Buldozer : Painting the Ground

[EOOQE]

Hi,
i´m new to the Visitor Editing. Just downloaded Bushlurker´s Limnos Soucre File to play around with it.
Importing SAT pictures etc and generating all the png works as at should.
But the Buldozer don't work :




Everytime i got these error and the buldozer stopped working ....
i think im just to stupid and i is my fault ...but please can someone put me in the right direction how to get rid of this error ?

Thanks !

[Bushlurker]

A pathing error maybe?

When you get those files at first, the whole package is set up to "live" in a "Bush" namespace folder on P:\

If you were intending to actually work seriously on a freebie terrain like that the first thing you'd want to do would be to repath all the files into a Namespace or Tag folder of your own.... However, for just fooling around in Visitor and playing with binarizing and stuff it's perfectly ok to make a temporary "Bush" folder of your own - on your P:\ drive... Just put the "Limnos" project folder in there and all the files should be fooled into thinking they're back home on my system... they're all pathed to one "P:\Bush\Limnos\Data\whatever" path or another - so all files will be ok to use immediately - since you've just mimicked that structure.

Once you've done that you can load the .pew in Visitor and "import sat & mask" - that should create the "Layers" folder with all the .png's etc inside the "Data" folders - beside the textures..
Then you should be able to launch Buldozer - a DOS window will appear for a while as all the tiles are converted and then - it should work...

B

[EOOQE]

A pathing error maybe?

When you get those files at first, the whole package is set up to "live" in a "Bush" namespace folder on P:\

If you were intending to actually work seriously on a freebie terrain like that the first thing you'd want to do would be to repath all the files into a Namespace or Tag folder of your own.... However, for just fooling around in Visitor and playing with binarizing and stuff it's perfectly ok to make a temporary "Bush" folder of your own - on your P:\ drive... Just put the "Limnos" project folder in there and all the files should be fooled into thinking they're back home on my system... they're all pathed to one "P:\Bush\Limnos\Data\whatever" path or another - so all files will be ok to use immediately - since you've just mimicked that structure.

Once you've done that you can load the .pew in Visitor and "import sat & mask" - that should create the "Layers" folder with all the .png's etc inside the "Data" folders - beside the textures..
Then you should be able to launch Buldozer - a DOS window will appear for a while as all the tiles are converted and then - it should work...

B

Hi,
exactly what i did :
Made a "Bush" Folder , but everything in it like it was ..started visitor , imported sat etc ..then the DOS box appears and created 3886 Files in the Layer Folder .. everything fine so far .... the error appears a soon i start buldozer ....very strange as i made everything like you said .... or have i to wait very long like the DOS Box took a while to create all the files ?

EDIT : just tested your Falkland Files ....there everything works ! ....strange ... :-(

[Bushlurker]

You have to wait until the DOS box has finished and gone away, of course... there's 12,500 items in my "P:\Bush\Limnos\Data\Layers folder...

B

[EOOQE]

You have to wait until the DOS box has finished and gone away, of course... there's 12,500 items in my "P:\Bush\Limnos\Data\Layers folder...

B

Sure i waited until the BOX was finished .... mhmmm .... seems a lot of files are missing .... i start a new project with the files and let generate all png´s new .... the Buldozer error was after the dos box disappears btw :-)

[Bushlurker]

Although the Falklands demo heightmap is also 4096x4096 - it only has a very low res 4096x4096 Sat & Mask, so it's a lot lighter on resources and should load pretty fast. The Limnos terrain packs a pretty big 20480x20480 Sat & Mask, which is why it's a lot bigger and everything takes much longer to complete...

Make sure your "Project Parameters" look like this...


... though they should anyway since all those settings are embedded in the .pew file. (When you open the "Satellite grid calculator" sub-window, you'll need to re-enter the 20480 "Image Size" bit - then "apply proposed" and "close")...

I just loaded the same project into Visitor - deleted the Layers folder... Imported Sat & Mask - Layers folder created with 8,802 files... Opened Buldozer - DOS window plus "Preparing surface materials" for quite a while... ages, in fact... eventually the DOS window disappeared - I got "Extruding hills and valleys" for about a minute and... Viewing the terrain fine! Layers folder now contains 12,500 items exactly - same as before...

I'm starting to run out of ideas why it won't work for you... especially since the Falklands one is OK... Are you using the latest tools?


B

[Thromp]

Problems like this are usually about Size and dimensions , lots of Rvmats = long time to Paint the surface , Only solution i find is to use the -exthreads parameter ,it still takes time but always completes .

4096 is also bad dimension you will see nothing is able to be placed and moved in the bottom right hand 1/4 of the map also . its better to sacrifice and use 2048 and double the cell size to 20 for more stable result vs quality . you will find that even though you will get it in game , if someone has entered this map with Great View distance , there chance of Out of memmory error will increase, i would advise in your read me they start on another map and lower the View distance before entering such a big map with smal cell size .
I am lead to believe there is a Page file tweak but i have never found it to work consistently.

[EOOQE]

I'm starting to run out of ideas why it won't work for you... especially since the Falklands one is OK... Are you using the latest tools?


B

After starting a new project with your files, everthing works now
The Error is gone and it took only a few min. to paint surface...

nice Island, will play around with it now