Drizzle 32 ! (experimental)

[Trindalas]

Thanks ! I had a quick look, I see which part of the file causes the problem. I'll investigate further and let you know when I find a fix

Ah, I take it the error message doesn't help then.

Yeah, unfortunately it's something that can only be deciphered by Cyan. Fortunately we have other ways to find the cause of the problem.

I really appreciate you trying to help me by the way!

My pleasure

Well I am glad the problem was so easy to find! ^.^
Always silly when the errors are complete enigmas to anyone not in the company
Looking forward to hearing more

[Sirius]

Whew ! Okay, it wasn't simple but I think I fixed it. Could you try reconverting your Myst V files with this new version of Drizzle ? This should solve the problem, let me know if you run into any more issues.

(The funny thing is I still don't know what caused the crash. My tools couldn't read the buggy area, and debugging them was too annoying. However I noticed only 1 bit of difference between the two files, so I just told Drizzle to put it back to its original value. Bam, problem solved. )

[Deledrius]

However I noticed only 1 bit of difference between the two files, so I just told Drizzle to put it back to its original value. Bam, problem solved. )

Haha, now I'm really curious what that value was.

[Sirius]

Dunno. This was related to some vertex data in a DrawableSpans' PlGBufferGroup, but that's as far as I looked for. I was too lazy to break into either Drizzle or HSPlasma to figure it out, so I just took the short way around.

It's crazy to think at the time I didn't know how to use a debugger. I'm also glad I'm now mostly working with HSPlasma, because Drizzle is largely undocumented and lots of errors are not correctly rethrown as exceptions. HSPlasma is much better in that regard Also, I never thought I'd say this one day, but while I like NetBeans, I'm much more comfortable with Visual Studio overall.
Still, Drizzle has a bunch of very convenient features, like being able to do a PRP diff (very useful in this case !), or edit PRPs without reencoding objects it doesn't know about. And a bunch of nice command-line utilities.

[Trindalas]

Whew ! Okay, it wasn't simple but I think I fixed it. Could you try reconverting your Myst V files with this new version of Drizzle ? This should solve the problem, let me know if you run into any more issues.

(The funny thing is I still don't know what caused the crash. My tools couldn't read the buggy area, and debugging them was too annoying. However I noticed only 1 bit of difference between the two files, so I just told Drizzle to put it back to its original value. Bam, problem solved. )

Oddly, this time I got the error stack as soon as i tried to interact with the book, but even more strangely, it did not happen the second or third time and it took me there with no problems, unlike before where it just consistently froze up on load and eventually gave the error... So... Problem solved I guess? Lol, it just seems odd that it would give me the error the first time, sooner than before, but then not after that. Of course, after seeing the island in such a sorry state, part of me almost wishes I kept getting the error XD
I did go play a little realMyst Masterpiece Edition though, so I got to see the island in all its glory again anyway ^.^

[Sirius]

Oddly, this time I got the error stack as soon as i tried to interact with the book, but even more strangely, it did not happen the second or third time

I think that's probably just a random unrelated Uru error. Animated linking panels are known to be a bit unstable...

Of course, after seeing the island in such a sorry state, part of me almost wishes I kept getting the error XD

Yeah, this version of the island is incredibly spooky. I kinda miss the animated grass from the EoA engine which gave it a windier feel, but it's simply not supported on CC... I'm glad Drizzle32 manages to carry over a few details though (like the lightning striking the tower, a lever breaking on the docks, and some music).

Glad to hear things are working, though ! Enjoy

[Théodore]

[*]moar command-line options available for geeky people
One command you may find interesting: -exactcollisions
This basically adds a physical object for each visual one in a few seconds. This means you can walk virtually anywhere in an Age without falling through. You only need flymode to go through Cyan's original colliders.
Can be interesting for people who like wandering on the rooftops in Ae'Gura in an Assassin's Creed-like fashion. Also, if you like epic balancing over an endless abyss, I'd suggest having a look at Ahnonay's vortex/fourth sphere. The trip from the balcony to the sphere is worth a shot.
I'm not responsible for misplaced collisions, though - the algorithm is quite dumb when it comes to transparent objects like sprites.[/list]

Hi!

Sorry for digging old bones here. I went all the way back to the OP of this thread (BTW very interesting! I'll try one day to play Myst 5 EOA inside URU).

So, my question is how do you make -exactcollisions happen? I'm very interested. The other day I was talking on another thread about Teledahn in fly mode but what if I were able to go there without it with the help of that feature you added to Drizzle 32 and that I extracted from the OP to make this post.

Can you please help me figure this out?

Here is what I was able to perform so far:

Show Spoiler

[Sirius]

No problem ! You almost got the right command. Arg1 is correct, but arg2 should be the name of the Age, not the .age file itself - so put "Teledahn" (without the quotes).
However this still won't work. It seems Drizzle has a bug when processing Teledahn. I'll see if I can fix this by the week end...

what if I were able to go there without it with the help of that feature

You still need flymode to leave the playable area (ie: go through existing invisible collisions). Also, DO keep a backup of all the PRP files of the Age you intend to modify. Adding collisions to all existing objects will probably make the Age laggy and maybe even unsolvable due to objects like halos blocking your path. However once you're out of the main areas, it should be easier to navigate - you should be able to walk on water etc.

[Chacal]

This flag can have a huge performance impact.
For playing around once or twice it is useful, but if you want something more elegant you should make your own simplified colliders in Blender, export them in a .prp and add them to the age .ini.
As an added bonus, you can also modify existing colliders so that you don't need flymode to reach your new areas. As another added bonus, you can add new colliders so you don't fall off your new areas into the void.

This is the technique I used long ago for my "Opening the cavern" project.

[Théodore]

C'est intéressant ça!

But my big issue is Blender itself. I tried quite some times to install it. As far as having it on my PC that's not the issue; it's rather that I cannot import uru ages in it. There's something with the importer. Is it my version of python? I'm using Python 2.6 to be able to use PlasmaShop & PrpShop.

Oh yeah BTW I read all about your Opening the Cavern challenge! I customized my offline URU accordingly (relto & watcher's pub too). I didn't comment on it because it is a rather old subject. I always wanted to know how you or even Race (Negilahn & Payiferen) were able to change the prp by adding new collisions and removing some invisible blockades. I'd be interested.