Sticks & Twigs for T3D 1.0.1 Released...Finally!

#41 Ok. I have now tested all the maps from the original self-extracting executable from the Garage Games site.

These tests were performed in windowed mode at 1024x768 with all the GFX settings on default.

* AIO: All In Order. Sound works no visible errors.

Here are my findings:
-> st_archMesa: No sound.
-> st_arrastraIsland: AIO.
-> st_bataMountain: AIO.
-> st_bearMountain: No sound.
-> st_bennettPass: No sound.
-> st_blackwater: No sound.
-> st_bonitoRock: No sound.
-> st_boundaryCavern: No sound.
-> st_castlePeak: AIO.
-> st_cinderHill: AIO.
-> st_columbineFalls: No sound.
-> st_craterLake: No sound.
-> st_crimsonPeak: No sound.
-> st_devilsIsland: No sound.
-> st_fernCanyon: AIO.
-> st_fossilCanyon: No sound.
-> st_gravelyMountain: No sound.
-> st_howardBay: AIO.
-> st_kingsCanyon: No sound.
-> st_midnightMountain: AIO.
-> st_nortonCanyon: No sound.
-> st_sandCanyon: No sound.
-> st_skeletonCanyon: AIO.
-> st_templeValley: Falling precipitation/particle error.
-> st_ticekaGorge: Falling precipitation/particle error.

So although the "No sound" is not entirely a problem as I wasn't actually expecting sound anyway, the only two missions that seem to have issues are the last two.

Basic the precipitation/particle is a white billboard and not the actual particle effect ... should be simple enough to fix ... but I thought it might help Alan to know that.

Now when my new PC arrives ... woooweeeeeee. :)

#42 I have the problem that all missions would run with approx. 25 fps
whereas the GG demos (burg) run with at least 110fps on the same machine

Removing all trees and objects would not help a lot.
A simple terrain without any object would run with about 30 fps.

My card(s): 9800M GT (single or SLI) on a Dell XPS M1730.

#43 @NovoGeek
Is it the Demo version that's giving the white billboards on those last two missions or is it the Asset Only version? And are the falling leaves working in the other missions?

The dust speck precipitation in the mission "st_templeValley" is perhaps new, but the heavysnow precipitation in "st_ticekaGorge" should be a default precipitation. Just curious.

I guess just make sure the "art\environment\precipitation" directory is there, and has "dust.png", "dust2.png" and "snow.png". in it. I'm not really sure why you'd be having that happen.


@Holger,
Hopefully some other folks will chime in on this with some of their experiences, since I get about the same across the board in T3D. I run low end about 25fps to top end in the 55ish range. The Burg demo for me runs at about 35-45 fps.

I'm running a P4 3.2 with 2GB DDR and a nice GeForce GTX 260 with 896mb. The CPU is oldschool, but the GPU is reasonably strong so that's kind of the performance I'd expect on mine.

I would have imagined you would be doing better also, (especially when you remove down to the terrain...although it does have a pretty decent poly count itself).

There will be some optimization with the next point release. How much it will affect overall performance I can't really say at this point, but it definitely should help some. Tom Spilman broke down for me the proper rigging setup for the ambient animation, and I need to go back through the ones I've done so far and with all the new ones and set them up in the right way.

#44 @Alan: It is the Demo version. I will do the checks you indicated and will also download the asset version.

As I said ... no biggie on my part, it was more of a information post then a "bitch and moan" post. The stuff is relatively easy to fix ... so no worries there.


@Holger: You are running a M GFX card (that is a mobile card) and therefore by implication means it is using shared memory, but the fact that Burg runs so well is mind-boggling.

I can't really offer more assistance until my new machine arrives later this week, then I can do comparative tests on both machines and post my findings.

#45 @NovoGeek,
Nah, didn't consider it a "bitch and moan" comment. But I was thinking that maybe since you had gotten the original PC Demo exe to extract, it still might have been damaged and left you missing some assets.

At some point you might still want to get the zipped Mac version of the demo and compare the two.(Which now, as I think of it, I'm not really sure why it ended up there under the Mac section other than the fact that it's a zip...I'd mentioned to Derek B. that I wasn't sure that Macs could use the self-extracting exe...but it still has the standard FPS Example.exe in it!...it tells you how much I know about Macs...I don't even know if they execute exe files!)

Anyway, their is about a 3mb file size difference from the one that folks have reported issues with and the zip. Even with the self-extracting stuff they should be nearly identical (and the questionable self-extracting is actually the smaller one).

Just a heads up. Wouldn't want you missing out on some shrubbery goodness. =)

#46 Had solved my fps-problem by a fresh install of S & T.

Have now approx. 50 fps with populated terrains and more than 120 fps

with a blank terrain.


@NovoGeek: I would be interested to read your findings.

#47 @Holger: Yeah ... I will post them up this weekend. I got confirmation that my new PC would be delivered today before 13:00 GMT. :)

I will then do some test ... I have do some Beta Testing for Jeff on AFX2 for T3D as well ... so this weekend I have an excuse to just mess around with my new PC.

Will drop my results out early next week.

#48 In the console I am getting a ton of lines saying

[(null)] - Could not find satisfactory position for shape 'art/shapes/ST_items/RRGT_TREE_BARE001.txt/RRGT_TREE_BARE001LOD.dts' on client!

What does that mean?

#49 Hey Scot,

What's happening is the shape replicators are looking for a location to randomly place an asset, and when it is unable to do so, it tries again up to the maximum number of retries. Depending on the density of other shapes in the mission, the engine might quickly find adequate locations, or it might have to retry multiple times.

The fix for the warning has a catch-22, you can reduce the number of retries in the shape replicators to a lower number or zero, but if it can't find a random spot on those number of tries (or the first) the number of random objects can be reduced substantially.

With the introduction of the Forest Pack/Editor into 1.1, the need for replicators in this fashion are pretty much eliminated, but of course I released the 1.0.1 update for the "Sticks & Twigs" Pack a month before that happened! =P

I may possibly do a 1.1 version of the "Sticks & Twigs" Pack at some future date, but it's definitely not on the front burner at this point.

I'd just suggest messing a bit with the retry numbers so you can get a reasonable number of replicated trees, objects, etc. and not have to deal with significant number of retries.

I'd also jump into messing around with the Pack combined with the Forest Editor, they should work happily together, I just haven't had time to address the latest T3D 1.1alpha update.

Hope this helps.

#50 Are there any plans to work your assests into the forest editor, i.e weight painting so that you can use wind emitters and all that jazz?

I understand the amount of work that would be, but I would be willing even to buy an upgrade for that kind of work...

#51 Nothing in the works right away.

I'm knee deep in a "Gold Rush" Mine Pack (nearly complete), getting back onto the SciFi Construction Kit (coverting all the assets to DTS/Collada with LODs and textures coverted to DDS), along with some tweaks to the AE:Persia Pack.

I might revist the S&T Pack after the first of the year, but we'll have to wait and see.

#52 Yeah I can understand that.

I would do it myself, but I am not that talented :(

#53 I've a problem to run your pack on T3D1.1a

System freeze when loading datablocks and nothing appears.

I looked in Console and it sais there is something non well "formed" in the datablocks scripts.

Anyone has the same problem ???

#54 Hi Stefano,

Sorry you're having trouble. Let me ask a couple questions to try and figure out what's happening.

Did/do you have it working ok in T3D 1.0.1?

Do any of the levels load, or do you get some error and then nothing on all of them?

Could you post/send me a little section of the text of the console log so I can see the specific error you're getting?

If you write me direct, I can respond throughout the day, since the GG site is blocked through my place of regular employment (gaming stuff is blocked).

If you'd like go ahead and send me that info at alanjames AT charter.net

Thanks. And we'll get it figured out!

#55 @Alan James

I'm new to Torque in general. I bought the S&T pack at the same time I purchased Torque 3D. I'd like to start from "New Project - Empty Room" and start using the art assets in the sticks & twigs pack with minimal hassle. From my own attempts to install the S&T pack using an empty project as my base and my console log, I noticed there were some files excluded from the Assets Only zip file, including art/datablocks/envAudioProfiles.cs and art/datablocks/chimneyfire.cs.

Another thing I saw in the log file that means absolutely nothing to me yet, as I'm still quite new to this, is the following:

286: Cannot re-declare object [RockGrassy0022_M].
12: Cannot re-declare object [steampunk].
art/terrains/st_512/materials.cs Line: 1 - parse error
>>> Advanced script error report. Line 1.
>>> Some error context, with ## on sides of error halt:
ew Material(256PebblesDetail001)

##{##

mapTo = "256PebblesDetail001";

diffuseMap[0] = "256PebblesDetail001";

normalMap[0] = "256PebblesDetail001_NORM";



pixelSpecular[0] = true;

specular[0] = "0.3 0.1 0.1 0.4";

specularPower[0] = 32.0;

};

I'd much rather not start from the FPS demo if at all possible, but it seems as though the S&T pack depends on that demo. Please correct me if my thoughts on this are in error.

EDIT: I believe the error near 256PebblesDetail001 is due to rules regarding TorqueScript variable names. According to the script reference, variable names are not permitted to start with a number. After replacing all references to 256PebblesDetail001 with x256PebblesDetail001, the error was resolved. Likewise, a "find in files" helped discover where steampunk and RockGrassy0022_M were being re-declared.

#56 @Shannon,

The original S&T T3D release was pretty tightly designed around T3D 1.0 and in particular the demo levels...I've yet to merge them with the later betas and not have issues (all the way up to and including all of the demo levels not loading at all).

I have a version that I'm working on for T3D B3 that is truly "Asset Only" without any of the script file changes or demo levels at all if you are interested. I've been working on it here an there to address the deprecation of certain things in the later Betas that apparently have broken the demo levels.

It's still a bit rough, but should work in any base directory, albeit without the "falling leaves" environment script changes and the waterfall (which has been pretty temperamental between versions anyway), along with any other script changes. It is a completely models only version at this point. None of the material scripts are included in this version either.

If you are interested in this email me at alanjamesATcharterDOTnet

Thanks!

#57 Any updates on this? The ST_T3D_1.1_B3_ARTONLY.zip you linked me to in the email didn't contain any materials.cs files but did still seem to contain a lot of seemingly nonessential baggage, such as MS3D related files. I'm not really looking for an "art only" repackaging anyway; instead, I need fully functioning assets that don't generate error messages during load sequences, render correctly in the latest version of the engine, and are completely indepenent from any other products and assets.

#58 Hey Shannon,
With my health as such, I'd not anticipate any work on this very soon. email me directly at alanjamesATcharter.net and I'll personally refund your purchase. Thanks.

#59 Alan, firstly I wanted to say thanks for this pack. The art in this pack is top notch! Unfortunately though, I'm having some real issues with my version and T3D 1.2. I have the assets only version and move only ~shapes\ST_items and ST_grassBB_PNG so that I can use the assets with the ground cover and forest editor systems. The issues I'm having are varied, but here are a couple: DTS bushes (tested) seem to never render the alpha channels properly. They are semi opaque and any part of the mesh that has sky behind it is rendered solid black. Rocks. All of my rocks' shadows in the ground cover editor drop animated shadows. I'm guessing this is due to Torque's lighting though...

Basically some things work well and others look terrible. I find that my only option is to go through each folder (there are a lot!) and test each individual billboard or mesh for errors before including it in my project. That I'm not doing. Period. There are literally thousands of items in this pack (all very good quality) and I simply do not have the time to be doing something so tedious. That's why I purchased the pack in the first place! Anyway....

I'm assuming that there is, in fact, nothing wrong with the pack, that it's me doing something evil that's causing these problems. What I'd like to know is: What can I do about it? Am I breaking some convention by moving these two assets folders into my project directory without any .cs files? I'm not experienced with the tools yet to know how to "diff" the scripts/materials files (if there are any) with my existing ones.

All I want out of this pack is the bushes, trees, grasses and rocks. The skies work beautifully, the sounds are fine, everything is fine except what I actually need in my project. I'm at a loss here. Together with the issues I'm having with my other packs just compounds my frustration.

On a side note I just wanted to say that, my personal experiences aside, this is a must have pack for anyone needing realistic looking scenes in their game! Provided of course that you don't have the trouble I've undoubtedly created for myself.

Dan

#60 Just remembered why I am placing just the objects into their respective folders... edge1.png is not in ST_particles as it's supposed to be and the game hangs.

Mapping string: MissionStartPhase1Ack to index: 0
[MaterialList::mapMaterials] Unable to find material for texture: base.lmale
Client 4541 packet error: Missing particle texture: /art/shapes/st_particles/edge1.
CDROP: 4541 local
*** ENDING MISSION

Of course, /art/shapes/st_particles/edge1.png exists but as seen from the console it's not asking for edge1.png but just plain old edge1. Not sure if that's normal, but I doubt it.

Sorry for messing up your blog with this Alan, but after searching I couldn't find anything on this subject on the forums.