Map2Dif_plus Internal Error
by James "Nycto" Frasca · in Artist Corner · 01/06/2006 (10:54 pm) · 5 replies
I picked up Minions of Mirth last month and I love it. I love it so much that it has made me start mapping again.
However, I have run in to an unexpected problem. The map I'm working on causes map2dif_plus to halt with an Internal Error. It happens during the "creating surfaces" step. The odd part, to me at least, is that this error only occurs when I'm running it with the -h option (final draft) enabled. If I disable it, everything runs great and the map compiles perfectly.
What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this? I've tried removing brushes to isolate the problem, but haven't been able to as of yet.
Thanks for any help you can offer :)
However, I have run in to an unexpected problem. The map I'm working on causes map2dif_plus to halt with an Internal Error. It happens during the "creating surfaces" step. The odd part, to me at least, is that this error only occurs when I'm running it with the -h option (final draft) enabled. If I disable it, everything runs great and the map compiles perfectly.
What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this? I've tried removing brushes to isolate the problem, but haven't been able to as of yet.
Thanks for any help you can offer :)
About the author
#2
Isn't there a benefit to running it with the -h option, though? It describes it as an exhaustive BSP search. Not being 3D programmer, the verbage implies that the compiled version of the map done with -h turned on will somehow be "better" than if the option were off. Am I wrong about that?
01/06/2006 (11:07 pm)
He he, thats what I'm doing ;)Isn't there a benefit to running it with the -h option, though? It describes it as an exhaustive BSP search. Not being 3D programmer, the verbage implies that the compiled version of the map done with -h turned on will somehow be "better" than if the option were off. Am I wrong about that?
#3
thanks.
03/08/2006 (4:31 pm)
Matt could you go further into this please? I'm curious about the benefits of this option too. And don't see it discussed elsewhere.thanks.
#4
03/08/2006 (4:46 pm)
One of the primary pieces of building a BSP tree is selecting the split plane that you then push the next set of polygons down. Ideally, you should have about half go down the front and half go down the back but you should also minimize the number of polygons that you have to split in order to do that (a balanced tree is good but one that splits up a bunch of polygons can be bad). This search for the ideal split plane can get very lengthy and processor intensive so most BSP tree implementations will limit the search to a certain number of runs and then exit with the best one it has found at that point. The -h option simply increases that limit on the number of runs so that you can get a slightly better BSP tree. This is going to increase your collision performance a slight bit (likely a fraction of a percent) and your rendering performance an even slighter bit. Unfortunately, with the hacked state that map2dif plus is in currently, it can lead to problems and instability. If you can get away with running it then why not (increases .map compile times slightly) but if you have problems it really isn't a big deal to not run it.
#5
03/08/2006 (5:00 pm)
Thanks for the description I appreciate it, and understand better now. 
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