Blender, "Append" ... and the Plugin

[boblishman]

OK... now I'm cross .. (mainly with myself though!)

I was doing really well... realy, realy well with the new 1.2 plugin. I created a 3d sound with a sound region, a fully working sprite (even in conjunction with other overlapping alpha textures), a working ladder, a great looking decal blend, a wonderful stencil blend, all working EXACTLY like they should.

Then, I thought, hmmm ... camara time. Oh, no tutorial ... well, never mind, I have the (fixed) FunctionChk Age ... that has a camera region, I'll go see how they did it.

Hmmm... their camera has a constaint ... not sure if thats important ... maybe it is ... so, best if I "Append" it into my age and use that one. So I did. I appended the Camera Object, and (to my surprise), Blender kindly brought in the Camera Region as well ... oh, cool, I thought, all I need to do is move the camera and region to where I want them and then, because I'll keep the same object names, I can use their Alcsript (seeing as there is NO TUTORIAL yet for cameras).

So, positioned the camera where I wanted it, moved the camera region to encompass MY ladder (because that was what I wanted to focus on ... to check that the avatar hands lined up exactly on the rungs, which is hard to see with the default camera being directly behind, I wanted a 45 degree side angle shot) ... so... got it all lined up, copied the camera Alcscript by hand ... Exported ... which it did first time (which was a first for me ... that Alcscript usually causes me a problem which usually turns out to be a missing space or colon!)... Export finished... and I was just about to load up Uru when I thought "Oh, just done a ton of work better Save my file in case I crash" ... so I (and this is why I am SO cross with myself, ... pressed Crt+S and saved over my file ... (my ONLY file for this age ... well, it's not really an "Age", it's just a colection of objects to test each of the new features... but at least they all work ... BIG MISTAKE!! - *slaps myself again - )

So, crank up Uru... can't wait to see my new camera in action ... go into the age and ...

1) The sound region doesn't work
2) The sprite's transparency is now causing x-ray vision through the decal blend
3) My ladder ... omg... walk over to climb UP it ... and proceed to climb DOWN in thin air

Now, I haven't touched ANY of these items since the last time I exported, when they were all working EXCELLENTLY ... the only thing I have done is Append the camera (and unwittingly the region) from FunctionChk.Age.

Ok, I have checked everything in Blender for these messed up objects, and, according to Blender, everything is correct. I have checked the Alcscript file ... that's correct too... and, wait for this, when I check the Age.log ... for my ladder bottom region (Ladder_rgn_bot ) the plugin reports "Direction: DOWN" ... wtf??? ... the Alcscript clearly says "Direction: UP" (which is correct) and loops say 1 when the Alcscript says 3 and the log file says style: Big when the Alcscript says style: twofeet ...

So, now the plugin is NOT reading the Blender file correctly, OR Blender's Alcscript file is sending the wrong information to the plugin ... wtf??

Now, if you don't believe me, HERE is the Blender file (plus the texture cache and oog file - the wav file is WAY to big, but I'm sure you can convert it if it's needed) ...

... check the Alcscript file, then YOU export it ... and see what I mean.

(And I was doing so well too ... )

here's the Age.log file...

Code: Select all

[Region Object Ladder_rgn_Bot]
 Region type: climbing
 [LogicHelper]
  [Ladder Modifier Ladder_rgn_Bot]
[-0.000000, 0.854000, 0.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 0])
[-0.854000, -0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 1])
[0.000000, 0.000000, 0.854000, 0.000000](matrix [row 2])
[2.722486, -3.320883, 0.000000, 1.000000](matrix [row 3])
   Ladder View:       0.854,     0.000,     0.000
   Direction: Down
   Style: Big
   Number of loops: 1
 [Physical]
  HullBounds export
   Exporting 8 (8) vertices
  Setting Region-Specific settings....
  Object is Dynamic
 [Coordinate Interface Ladder_rgn_Bot]

and here's the Alcscript:

alcsript.jpg (53.58 KiB) Viewed 3639 times

[Nadnerb]

This is because Blender can't find your AlcScript file, or rather, it's finding an empty file because the text file named "AlcScript" in blender is empty, and the file containing your AlcScript seems to have no name.

In the text drop-up, select AlcScript. It is empty. Press the X next to the name field to delete it. Bring up the text file with no name containing your script and call it AlcScript. Export.

Also! When you Ctrl-S save over a blend file, blender immediately writes a "FileName.blend1" file in the same directory. This is a copy of the file before the save. Additional saves will overwrite this backup with the new backup, but this will let you back up one save level. To use that file, just remove the 1 from the extension so that it becomes a "blend" file, and open it.

[boblishman]

Thanks Nadnerb ... actually, I had a hunch whilst I was waitin for a reply ... so I copied the alcscript text ... then deleted it ... then I noticed the Alscript file was still in the selection window ??? ... so, I opened it, and pasted in the copied text ... anyhow, its all back to normal now

So... was it the Append that threw Blender off? (I have noticed that it often corrupts meshes that are appended and wont export with the new plugin)

[Nadnerb]

I don't know, it sounds like it, but appends shouldn't do that, or affect random text files...

Also, I exported your age, and the z sorting issue on your sprite is independent of you alcscript problems. The Zoffset value needs to be 2.

[boblishman]

The Zoffset value needs to be 2.

I set it to 1 and it's working fine ... (strange how it worked before though ??)

[Trylon]

Well, anything containing transparency (that's actually used that is) automatically gets Z-Offset = 1 from PyPRP.
Consider it PyPRP's gift to you

Any offset beyond 1 you should set yourself.