.