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[Max-Violence]

Whelp, I've gotten all the major buildings constructed and nothing else. Poor map won't render... The .mis is 544 KB - I haven't done Update Tiles Used or New Occulsion Data yet, nor have I placed any Invisible tiles or tiles "underground." There are also zero "detail" tiles.

Ideas, suggestions, offers to take the map to a computer with 2 GBs of RAM?

I NEED to have this map render -- the mission itself is somewhat involved, and the info on the minimap is going to be nesessary, so any and all help would be much appreciated.

[OnTheBounce]

Ideas, suggestions, offers to take the map to a computer with 2 GBs of RAM?

Open a "Tiles Only" version of the map, save an alternate version. Then Update Tiles and generate Occlussion Data. See if it will render then.

It would seem to me that since Occlussion Data determines which tiles are visible/invisible due to the Point of View it would be necessary to get the map to render properly.

If that doesn't work, ZIP it up and send it to me. I'll see what I can do.

With all of the trouble you've been having w/FoT it might be time to "nuke" your PC. That is, reformat your HD and reinstall everything. It's recommended that you do this once every 6 months.

Cheers,

OTB

[Jimmyjay86]

Not sure if these will help but try 'em anyway:

1. Go to your Display Settings under the Advanced button and under the Performance tab. Set the Hardware acceleration to Full.

2. Go to System settings in the control panel and the Performance tab. Specify your own virtual memory to the maximum amount of hard drive space you have free.

3. Shut down anything you have running in the background that is unimportant with the task manager.

If any of these things destroys your system which I doubt I take no responsibility!

[Max-Violence]

Hey OTB, when I said, "major buildings constructed and nothing else," I meant it i.e. no entities, zones, triggers, buckets, monkeys, or buckets with monkeys in them.

I did UTU and NOD, and aside from taking the filesize from 544 KB to 711, nothing changed (other than the flags for some tiles and the occulsion data, of course). Map still won't a-render.

I also End Task'd everything except Explorer (even killed Systray :mrgreen:). Nada.

Map's on its way, O-eth T-eth B-eth

I didn't place any entities, invisible tiles, or anything else whilst laying tiles on purpose -- I was pretty sure this map would give me problems with the render. Too bad I was right

[Jimmyjay86]

Usually the virtual memory has a noticeable effect on working with large files. We use that alot to get more performance when working with large cad files.

[endocore]

That is, reformat your HD and reinstall everything. It's recommended that you do this once every 6 months.

You can't be serious. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to backup 50 GB of downloaded porn?

But seriously, although I know everyone has groaned in agony when I've said this in the past, the render function just doesn't work reliably and the only consistently effective way to get a minimap of anything but the tiniest of maps is to chop the map into small pieces, render them individually, and then paste the whole thing together in an image editor. Yes, it's tedious and yes, it's frustrating to spend hours going through the whole process when you could instead be having a grand time playtesting your map, but it works. The whole process can also be greatly simplified by building the render sections into the map as you create it through the use of manual groups.

I know what you're saying--"Of course your own horribly bloated nation-sized maps won't render in one shot, Endocore, but mine is so much smaller, and I've succeeded in rendering larger maps than this one before, etc." My point, though, is that the render engine is buggy and can't be trusted, and that this method is the only one I've ever had success with. Although I know I don't win any popularity points for suggesting this method, I thought that with some new mappers coming aboard everyone should know that other options do exist for creating their minimaps.


Endocore

[OnTheBounce]

Do you have any idea how long it takes me to backup 50 GB of downloaded porn?

Uh...half as long as it takes me to backup my 100 GB of dl'ed pr0n?

...[T]he only consistently effective way to get a minimap of anything but the tiniest of maps is to chop the map into small pieces, render them individually, and then paste the whole thing together in an image editor.

Yes. Unfortunately you're right and this is the usual method I end up using. However, lately there have been some maps that won't render regardless of what's done w/them, e.g. 46+2's Shrine map. I'm starting to wonder if the fact that MF was using machines w/dual processors -- if I understood S8 correctly -- has anything to do w/the matter. AFAIK none of us are running machines w/dual processors...

OTB

[Jimmyjay86]

Maybe we can all collectively beg Red to incorporate the viewing of the mis file into his Redviewer???

[OnTheBounce]

Max: Check yer email, ya schmuck!

(This minimap rendered w/the tried-and-true "chop 'er up and go blind using Photoshop" method. :mrgreen: )

Cheers,

OTB

[Red]

I really don't feel like reverse engeneering the map format of a game which has a decent map editor already.

As a note, using the occlusion data should make the map easyer to render as it won't load up the tiles which are occluded out and should save some processing power and RAM.

Start bugging me about sprite editing instead, I haven't received a single email/icq/aim/msnm/Y!M/irc message/dcc chat/forum post/phone call/voice mail about it in ages. Well, I hope I'll never get the last two really , and I stopped using Trillian so you can mostly forget PtP and IRC stuff... which leaves forum posts and emails.

[Max-Violence]

Max: Check yer email, ya schmuck!

Many thanks to you, kind sir!

Start bugging me about sprite editing instead

BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG insect BUG BUG BUG BUG and so on

[Jimmyjay86]

Start bugging me about sprite editing instead, I haven't received a single email/icq/aim/msnm/Y!M/irc message/dcc chat/forum post/phone call/voice mail about it in ages. Well, I hope I'll never get the last two really , and I stopped using Trillian so you can mostly forget PtP and IRC stuff... which leaves forum posts and emails.

I'll put you on my automated spam mass-mailer!