Ava and Adam problems in 1.4

#1 Does anyone know how to fix these problems?
I've tried everything I know how. No luck.

#2 Well.. is that file, player_scoutroot.dsq in the directory with the rest?

#3 Yes it is. I checked to make sure all the animation files were intact and with the player.

#4 Hi Mike,

Did you try submitting a support request? If you do so via the product page, it should send an email to me. Lately, though, I haven't been getting email notifications from GarageGames of thread updates, so it seems possible that support requests aren't making it to me either.

I occasionally look for threads on my packs, but I missed this one. I didn't know about it until someone pointed me to it.

In general, there haven't been too many problems with the packs. AdamPack has been selling pretty steadily for over a year, so I think something major would have turned up by now. Ava, however, is just out, and there might yet be kinks to work out of it. I'll start with her:

The crash you describe with Ava sounds like what happens when a character dies during a networked game, and there's no transform keys in the bounds of the death animation. Which might be the case with Ava. I thought I had tested that, but maybe I missed it. I'll upload an updated dsq in a bit and you can try it out.

The Ava camera moving between 1st and 3rd? I don't know what's up there. Are you sure it's actually moving to a 1st person camera (in which case you'd see the 1st person weapon), or could it be the 3rd person chase cam is getting moved into the head? That would technically be different than going to a 1st person camera.

The AdamPack problem sounds like what happens when you try to run an animation with a skeleton that doesn't match the base character's. Are you using the stock AdamPack animations, and the stock player.cs? I haven't heard of any problems like this.

One thing that seems odd is that the error mentions a "mount2". As far as I know, there is no Mount2 on Adam, just a mount0 for the weapon hand, and a mount1 for the backpack. Did you add anything code that might be looking for a Mount2 node?

In general, have you made a lot of changes to the code? All sorts of things can happen with characters when you get away from the default Torque example app code. Certainly I want my characters to work with as many code variations as possible, but there's only so much I can anticipate. Basically, I guarantee that the characters will work with the demo app. That Ava crash sounds like might be a failure in that regard, so like I said, I'll check it out.

Normally, I'd handle this via email, but since this thread is out there, let's discuss it here. Should be instructive for lots of people dealing with this stuff.

Thanks very much for buying the packs!

-Spencer

#5 Hi Spencer,
Thanks for the responce.
First, yes I did put in a support request from the adam pack page.

Quote:
The Ava camera moving between 1st and 3rd? I don't know what's up there. Are you sure it's actually moving to a 1st person camera (in which case you'd see the 1st person weapon), or could it be the 3rd person chase cam is getting moved into the head? That would technically be different than going to a 1st person camera

Ok, to clear this up. You did discribe what it's doing better than I did. The camera moves back to the character while running in 3rd person view, and then back to where it's supposed to be. Kinda gets to the eyes.

Quote:
The AdamPack problem sounds like what happens when you try to run an animation with a skeleton that doesn't match the base character's. Are you using the stock AdamPack animations, and the stock player.cs? I haven't heard of any problems like this

I took the folder from shapes, called Adam and moved it to my game/shapes/player/ then copied the player.cs from the demo game and renamed it. (I have multiple avatars in game. Ava is one of them)
I changed the exe location for the player to point to the Adam folder/player.cs and that's the only change I made.
edit Figured I'd add to this answer to make sure it's explained properly.
With multiple avatars, (I have 3, orc, adam, ava) I made a new folder in server/scripts called players.
Inside that folder are the player.cs files. 1 named player.cs (the orc) 1 player.cs renamed Adam.cs, and one named Ava. And an execAll.cs that just execs the player.cs files.
At the top of player.cs, there is a bit of code to load the proper avatar. I changed it to:
// Load dts shapes and merge animations
exec("~/data/shapes/player/Adam/player.cs");
That's the only change (other than the rename) that I did to player.cs for these models.
Hope that explains it better.

The only mods I've added to the engine are the aiplayer and aiPatrol mods.

Quote:
One thing that seems odd is that the error mentions a "mount2". As far as I know, there is no Mount2 on Adam, just a mount0 for the weapon hand, and a mount1 for the backpack. Did you add anything code that might be looking for a Mount2 node?

The only place that I've ever heard of a mount2 is with a car. I have done nothing to make it look for another node in this code. I'm using the starter.fps demo as a base.

You are welcome. Thanks for making 2 great (and pretty realistic) looking avatars.

#6 Hi Mike,

Quote:I did put in a support request from the adam pack page.

I never got it, not sure what happened there. Sorry about that!

For future reference for anyone else having trouble, that support request simply sends an email to garage@boomhower.com (or it's supposed to). So use that if the support line doesn't give results.

Quote:The camera moves back to the character while running in 3rd person view, and then back to where it's supposed to be. Kinda gets to the eyes.

Sorry, that still doesn't clear it up for me. What I'm wondering is if you're seeing essentially a 3rd person view all the time, and it's just repositioning the 3rd person camera into roughly the interior of the head. That's different than 1st person.

This problem could perhaps be caused by using the wrong player.cs, thus assigning the wrong animations to the DTS. More on this below. Anyway, even with all the copies of these packs that are out there, I've never heard of this problem.

Quote:I took the folder from shapes, called Adam and moved it to my game/shapes/player/ then copied the player.cs from the demo game and renamed it.

"I took the folder from shapes, called Adam" doesn't make sense to me. There is no folder called Adam in shapes, at least not in my pack. There's a folder called "player" in "shapes". Did you mean to say you renamed the "player" folder "Adam"?

Also, you copied player.cs from the game demo? You're not using the player.cs from the character pack?

The instructions for using the pack say:

Quote:2. Copy all the files from \AvaPack\shapes\player into your \data\shapes\player directory, overwriting files with the same names.

Player.cs is one of the files the instructions are saying to copy from my pack to your project. Using a different player.cs, even the one from the demo, could cause problems like what you're seeing with Adam not animating.

Also, the instructions are that way because there are files - such as footprint.png, splash.png, and debris_player.dts - in the player directory of a Torque demo that need to be there in order for my pack to work. But did you just copy the whole directory from my pack to your project? That might not work.

(BTW, one thing you want to do if you're swapping in different player.cs files is delete player.cs.dso between tests. It's supposed to get recompiled when you make changes to the .cs file, but sometimes it doesn't count swapping in a .cs file as a change.)

Quote:The only mods I've added to the engine are the aiplayer and aiPatrol mods.

I don't know what those mods might do to the characters. I'll check them out, but basically, I don't code, so there's only so much I can do there. That's why these packs are all about replacing the Orc in Torque with new art, and not much more.

Mike, can you do me a favor, and do a test? First do a clean install of Torque, separate from your project. I suggest using the Torque Game Engine Demo, which will install into your Program Files directory: www.garagegames.com/demos/browse/development/. If you install the packs (exactly as the instructions say) into this fresh Torque Demo, do you get the crash with Ava? Do you get the animation problem with Adam?

Thanks,

Spencer

#7 Ok, I did the tests you asked for.

Adam works like he's supposed to, and so does Ava. I don't know what the difference was, but at least they both work with their animations (ava already did) and there is no crash when either of them dies.

I copied the player folder back to my game, and they both still work as expected.
I also rechecked to make sure I had followed the rest of the directions:

4. Change the character bounding box to fit Adam: Open \server\scripts\player.cs. Find the line with:
  

boundingBox =


and change the values to: 


boundingBox = "1.0 1.0 2.2";


    

4b. Make the poofs of dust appear to come from Adam's feet: Open \server\scripts\player.cs. Find the lines with:


// Foot Prints
decalData   = PlayerFootprint;


and change the values to:


decalOffset = 0.05;



5. Make the weapon show up correctly in the first person view: Open \server\scripts\crossbow.cs and find the line that says: 


eyeOffset =


and change the values to: 


eyeOffset = "0.2 0.35 -0.35";

and I had.

The only problem left is that both have the moving camera. What's happening is when I run past an object, the camera moves back to the avatar, then back to where it originated in 3rd person view.
I attempted to get a fraps movie of it, but couldn't.

#8 Hi Mike,

That's good news! Good to hear the packs worked for you when installed right.

Basically, my goal in this thread is to find out if there's a problem with the packs, or eliminate that possibility if I can. I don't like having a topic with a title like this one floating around - it can't be helping sales. But if you've found a problem with the packs, you're helping me out, because then I can get a fix out. I want to make sure the packs work as well as I can manage for the people who've bought them. After all, I think quite highly of the people who've bought my packs :).

It sounds like we've determined that the packs were not to blame for the problems you were having. The exception maybe being this camera problem. That's an odd one. Again, I've never heard of it before, even with all the packs that have sold.

The fact that it's happening when you're near objects would seem to be a clue, like the camera is getting stuck inside the object.

Let's see if we can isolate that problem, and in the process restore the good names of Ava and Adam :). The best way to do that might be to answer two questions:1) Does the camera problem occur with my characters in a clean Torque demo, and 2) does the camera problem occur in your project with the Torque Orc?

Thanks,

Spencer

#9

Quote:
Let's see if we can isolate that problem, and in the process restore the good names of Ava and Adam :). The best way to do that might be to answer two questions:1) Does the camera problem occur with my characters in a clean Torque demo, and 2) does the camera problem occur in your project with the Torque Orc?

The answer to #1 is yes. #2 is no.

I haven't seen this problem before. It only happens when the avatar walks past an object or other character, but the orc doesn't have this problem.

#10 Hi Mike,

So that I can try to reproduce this myself, can you tell me what objects in the Torque Engine demo give you the problem? To clarify, I've just installed TorqueGameEngineDemo-1-4RC4.exe, I'm looking at the demo with "Torque SDK Feature Demo" on the main page, and I'm running Example: FPS Multiplayer, which runs the mission with the Romanesque building. There's no characters in there, but there's plenty of dif objects, like the buildings and the poles in the ground. There's a rock in the middle of a bunch of huts... do any of these cause the problem?

Too bad you can't get Fraps to work. Would taking screen grabs work? If so, that would require you to preferably run in a window, hit alt-printscreen and paste the image into an image editor. Then mail it to garage@boomhower.com.

Thanks,

Spencer

EDIT: I made a fraps video of my own, with Ava running around in the demo. As far as I can tell, the camera is working fine: www.boomhower.com/avapack/AvaTorqueDemo.wmv. This was just dragging the Ava data files into the Torque data directories, with no changes to the scripts. So just bare minimum, it seems to work.

#11 Ok, well, I was using the starter.fps demo that came with the sdk, but of course, can't get it to do it today. :/

So, I went into my game and was going to take a screenie, but it was too fast. I did however, get fraps to work. :) and took a short video.

www.3dcentral.net/downloads/torque/OrcTown.avi

My game has only 1 mod, and thats the AiGuard mod which shouldn't make any difference. Anyway, Here it is. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a movie must be worth a million. :-D

#12 Hi Mike,

Starter.fps could be affected by script changes, that's why I suggested the demo at the link I posted earlier: www.garagegames.com/demos/browse/development/. Do me a favor, and download that and install the pack into it, and see if you get any problems.

Thanks for making the movie, that's very helpful! I made a smaller version of it and uploaded it here.

What is that object he's running under? Some kind of a tent-type thing. I've never seen it before, is it in any Torque demos? If it's custom, could you send it to me at garage@boomhower.com? What's happening looks like some the camera is doing some kind of weird collision with the object, and I'd like to do a few tests with it.

Also, if you download the Torque Demo, and everything else works as expected, try placing the tent object into the Demo level, and see if it gives you any problems.

I don't know anything about the AiGuard mod, but even if it's not supposed to make a difference, there's always something that can go wrong. How many lines of code are in Torque? Any one of them is an accident waiting to happen :).

-Spencer

#13 I figured out what the problems were. :)
TGE is looking for All the animation files. Not just the ones you supplied, that's why it works after overwriting the default orc. Animations are all working now.

The tent is just a placeholder from the realmwars demo. The reason the camera is moving when the avatar goes under it is becouse the camera is getting slapped around by the collision box and it doesn't like it.
Resize the tent, and all is well. :) I'll just have to watch my collision boxes in the real version.

The crash was more difficult to track down. I did track it, and found that it is in My code, and has nothing to do with the avatars. I'm still trying to track down exactly where in my code it's breaking, but at least I know what ball park to look in.

Thanks for the help and the great avatars. They look real, and I'm very happy with them. :)
I sure hope I didn't hurt your sales with this thread. It wasn't my intent. Just couldn't figure out why they weren't working.
Thanks again.

#14 Hi Mike,

Glad to hear it's all working for you!

One last question, you say:

Quote:TGE is looking for All the animation files. Not just the ones you supplied, that's why it works after overwriting the default orc. Animations are all working now.

There shouldn't be any missing animations. The packs' animations are all referenced in the included /player/player.cs files.

Are you using different player.cs files? I'm pretty sure TGE would only be unable to find the animations if that were the case.

Thanks,

Spencer

#15 No. I'm using the player.cs file that came with the avatars.

It's a strange thing with torque. It likes to look on it's own for things it really doesn't need. :-D
If it isn't the extra animation files, then it's looking for one of the other files that are already there. I already had the splash, footpuff, etc textures in the folder. Oh well, as long as people just overwrite the orc, everything works fine. :-)

#16 Hi Mike,

Quote:Oh well, as long as people just overwrite the orc, everything works fine. :-)

Yep, that's right.

Alternately, from the Readme:

"Note: For a cleaner installation with fewer excess files, you can remove everything from the \player directory except for the files footprint.png, splash.png, and debris_player.dts [Torque requires those files]. Then copy the AvaPack files into the \player directory.)"

So that makes sure nothing but Ava's or Adam's animations and player.cs get installed. When you do this, all the animations should be found (I just tested it again). None of the Orc's animations are required to run the pack, and they should not be required unless users somehow make a change in the code along those lines. All that's required from the demo are footprint.png, splash.png, and debris_player.dts.

I think it's safe to say "case closed" on this one! And to emphasize, the problem was not with the Ava and Adam packs, it was more with the implementation of the packs.

Mike, could you do me one more favor? Could you put, on the very top of your first post, something along the lines of what I just said, that the problem turned out not to be with the packs? The first impression from that post still reflects badly, and not everyone reads all the way down a thread. I'm tempted to ask you to just delete the whole thread, but I think it'll be helpful for people to see the whole thread, intact, if they run into the same problems.

Thanks!

-Spencer

#17

Quote:Note: For a cleaner installation with fewer excess files, you can remove everything from the \player directory except for the files footprint.png, splash.png, and debris_player.dts [Torque requires those files]. Then copy the AvaPack files into the \player directory

This is essentially what I did. That's what led me to believe torque was looking for extra files. As long as I overwrite the orcs files without deleting the originals, it works. If I take out everything eccept the png files, it doesn't work. (Ava does, not Adam)
Anyway, hope this helps someone else who experiences a problem with any mod.
Thanks again for your help. :-)

#18 Hi Mike,

Thanks for the note up top. Of course, I'm adding to this thread, so unfortunately I might be negating the "see last 2 posts" part :)

There's one thing still troubling me. Both the characters should be the same. It's good that it works for you if you copy over the Orc, but it should also work when installed the "clean" way. The fact that you say it works for Ava but not for Adam implies there's a problem with Adam. If there is a problem with the pack, it'd really help me if you could nail it down, because I'm not seeing it.

I just did this test: In the Torque demo, in the player directory, I moved all files except footprint.png, splash.png, and debris_player.dts into a temporary folder on my desktop. Then I copied all the files from AdamPack's player directory into the demo's player directory. This installs the pack without overwriting anything.

Could you please just do this exact test with the clean Torque demo you installed? Also, if you could do that with your project, I'd be curious of the results.

You should be able to restore the player directories after the test by deleting all the AdamPack files except for footprint.png, splash.png, and debris_player.dts from your project directories, and then copying your files back from the temp folder.

Now, I noticed you said:

Quote:If I take out everything eccept the png files, it doesn't work. (Ava does, not Adam)

It's not just the PNGs, you have to leave debris_player.dts, in there too. It's very easy to accidentally remove debris_player.dts.

I really appreciate the effort you're putting into this testing, just a little more and we should be done.

Thanks,

Spencer

#19 Ok, I went in and did some more digging. I have no clue what I deleted by mistake. In both, the demo and my own game, a clean install worked out of the box. I don't know what I was missing. I do know that I did have debris_player.dts in the folder. I followed the instructions all the way thru, eccept for placing it in the demo. I put it in my own game first.
I'm learning. :-)

#20 @Mike:

Quote:In both, the demo and my own game, a clean install worked out of the box.

Woohoo! Sounds like we're done! Adam and Ava are cleared of all charges :)

Quote:I'm learning. :-)

Heh. Lesson one: a gazillion things can go wrong. And do :). And then fix themselves for no apparent reason.

Thanks again for grinding through all the tests, it was very helpful.

-Spencer