Game Development Community

Atlas Loading Mission Crashes

by Will Pall · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 06/11/2005 (8:08 pm) · 5 replies

I've moved the only terrain code that I can find in the terrain_water_demo over to the demo directory, and everything runs just fine if I load an old style terrain. I've been working on this for 2 days and every time I load the simple.mis that was provided with terrain_water_demo the game crashes right after the load. The furthest I get is a quick frame showing a black terrain and the nice shadered numbered box, then it crashes with no error message.

The last lines in console.txt are:

...
Obj: TireParticle - 
Obj: tireEmitter - 
Obj: DefaultCarTire - 
Obj: DefaultCarSpring - 
Obj: DefaultCar - Vehicles
Loading compiled script common/editor/editorRender.cs.
MissionAreaEditor::onWake: no TerrainBlock object.
*** New Mission: demo/data/missions/simple.mis
*** Phase 1: Download Datablocks & Targets
*** Phase 2: Download Ghost Objects
Loading TQT 'demo/data/terrains/smallTexture.tqt'...
   - Filesize = 3726416
   - Version 2, depth=3, tile size=512
Ghost Always objects received.
common/client/missionDownload.cs (67): Unable to find function StartClientReplication
common/client/missionDownload.cs (68): Unable to find function StartFoliageReplication
*** Phase 3: Mission Lighting
 Successfully loaded mission lighting file: 'demo/data/missions/simple_36e3be6a.ml'
Mission lighting done
*** Initial Control Object

I figure that the fact that I get a "no TerrainBlock object" error has a lot to do with it, especially since I don't get that error by running the terrain_water_demo mod. I'm not good with a debugger (printf's always were my method), so I can't really check to see what is exactly causing the crash. I've skimmed through the docs and I read the part where it says something about the only things Atlas is dependent on are ... and I've done those things. Someone please point me in the right direction.

#1
06/11/2005 (10:09 pm)
The no TerrainBlock object error is the editor looking for a legacy terrain object. it happens every time you start the editor.
#2
06/12/2005 (12:02 am)
Are you running a debug build? Did you follow the instructions from the docs on how to add Atlas Terrain to your game?
#3
06/12/2005 (2:15 am)
Will, this is EXACTLY what a debugger is for. If you cant use one, I suggest that now is an excellent time to learn how.
#4
06/12/2005 (10:13 am)
Hrm. I had this problem, but I fixed it fairly quickly. It had to do with the scripts being a tad different than the /demo ones - either shaders.cs or materials.cs I think. I don't really recall. Did you use a util like Winmerge to check for differences?
#5
06/12/2005 (10:59 am)
OMG!!!!!! Mother Trucker!!
Do ya'll wanna know what I did? Do ya? I want to thank James, because I didn't know that there was a merge program for Windows. I went through all of my files, every one of em, trying to fix things. After I tried running the game it again crashed. I opened up WinMerge again and decided to check the directories just to see which files maybe were missing. So do ya'll wanna know what had happened? It was all human error. I had seen the detail1.png inside terrains/details/ and made sure that the file was in there; however, I didn't realize that the mission file was looking for detail1.JPG not .PNG. I guess I should have just made my own detail texture and all of this would not have happened.

And yes, I really do need to learn how to use the debugger, it's just that I'm a self taught programmer and every book/tutorial I read made the debugger seem so boring. It's just so much more fun to try to read every line of code :).