oojackapivvy on 12/4/2011 at 21:19
Ok, this is the second time I've been stopped in my tracks by the same problem. Last time, as I wanted to ensure it wasn't the messing around with the BSP which had done it, I rebuilt it all from scratch over a couple of hours, and initially it seemed like this problem too was gone, but it's back.
Basically, I've got static meshes - with no changes made to any of the properties including drawscale, which appear just fine in the editor but in game are there as collision only. Totally invisible. It happens to actors too - invisible vases, but loot glint still there to show where they *should* be.
Does anyone have any inspiration as to what the heck the problem is, or how I can fix it? I've currently got a grand total of 547 meshes, and the properties are nowhere near any kind of limit either. I'm mystified, and have no idea where to go with this - it seems pointless to start again as the same thing has happened (with different meshes, and the first time round I had a lot more in the map, and a wider variety) twice now. It's definitely not the meshes or the skins they've got either, as I've put the 3 problematic ones into a cube map just to test, and they render fine in that, the same as the previous problem meshes were fine as soon as I rebuilt from scratch.
Beleg Cúthalion on 13/4/2011 at 08:25
Do they show up in the 3D window in render mode? Could you send us a screenshot of your editor window, maybe including the 3D window in render (or maybe in normal mode)? Just because I have no idea right now, especially when the skins are OK and no render properties/OutOfWorld etc. have been altered. :erg:
Judith on 13/4/2011 at 08:56
Yup, in-editor layout shot might come in handy. Did you remember not to build too close to 0,0,0 spot? This camera-eye icon is there, if you accidentally include it in your subtractive brush, you'll be in trouble. Also building far away from this spot can cause problems, usually with flickering shadows though. Last but not least, check your engine settings for zoneportals, reset it, if you need to.
oojackapivvy on 13/4/2011 at 11:46
I'll get some screenies up later - not at my main machine at the moment. I *might* be too close to 0, 0, 0 - although the eye is definitely not within the level.
The smeshes show up both in the basic UEd textured view, and in the ION view. Before starting to put any smeshes in this time, I went through and zone portalled the entire thing, however it's possible that they could be part of the problem I guess - I made them flush with the walls, mostly because the couple of original maps I looked at seemed to have most doorways double portalled (unless I've misunderstood something, which is of course entirely possible!), so although I've only placed a single portal on each of mine as yet, I positioned them to one side to make it easier to drop another in if it is necessary.
I've tried to ensure that they are all slightly bigger than the aperture they cover, but without being big enough to overlap each other on different floors, or extend too far into the void, and while I can't remember how many zones there were, I don't think it exceeded 64 so should not be a proplem (esp. as that limit was supposed have been extended).
I'm actually starting to wonder if it is some kind of bizarre 64 bit issue, as I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, and getting stuff installed and working has been an utter pain (not to mention total defeat with the 5.1 patch for 3DS). I'm trying to get Virtual PC and XP mode installed on it, and do have spare drives I can put in for a dual boot at the weekend if I have to, but currently kinda distracted by party preparations (my son is 4 tomorrow!) and having to share my main machine with him as we got burgled at the weekend, and they took the laptop he uses for CBeebies (and which I would otherwise have used to test 32 bit and rule that out) :( This netbook can't cope with online video, and without something for him to use while I'm online, I don't get near the main PC during the day :cheeky:
nomad of the pacific on 14/4/2011 at 14:42
You might also try increasing your Vertex Pools. I have had problems with NPCs becoming invisible when I put in too many. :p They showed up okay when I actually played through the game and not the editor, though.
oojackapivvy on 14/4/2011 at 21:46
It's a BSP issue. Or perhaps a navmesh issue resulting from the BSP. Or something. Looking for stuff on the vertex pools I stumbled on things which led me to the report off grid BSP, which revealed 261 off grid surfaces (not a single one of which was visible as such even at maximum zoom in the editor.
Correcting that caused the missing bench to appear, but the floating plate on top of the invisible table to disappear. Since then all manner of messing around with it has seen different combinations of appearance and disappearance of the problematic meshes, with the only constant being that the rebuild after fixing the brushes brought a table in a different room back, and apparently permanently so.
So, I'm not really any further ahead here as I'm running out of options on how to adjust the BSP to sort things out, but at least I know messing around with that has some hope of fixing it.....
ETA: It's just geometry altogether. Found the BadGeometry.log and started looking at that - there were several meshes reported as problematic, having non convex collision. I ended up deleting all of them, with things appearing and disappearing in the problematic room with the problematic meshes, then it started whining about first one, then another, then another etc of the repeated CIVexSUPa8, so in the end I deleted them all. Now most of the meshes that had been giving me a problem are visible in game, and I'm not sure at this time of night I dare look round the rest of the map in case I find something else. It can wait for tomorrow!
Beleg Cúthalion on 15/4/2011 at 07:39
The general assumption is that you can ignore most of the error messages or reports that T3Ed gives you. Usually letting the editor fix off-grid brushes makes more holes in the world than leaving the allegedly unaligned ones. If you want to increase your vertex pools, just duplicate them (by 2 or 4) in your user.ini.
oojackapivvy on 15/4/2011 at 10:11
Doubling all the vertex pools has fixed it (thank you both for suggesting it!), but that doesn't explain how changing the BSP was adding and removing from view random ones of the problematic meshes. There's definitely some BSP issue going on there (among other things using the align to grid got rid of some really odd light-bleed), but I'll carry on for the moment because I've got a good idea now of how I can rework the BSP *if* I need to, and the smesh work can be easily enough copied to a new map several rooms at a time if it comes to it.
Judith - if you do see this, what would you suggest setting the zone portal settings to? Assuming you mean the build settings, they're just on default, but I've got so many saves of this map in so many different states that it'll be easy to see if it has more of an effect on some BSP versions of it than others :)
Judith on 15/4/2011 at 14:23
Actually 50/50 or 50/70 settings usually work for me, but you might want to experiment a bit, if the problem persists. I'd move the sliders all the way to the left and start from there.
