posted 09-11-2001 11:44 AM               

I would like to say big thanks to Rene Brooymans and to everyone who helped me!

Limitations! That was the problem, I guess.
Texture Memory! That was the cause, I guess.

So I´m on a hard hard hard work of reshaping and retexturing all the wonderfully designed and organic caves rooms to free memory. They will just disappear and will be replaced by blocky lifeless temple rooms. I can´t find a word to express my disapointment! About three weeks of work lost.

And I surely hope this will fix the problem, otherwise I can say a good bye bye to the project, and of course to the Editor. I´m tired and this is my last attempt.

So, before begining building your level, be aware that the Editor and the Game Engine itself are LIMITED! You cannot put everything you want on it at the same time. Be careful with the Texture Memory Limit. When you are getting near 200 in the converter, be prepared for trouble (mine was at 218 with only 70 rooms). I was aware of this, but I never thought it was SO LIMITED!

So the rule seems to be this:

posted 09-11-2001 01:33 PM               

Good luck with your attempt to fix the project. I would really hate not to be able to play another level from you.

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HAPPY RAIDING!
Michael.

posted 09-11-2001 06:59 PM               

I´m working on it. I had satisfying results until now. But I really don´t know why I´m so near the limit with such low values.

This is the little problem I´m having:

posted 09-13-2001 10:39 AM               

At this point, I´m not planning to use water anymore. I can´t wait to be able to finish this prj (short the way it is) and start another one (which will be the "forced" sequel). What should I do? Simply delete the water animation range?

I have a serious question, that may be silly but it´s annoying me:

What is included in the final TR4 file?

Are the not used WAD objects included? Should I delete unused objects from the WAD?

Are the not used textures included? Should I make the TGA file smaller?

posted 09-13-2001 12:26 PM               

I fix one texture, and another comes up wrong. And now, after a few pickup and two teethspikes items added, I had a crash to desktop again! Not in the big room, but in a smaller one, after I had checked almost all the level...

posted 09-13-2001 12:55 PM               

1) Reinstall the LE.
2) Do you have enough memory in your computer? and your video card?
3) Are you using a custom wad? If so, delete any objects you aren't using.
4) Are you using alot of sounds? They can take more memory than textures if you aren't careful.

Also, if you aren't using any texture animations, make sure you delete any that are defined, as they do take memory.

posted 09-14-2001 10:19 AM               

I´ll do what you said.

Delete unused objects from WAD.
Delete water animation ranges.

I have 128 MB RAM and 16 MB Viper video card.
I never had a problem like this before, not even with my first level "City of Blezqi Zatsaz", which was at least three times bigger than this one.

posted 09-15-2001 02:18 PM               

This is the situation:

When I began I used the original sethtomb WAD.

Then I´ve added some objects to it: Skeleton ("dead" one, from Angkor), column (Guard), door (Guard), stargate (Guard) and shatter vase (Library).

Everything fine at the begining of level building. So I´ve made 73 rooms.
This was when I began to have the texture problem, first in a huge room with detailed modeling, then randomly through the whole level. Fix one texture and another would come wrong...

So I deleted the water animation range (8 tiles) and left the already used lava animation range (8 tiles). Textures continued to appear wrong.

So I´ve deleted some of the objects from the WAD which I think I won´t use (Debris 9, rock 2, rock 1, rock 0, plant 9 and plant 8). Textures continued to appear wrong.

Then... I deleted two objects I used (from the map and also from the WAD) - plant 1 and plant 2...

And then the textures were ok... At least until now, but I still have to texture the whole floor of the huge room and make at least more 20 small and/or medium rooms to make the level "playable"... I´m afraid if the problem may come back... I need to add more objects to the prj (from the original WAD), like a few switches, doors, puzzle items and holes, etc...

I could drop the texture data from 218 to 194, by reshaping some of the rooms. But I think this is not the problem (Rene Brooymans told me that his Catacomb Towers level had more than 300)...

This is the situation of my WAD now, as TRWest said:

"This WAD uses 1675 texture objects and uses 20628224 bytes (1.97 MB) of texture memory, approximately 8 out of 16 texture tiles)"

posted 09-15-2001 02:22 PM               

I´m thinking about deleting some more objects from the WAD, but I´m a little afraid of object dependencies...

posted 09-16-2001 06:46 AM               

better save than sorry

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