[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[Larrywb57]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Oooh... that's a better picture, since it's zoomed out, and I can "see" (I can SEE!!!) that they're in the shallows of the reef, maybe even in the really shallow shallows... your boat is in the deep spot just to the East and slightly North then?... Does it CTD when you look at it (the convoy, that is), or just when you're in the area?

Last time I tried, it is about 06:30 hrs, still dark, couldn't see the convey using the periscope. When back down to 100 feet, I was 15 nautical miles from the convey. Tried to use the free camera to get a looker at the convey, but couldn't. It was just getting light, I saw a lonely freighter that was sunk by the bow, on fire and in shallow water. But nothing was around it. I when back to my sub to move in a little closer so I could use the free camera but, I got a little to close.....CTD.

Larry

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Larrywb57

Last time I tried, it is about 06:30 hrs, still dark, couldn't see the convey using the periscope. When back down to 100 feet, I was 15 nautical miles from the convey. Tried to use the free camera to get a looker at the convey, but couldn't. It was just getting light, I saw a lonely freighter that was sunk by the bow, on fire and in shallow water. But nothing was around it. I when back to my sub to move in a little closer so I could use the free camera but, I got a little to close.....CTD.

Larry

Sounds like what I just had... I made a Single Mission out of the 42b_Jap_Convoys.mis file, dated it for whatever that was, April 27??? 1943, at 0530 so I would be sure to be there on time... I set my boat at 270 heading directly west, and the lonely freighter was at Sonar Contact! Bearing, 352, Long range!" OK, keep it down up there!... Anyway, I got a second report for another at bearing 10, so I took to the camera and "flew" over there. Took forever, and I got all turned aroudn, but I found the Generic Corvette, but no "convoy". Turned around and searched some more, found the merchant... Tried to find "land", and never did, went back to my boat a couple-three times to get my bearings, went back out, found the merchant again, then found some "veddy intellesting"... a gun emplacement... Hanging about 20-30 foot in the air, no foundation, other than rarified atmosphere... Video link forthcoming. Then I think I either managed to find another, or maybe the same one, 'cause I was spinning in circles... I never did find the islands... Anyway, my video will start when I find the Corvette, who had run aground on the reef. Imagine that. Yet when I look below it, there's twice its draft available. I do not understand that... When they built all these ships, did they copy the Yamato for their hull or something, then scale the length down?... Anyway, needless to say, we're back to the Jap_CoastalBattery.mis file... surprise surprise surprise...

OK, youtube says 2 hours and 15 minutes, which would be 1005 pm my time... which probably actually means midnight, 4 hours from now... but when you see the vid here, it should be viewable...

[Rockin Robbins]

I have uncompressed the 7zip file three times tonight without incident. I'm uploading to Area 51 now and await word that it isn't absolute crap!

Should take about 13 minutes longer...

[propbeanie]

Very cool RR... ever square it as to what happens? Is just the Capn and me?...

In the meantime, while we wait for the video, which now says "1 hour, 21 minutes remaining"..., here's some "stills" of the ME with the Jap_CoastalBattery.mis loaded in that area. I cannot find anything amiss...

These are my suspects. The two up top, if it is two, the one at bottom, if I got all spun around and lost:


Zoomed in on the two up top:


... and with "Draw accurate shoreline" selected:


The "Properties" page, all three are similar...



Does anyone have any ideas on this one?...

[Navigator857]

Is it possible to have access to the current test build. Will be off most of tomorrow and could assist in testing.....



Jack

[JoeSnow]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

These are my suspects. The two up top, if it is two, the one at bottom, if I got all spun around and lost:

Does anyone have any ideas on this one?...

Easiest way to test may be by removing them and running the test again. Or nuke the site from orbit. Only way to be sure.

[propbeanie]

I'm going to try to do a quick test merge of the Carotio_SH4_TrukCoralHarbourCityLocations mod, move the ships' paths, and see what happens to the guns... run my mission again. maybe. Might be a bigger undertaking than what I want...

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I'm going to try to do a quick test merge of the Carotio_SH4_TrukCoralHarbourCityLocations mod, move the ships' paths, and see what happens to the guns... run my mission again. maybe. Might be a bigger undertaking than what I want...

Propbeanie, you can't rely on the outside camera to give you an accurate long distance look at things. The game won't render the scene all the time.

A good example are those three planes plowing into the Oahu Island north of Pearl:



Have you ever run the first start of war Campaign mission from Pearl? Use the "Out at sea" start position. Look back towards the mouth of Pearl Harbor. You'll see some ship tops from that distance.....but where's the Island BEYOND the harbor activity? There isn't any. Take a trip with the "outside camera" towards Pearl. The harbor will materialize, the ships too, but keep moving north towards the center of the island. The terrain never materializes!?! However, take a look to the east or west when you think you're on the north shore of the harbor, there's land terrain in both of those direction that far out.....yet there is still no terrain up the middle. The terrain that's drawn in those two directions even has some elevation to it, as if to show the center of the island is higher then the surrounding edges. But, there's nothing rendered up the middle.

Two possible things are in play here. Which is the cause, I don't know? Either the scene terrain isn't drawn for that section because there isn't one. The developers didn't draw the area in question, so it doesn't appear. OR, the scene is too far away from the sub, which has a definite distance around it that forces the terrain to be rendered. In other words, the sub needs to be placed closer to the missing terrain area before the area is rendered.

My guess is, put the sub closer to the area in question (those bunkers for instance), you may find those bunkers are sitting on land, they just aren't rendered until the sub gets within a certain distance from them. I had always heard there's a 20 k rule for rendering.,..is it true, I don't know, could be less/more?

[propbeanie]

Yes, I have encountered incompletely rendered scenes using the external camera. However, these scenes are within 10km, and traveling toward the skyline that is rendered, then disappears. I'm also getting a real loud sound when I come into the Truk area. I got some more video of it last night with the audio. My experiment using the full Truk Harbors mod did not do any different, other than the ships were confused as all get-out by a sub net in the harbor lane entrance... but I still got that audio glitch... We just need more travel time into the Truk area. I'm enroute to the Marshall Islands on my first patrol from Pearl in a new career, so I should be able to get there by "tomorrow"...

[CapnScurvy]

Propbeanie, as I said that 20k distance for rendering may be a bunch of hooie!

I just looked at the start of war Pearl Harbor, "At sea" position, and here's what I found when I used the outside camera to check the north shore of Pearl Harbor:



The terrain is cut off just about where the north land starts. Makes a straight line from the west side of the harbor, to the east. Notice the ships and bunkers are rendered....the small arrow is pointing to a gun bunker. So are the three lines (those fortifications don't have a gun on them).

The same bunkers, looking from another angle:



Yep, floating in space!

Now here's the same image, but this time the sub start is at the Dock.....much closer to the north shore of the harbor:



The arrow is pointing to the same gun bunker, the three other fortifications aren't so easy to see....the terrain is in the way.

Here's the best I could do to match the second image I took:



The gun bunker is on solid land, the three fortifications are over the hill out of sight.

So, the measurement of how far this scene is rendered can easily be checked, from the subs initial "At sea" start point. Whatever it is, the sub makes the difference to what's drawn.

[Larrywb57]

Good morning Captains,
I tried this morning different approaches into Truk from my save. My first contact is by radar, a slow moving vessel in a northerly direction. One time I was able to ID it as a 'Fishing Boat'. Could this be the culprit causing the problem? I'm still 19-20 mn away from the convey in the lagoon. I seem to CTD around the ship and distance away from the anchored convey. So on my last time, I took a south-easterly course after radar contact was established. Changed course to the south for about 15 minutes after radar contact was lost before turning towards the convey on westerly direction. At 07:33 hrs while 19mn from convey...CTD. As time permits, I with keep trying to get to the sub nets around Truk to get a periscope view of the convey while trying to dodge any possible mines!
End of Report.
Larry

[propbeanie]

Excellent documentation CapnScurvy. That is what I have found, in most locations. The start outside the harbor is approximately 20km from Ford Island. I've had, while I'm traveling back toward the entrance to PH, found that while traveling North, if you turn around and look South, you see the "underside" of the rendered terrain. That's like that to save polys, I'm sure. I'm just wondering, between the audio glitch, and a few CTDs, if we don't have an issue around Truk. I can find nothing in the files just yet, but I'm still looking. The thing about the rendering of the scene though, I've not had the terrain be there when I start to "fly" towards it, and while I'm looking right at it, it ups and "disappears" - quits being rendered. When I got in closer the one time with my boat, and was basically run aground in the the shoals, and flew over there, it was less than 8 km, and everything stayed, so maybe it's 10km is the max. Anyway, the gun emplacements that are there, are still "hanging" in the air, barely attached to the hill side. How many locations are like that, and is that an influence, or does it matter, with just a little bit of contact?...

Larrywb57, do you get any audio glitches, like a jet taking off at any location around or near Truk? I'm finding it when I get close to the shallow, but not quite, just off the East "entrance" in the middle, and it'll sound like a National Guard F4 Phantom taking off at Lambert Field in 1968 St. Louis...

[Rockin Robbins]

Found the duplication problem. It's a Linux thing. You wouldn't understand.

In Linux, file names are case sensitive. \cfg is not equal to \Cfg. They are two completely separate things. When a lowly Windows user is making a mod and uses \data as the name instead of \Data, what they have done is make a directory that won't be found by SH4 running under Linux! That is because the game will look for \Data and not find it. So:

• Windows--\data = \Data
• Linux--\data <> \Data

So if we're modding \Data\Menu\cfg and the lowly Windows user makes a mod and spells it \Data\Menu\Cfg. What does that cause? Well, 7zip in Linux dutifully makes up two separate directories (they are entirely different names in a case sensitive universe). In Linux the game uncompresses and runs perfectly well, except that our modder's files are never used by SH4. They sit in the useless misspelled directory.


However, on the Windows system, 7zip uncompresses \Cfg first (if it appears first in the archive) and then when it encounters \cfg, it treats it as identical to \Cfg. It then proceeds to uncompress the files into a preexisting directory and says "Hey bub! That file already exists. Whacha wanna do there, pal?"


Therefore I could test until the cows come home on my superior Linux system and get no errors at all. The first lowly Windows user who uncompresses my file gets the weird questions.


It's fixed. Should work without problems now. On Area 51 only for 24 hours. Everything being okay it goes public beta then in the Subsim Download area.

[propbeanie]

Did you find that 862kb Aleutians_traffic.mis file by chance RR, and get it in there?...

[Larrywb57]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Larrywb57, do you get any audio glitches, like a jet taking off at any location around or near Truk? I'm finding it when I get close to the shallow, but not quite, just off the East "entrance" in the middle, and it'll sound like a National Guard F4 Phantom taking off at Lambert Field in 1968 St. Louis...

Propbeanie,
Sorry to say I don't know because I didn't have the volume turned on. I tried getting closer to Truk as so to get a look at convey. The last time I ran the mission , I drew a 23 nm circle from the center of the convey. I stayed outside the circle and went to the southern end of the island. As I got close to 23 nm circle, around 08:00 hrs, I would suffer a CTD. I'm not at home at the moment, baby sitting my one month old grandson as his mom goes to run some errands.
Larry