Constructor 1.04 Portal fix release

#1 Also - this is the Windows version. I will attempt to get a Mac version this weekend.

#2 Good work as always.

#3 Awesome job, Jaimi!
I just made a new test cube and moved / resized the portal to get it in position.
It exported perfectly.
This has got to be a new day for Portals in Constructor!

#4 The link doesnt work

#5 Hmm - server must have rebooted -- I'll check it when I get back. I switched the box over to Apache instead of IIS, and haven't configured it to autostart yet.

#6 @Benjamin - GG has mirrored the file here (in the bottom paragraph):

tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Constructor

#7 Why is it that I get a "ONLY CONSTUCTOR OWNERS CAN ACCESS THIS CONTENT" message??? Constructor is free still, is it not? I have been getting this message for a long time with both my personal account and our business account. How can I access this page???

Also, Our business account also say "Key has been disabled" on the downloads page (my personal account still works) for Constructor 1.03. And if I try to use the key code that used to be listed, it doesn't work.

Anyway, I am VERY eager to try out 1.04 .... please help!

#8 I could send you the file, but I think it would be better if you emailed GarageGames directly. That way you have access to future updates.

#9 I will email them, thanks. If you could send me the file as well, that would be great. I've never emailed them and don't know how long their response time is. Need it as we speak. :-)

Thanks much, Britt. I've just sent an email to you since I don't have a public email here. I appreciate it!

#10 Nevermind. I got it. Didn't realize that I need to re-login (even though I'm already logged in) to GG. Weird.

Thanks anyway, Britt .... looking forward to seeing if some of my constructor problems are fixed. :-)

#11 Jaimi ...

First off, I want to say that I really, really appreciate you continuing the Constructor development... it's great to finally see some progress. Truly, thanks a ton!!!

Now for the bad news ... so far I have been having a lot of issues with the new 1.04 patch. :-( I have tried a bunch of different settings (and combinations of them), and can't seem to get my underground mine section to export correctly. In some cases, it's a matter of missing faces again. In others, it's a matter of also having some faces lit (portals not allowing ambient thru). And yet in others, the engine crashes when walking around in them. Of course, there are also combinations of the above 3.

The settings I've tried tweaking are:
* Turned on/off HSR
* Turned on/off Alternate HSR
* Increased the Split Epsilon to 0.05 / 0.1
* Increased the Tiny Split Epsilon to 0.1 / 0.2 (respectively)
* Decreased Smoothing Threashold to 0.2 (don't think this has any negative affect, tho)

Of course, the first thing I did was to keep my settings the same as with 1.03, namely turning off HSR.

NOTES:
* I also have manually put the NULL texture on ALL hidden surfaces, and it seems to be honoring those as NULL in-engine.
* Portals appear to be fully-functional, minus the above-mentioned problems
* In the case of increasing Split Epsilon (and Tiny) to the higher numbers above, a portion of my mine (not included inside the portaled area) was disappearing, which I believe is causing the crashes
* I have A LOT (I mean A LOT!) of detail brushes. Basically, I have an outter shell that is Collision, and an inner section of walls and ceiling that are all detail, as well as detail for the corners of the ground/wall to appear like dirt pushed up against the wall
* SIDE NOTE: I do not have any detail brushes in the area of the portals ... took them out to do my tests with more certainty
* Tried converting all details into collision meshes and it cause serious cutting-up issues in-engine

Any thoughts? Anyone else experiencing problems?

In my experience, the portals work better in 1.04 but the exporting in general (with HSR disabled) worked better in the 1.03 patched version.

Thanks much, Jaimi ... hope this helps and I'm willing to send you the section if you need it. Just let me know.

#12 Thanks - sending the section could be helpful. There is still one big problem that occasionally crops up with with Zone assignments that I have not been able to fix yet - Some faces still do not get assigned to a zone. I'm not completely sure what causes this, as it's some problem in the bsp tree (and debugging that is a pain in the rear, because it's recursive and quickly gets very, very deep), This used to crash the exporter, but now it will just assign faces to the outside zone (this can result in things being lit incorrectly, or in faces disappearing when you change zones).

#13 Jaimi ...

sent you an email with the constructor file.

Thanks much!

#14 I am having trouble doing a dif with 1.04... It said a Level of Detail (LOD) error. any ideas

#15 When you export to dif in constructor, it will export the scenes that are loaded as the various LOD shapes (provided they are named correctly). What this error is saying is that there is an error in one of your scenes.

if the error is saying:

"Error exporting detail level %d. No brushes are defined. A brush is required when exporting to DIF"

What this means is that you have to have at least one brush in each of your scenes when you export. To fix it, just add a brush to your scene.

#16 Jaimi,

Just making sure you received my email with my scene file okay.... were you able to open it and see the errors that I mentioned?

Thanks much.

#17 Yes - got it just fine. I'll be able to look into it this weekend.

Jaimi