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Map consideration for M0 3.3.3.


Best Answer lovalmidas, 01 September 2017 - 07:11 AM

Mistakes happen. At least you know now why they happen. Then you can start to avoid it / work around it.

I don't even want to know how many crashes Speeder have had in the past ten years of modding. :p

 

You shouldn't need to go that far to delete all RA2. I am not sure what could have caused your games to stop working (assuming they worked before), but I believe there is a fix on the Internet somewhere about black video screen for RA2 (TS/RA2/YR's graphics is a little... quirky). Working with a program is all about small steps.

 

 

EDIT: 

Taking entire chunks of INI files is a common pitfall for those who are new to modding.

The game loads inis in sequential order, and the map file is really just overwriting the rules file.

 

Think of it as

Rulesmd.ini 

[OilDerrick]

...

ProduceCashAmount=100

ProduceCashDelay=10

...

 

Map

[OilDerrick] 

ProduceCashAmount=200

 

Will result in a ProduceCashAmount=200 (Map rules override ini rules), and ProduceCashDelay=10 (ini rules)

 

This will help you avoid wholesale copying of the game data, aka including only what you need to change.

 

~~~~~~

Pure mapping (terrain and object placement only) won't require much more than skill in the map editor.

However, scripting and ini-editing is going to require a modder's knowledge to pull off without issues.

 

You may want to visit sites like http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com, and Project Perfect Mod forums to get some idea of how the game works in a more technical level, or at least watch people who do.

 

http://ares-develope...b.io/Ares-docs/ for Ares, which MO uses. That is next level stuff though :p

 

Also, since you are new, take small steps, and do lots of testing for every small step you make. You are gonna need to adjust a lot of your thinking and practice to learn how to make functioning maps.

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#1 GEPLAYER

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Posted 30 August 2017 - 04:05 AM

Hi,

 

I'm not sure if there is a dedicated section for this, if there is please move my thread. Big fan of the C&C series and love the mods available. I have always been a fan of the FA2 map editor and have made a number of maps that really give a unique experience, Omaha beach being one of them, where the only way across is with landing craft or aerial invasion..makes for a lot of fun....especially when battling a human opponent.

 

Anyway to get to the point of the thread, Ive created a map using the FA2 map editor but can't seem to get it to run on the latest MO3.3 mod. The game crashes when loading the map. Now I've checked the map for owner triggers, but they are all set on "civilian"...there is no option for "none", so I have no idea why the map isn't working. The map has 4 starting positions, one in each corner, with an island in the middle with a capturable Nuke Silo and Airport. If a mod is able to look over the map to see what is the issue I would appreciate it alot. The maps location is in Folder: MO3.3 > Ra2 > Map > Custom

 

**For some reason I can't upload the map file, as Im not permitted to do so**

 

Thank you!

GE.


Edited by GEPLAYER, 30 August 2017 - 04:07 AM.


#2 Handepsilon

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Posted 30 August 2017 - 05:54 AM

Can you upload the except.log in debug folder's snapshot? I might be able to deduce what went wrong with your map

As a heads up, check if you really select it to Civilian and not Civili or Civ like I once did.


Edited by Handepsilon, 30 August 2017 - 05:55 AM.

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#3 GEPLAYER

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Posted 30 August 2017 - 06:16 AM

Can you upload the except.log in debug folder's snapshot? I might be able to deduce what went wrong with your map

As a heads up, check if you really select it to Civilian and not Civili or Civ like I once did.

Is this the file you were refering too? I also have the spotlight on each building set to Rules.ini, as opposed to "no spotlight"

Attached Files


Edited by GEPLAYER, 30 August 2017 - 06:17 AM.


#4 Handepsilon

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Posted 30 August 2017 - 08:43 AM

Spotlights are not supported only in non-Ares RA2, I'd doubt it's the problem

However, try to check if turning off the spotlight would fix the problem.

 

(also, try uploading the map in a zip file)


Edited by Handepsilon, 30 August 2017 - 09:09 AM.

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#5 lovalmidas

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Posted 30 August 2017 - 10:40 AM

Files you may want to look at (or zip up for others to look at)

 

Except.txt

Basic. The EIP is often the first step to finding a problem.

 

Debug.log 

Helps to see what actions were made before the exception. 

 

The Map file

Not very useful to the person who did not make it, but people might catch something you missed.

If all else fails, you can start removing chunks of script and retest to attempt to locate and isolate the source of the error.

 

No crashdumps unless requested. You'll need a programmer to interpret that anyway. :p

 

Zip them as they are in one group.


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#6 mevitar

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Posted 30 August 2017 - 11:34 AM

Open the map in notepad, find the triggers, and make sure their ownership is set to Neutral.
Also find the [Houses] and/or [Countries] sections and remove them, including the sections of the individual countries. FA2 will add YR houses to the map itself unless you tell it not to do it, and that will make the map unable to work in MO.
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#7 GEPLAYER

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Posted 31 August 2017 - 12:47 AM

Spotlights are not supported only in non-Ares RA2, I'd doubt it's the problem

However, try to check if turning off the spotlight would fix the problem.

 

(also, try uploading the map in a zip file)

I tried turning off the Rules.ini spotlights but this proved ineffective. The rules are kind of important for this map, as each team only has a single oil derrick (with extra armour and increased cash rate) as well as a capturable missile silo.

 

Files you may want to look at (or zip up for others to look at)

 

Except.txt

Basic. The EIP is often the first step to finding a problem.

 

Debug.log 

Helps to see what actions were made before the exception. 

 

The Map file

Not very useful to the person who did not make it, but people might catch something you missed.

If all else fails, you can start removing chunks of script and retest to attempt to locate and isolate the source of the error.

 

No crashdumps unless requested. You'll need a programmer to interpret that anyway. :p

 

Zip them as they are in one group.

Roger that, I've zipped the files up..minus the crashdump.

 

Open the map in notepad, find the triggers, and make sure their ownership is set to Neutral.
Also find the [Houses] and/or [Countries] sections and remove them, including the sections of the individual countries. FA2 will add YR houses to the map itself unless you tell it not to do it, and that will make the map unable to work in MO.

I tried this as well, but couldn't get the map to run. Worst case Ill just have to play it on RA2 (unmodded)

 

Thats the map with the .map version and .yrm version, as well as the debug/except. Thanks for taking the time to look over this. I'm no good with the scripting etc, only creating a map.

Attached Files


Edited by GEPLAYER, 31 August 2017 - 12:48 AM.


#8 Handepsilon

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Posted 31 August 2017 - 05:53 AM

I'll try looking over it when I'm done with work


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#9 mevitar

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Posted 31 August 2017 - 03:31 PM

Uh... why did you copy an entire RA2MD.ini and put it into the map? That just can't work in MO.
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#10 GEPLAYER

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Posted 01 September 2017 - 02:21 AM

Uh... why did you copy an entire RA2MD.ini and put it into the map? That just can't work in MO.

 I have no idea what you mean by that? the only .ini file I'm remotely familiar with with the rules.ini file.



#11 lovalmidas

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Posted 01 September 2017 - 02:56 AM

yeah I think he refers to the rules.ini or rulesmd.ini. Specifically, the rulesmd.ini

 

Your file contains all the unit, weapon, warhead, actions, technotype lists, even the [General] section. Most of those aren't even needed by the map since the game will use rulemd.ini if not overwritten.

 

You might have used the FA2 editor to load all the headers from rulesmd.ini into your map.

As Mental Omega is a very different game from YR, those rulesmd entries are largely not compatible, and will cause a crash.

 

There is one relatively way I can think of to salvage this without redoing the map.

 

 - Open FA2

 - Create new map

 - In Step 2, Import an existing map or bitmap (BMP)

 - In Step 3, browse for your map.

 - Also in Step 3, check Import Trees, Import Overlay, Import Units and Buildings (in this map you use only neutral structures so it should be ok).

 

Note: This will erase everything except Terrain, Trees, Overlay, Units and Buildings. If you have Triggers, Teamtypes, Scripttypes, AITriggers, Taskforces, custom Map boundaries, custom INI settings, they will be erased.

Tested this and it loads the custom INI settings as well. Well, gotta look for another way.

 

Then apply mevitar's suggestion to remove the [Houses] and [Countries] section using a text editor (Notepad). FA2 will generate them, and MO does not react nicely to it.

 

See if it improves.

 

 

A/N: I just realised that with the entirety of rulesmd.ini, the map is still less than half the size of our largest map (without a full rulesmo.ini)  :smile2ap:


Edited by lovalmidas, 01 September 2017 - 03:05 AM.

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#12 Handepsilon

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Posted 01 September 2017 - 03:21 AM

Importing rules.ini is a wrong way to make a map, I know this one custom MO map which contains the entirety of Rulesmo.ini from 3.3.1. That thing was bloating with 8 MB and is highly unstable

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#13 GEPLAYER

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Posted 01 September 2017 - 06:15 AM

yeah I think he refers to the rules.ini or rulesmd.ini. Specifically, the rulesmd.ini

 

Your file contains all the unit, weapon, warhead, actions, technotype lists, even the [General] section. Most of those aren't even needed by the map since the game will use rulemd.ini if not overwritten.

 

You might have used the FA2 editor to load all the headers from rulesmd.ini into your map.

As Mental Omega is a very different game from YR, those rulesmd entries are largely not compatible, and will cause a crash.

 

There is one relatively way I can think of to salvage this without redoing the map.

 

 - Open FA2

 - Create new map

 - In Step 2, Import an existing map or bitmap (BMP)

 - In Step 3, browse for your map.

 - Also in Step 3, check Import Trees, Import Overlay, Import Units and Buildings (in this map you use only neutral structures so it should be ok).

 

Note: This will erase everything except Terrain, Trees, Overlay, Units and Buildings. If you have Triggers, Teamtypes, Scripttypes, AITriggers, Taskforces, custom Map boundaries, custom INI settings, they will be erased.

Tested this and it loads the custom INI settings as well. Well, gotta look for another way.

 

Then apply mevitar's suggestion to remove the [Houses] and [Countries] section using a text editor (Notepad). FA2 will generate them, and MO does not react nicely to it.

 

See if it improves.

 

 

A/N: I just realised that with the entirety of rulesmd.ini, the map is still less than half the size of our largest map (without a full rulesmo.ini)  :smile2ap:

The only reason I used the rules.ini is to edit it so as to enable the nuke silo capturable and the oil derrick to generate a higher level of cash. I'm really not familiar at all with anything else regarding rules/ruledmd.ini :S. My issue now is that none of my RA2 game files work. Every version of the game, moded or unmoded, just gives me a black screen but audio is still there....no idea, it's not just MO related as the other copies of the game are all doing the same thing.

 

Importing rules.ini is a wrong way to make a map, I know this one custom MO map which contains the entirety of Rulesmo.ini from 3.3.1. That thing was bloating with 8 MB and is highly unstable

The map works fine on generic RA2/YR, it's just with the mods that is causing the instability. Like I said I have no idea about editing these files. Maybe I should just uninstall and delete ALL my copies of RA2 and start from scratch. As I have multiple copies of the game with different mods, moomans being one and MO3.3. being the other. None of which are working now, just hear audio on a black screen. Was working a few months a go....



#14 lovalmidas

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Posted 01 September 2017 - 07:11 AM   Best Answer

Mistakes happen. At least you know now why they happen. Then you can start to avoid it / work around it.

I don't even want to know how many crashes Speeder have had in the past ten years of modding. :p

 

You shouldn't need to go that far to delete all RA2. I am not sure what could have caused your games to stop working (assuming they worked before), but I believe there is a fix on the Internet somewhere about black video screen for RA2 (TS/RA2/YR's graphics is a little... quirky). Working with a program is all about small steps.

 

 

EDIT: 

Taking entire chunks of INI files is a common pitfall for those who are new to modding.

The game loads inis in sequential order, and the map file is really just overwriting the rules file.

 

Think of it as

Rulesmd.ini 

[OilDerrick]

...

ProduceCashAmount=100

ProduceCashDelay=10

...

 

Map

[OilDerrick] 

ProduceCashAmount=200

 

Will result in a ProduceCashAmount=200 (Map rules override ini rules), and ProduceCashDelay=10 (ini rules)

 

This will help you avoid wholesale copying of the game data, aka including only what you need to change.

 

~~~~~~

Pure mapping (terrain and object placement only) won't require much more than skill in the map editor.

However, scripting and ini-editing is going to require a modder's knowledge to pull off without issues.

 

You may want to visit sites like http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com, and Project Perfect Mod forums to get some idea of how the game works in a more technical level, or at least watch people who do.

 

http://ares-develope...b.io/Ares-docs/ for Ares, which MO uses. That is next level stuff though :p

 

Also, since you are new, take small steps, and do lots of testing for every small step you make. You are gonna need to adjust a lot of your thinking and practice to learn how to make functioning maps.


Edited by lovalmidas, 01 September 2017 - 07:26 AM.

30m70ag.png

 

Mental Omega on the web:
fbbutton.png ytbutton.png mdbutton.png dsbutton.png
IRC: #menthosogma (Rizon)

 





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