i need some serious help

[Forest]

Earlier in my map i accidently changed my rock layer to have a water material or something. I went ingame and when i shot there was no dust kickup. I went back to change the material back to rock and went back to test it again and dust appear.

edit: In Bf2, not my own.

is that good?

[-R|F-Glitch]

Are you guys (hicric and forest) making your map in your own mod or with the BF2 mod?

[maranello]

Are you guys (hicric and forest) making your map in your own mod or with the BF2 mod?

i was making it with BF2

[HicRic]

I started a map in my own mod (but parented with BF2), it had working particles.

When I tested maranello's map, it was in BF2 mod..and it didn't work. But I'm pretty sure I made a map in a new mod after that, and the particles didn't work there.

[maranello]

I started a map in my own mod (but parented with BF2), it had working particles.

When I tested maranello's map, it was in BF2 mod..and it didn't work. But I'm pretty sure I made a map in a new mod after that, and the particles didn't work there.

i dont know what else i should do to get EA's attention on this problem. this problem crashes the entire game and the editor. you will also (from time to time) have visual problems with the game itself (weird sandbag, vehicle, house, road textures) and the entire editor becomes unuseable. i have posted the same topic in EA's forums, i personally sent 4-5 private messages to people who work in EA, but they dont care (or they dont wanna look stupid in public because they dont know the answer either). But i see them in public interviews talking about how many copies they sold or what is gonna be in expansion pack. this is totally ridiculous. i m passed the point of fixing this, i am trying to get their attention so this can be fixed in the final version of editor.

just be honest here. how many of you actually shoot the ground (also if you consider that you will probably have more than 3-4 layers of texture, you'd need to do this for each layer) and check if there is a dust coming out. you'd also have to do this every time you make a change in your map because we don't know what causes this problem. you paint paint paint for hours, and you check 50 times and it works, but 51st time it just stops working! i dont think anyone would do this. 99% of the people are so busy with how to make things appear in the game they are not even here yet. but imagine this, after hours of work, amazing stress and frustration, you finish your map, but what do you see? you shoot the ground, there are no bullet effects. you will go crazy like i did, and you will try to fix it and spend hours and days but you won't. nobody will have an answer and it will be you who wasted all that time for a buggy map.

i mean, please dont get me wrong, but i see many people getting all excited and releasing their maps. but they are not even 10% done. they dont know how to get roads working, most people dont even know how to make water yet. i still see people asking "how do i generate lightmaps" and "what are lightmaps". i think that's why there arent a lot of replies in my question. cause nobody knows what i am talking about. but you ll see, in a month or two, so many people will start having this problem. so i think we should go deeper and try to figure this out. because if we wait for EA's final release, i dont think we ll have a solution until after next summer

[HicRic]

okay everyone, I've done more testing. at one point I thought I had cracked it...but I was wrong. balls. :/

The results of my tests are utterly bewildering and random. Check it out:

I looked at my map ("The Last Stand") and went soldier cam in the editor. I put every bullet I could into the ground, and I got lovely dust clouds and no crashes whatsoever. Wonderful.

Now, on these maps that don't have working particles-my own couple of test maps I've made, and the test map maranello sent me-when I shoot the ground in soldier cam in the editor, I get an error in console and a CTD error in the editor. The console says something about "material XXX has not been set in material editor" or something similar, where XXX is a number.

I made a test map in the same mod as my working map. I used the same texture layer I used in the working map. For your information, that is dirt01 detail, sand02 colour, and 'dirt' material. This test map then had a little texture painted upon it. Shooting at the ground did not CTD, but it did not make particles.

I generated the particle atlas. I shot the ground. BLAM, CTD and console error, just like in maranello's test map!

bewildered, I left that alone.

Now, back on maranello's test map, I painted my working texture I mentioned before over the top of the present one. I shot it, error, etc. Then, I pained it down where there was NO texture-the standard checkerboard area that had been left alone. I shot it.

I stared in disbelief. IT WORKED! I got particles and no errors! I fired off another few clips just fine! I did a little jig. I went over to the "old" texture area, shot it, and there was an error!

At this point, I formed a theory: painted a texture over the top of old ones made the bug. After all, that old area had several layers on it now, but only one texture was around to paint. But on my shiny brand new texture place, it worked.

Alas, I again make a new map, paint down the texture, and it doesn't work...
It seems totally inconsistant and random.

Not only that, but my "working" area only works in the editor-it doesn't work in game!

I'm lost guys. There seems to be random factor used to decide whether your dust clouds work on a map, on a part of the map, in the editor or in game.

I've even compared files between my working map and broken maps...I can't find any differences that would cause this! i've copied across some files, and that didn't help.

Unless I can come up with any clever ideas, I'm pretty much stumped. Application of logic and thought to this problem has done no good. It seems as random as a throw of a DICE. ho ho ho.

I will try to copy across some other files between my working and non-working maps to see if I can at least isolate the problem down to one file or one set of files. That might help.

I suppose I can't really complain that I'm having to do this testing and bug hunting-this is a beta release of the editor, after all. If this was a finished release, bugs like this would be far more alarming.

[ELI]

Have you guys tried finding help on this forum?

http://bfeditor.gotfrag.com/forums/index.php

[maranello]

Have you guys tried finding help on this forum?

http://bfeditor.gotfrag.com/forums/index.php

the reason i registered to totalBF2 forum was because i could not get any help at all in that forum.

http://bfeditor.gotfrag.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=875

1. there are 4-5 people who work in EA and who actually post on that forum.
2. only 1 of them is actually really active in the forum (lawrence brown), the rest dont care about anything, i ve been reading that forum for the past 18 days, i am one of the top 5 people who post over 120 messages in the forum but unfortunately i havent seen any valuable information coming from them.
3. that only active person knows less than we do,
a. the answers he give to people is waste of time, if anyone can sit and spend 15 minutes with the editor, they can figure it out themselves
b. we have been waiting for months for tutorials, but so far all we have is basic terrain creating tutorials which pretty much doesnt cover anything, again you can figure it out yourself with no help in less than 15 minutes (at least i did).

he is a nice person, but still, if he doesnt know enough about the editor or if he doesnt have enough time for the editor, thats not my problem.
so...been there done that, no difference.

[CrimsonBlaze]

If you are talking about lawrence brown doing rubbish tutorials and being slow + not being that knowledgeable then quite frankly you are very ungrateful.

I dont think he actually has to do any of that, from what i understand he is a very busy person:
working on stuff at EA
working on his pirate style maps/mod
writing tutorials to help people
helping people out in the forums to the best of his ability
actually having a life

I think i remember him saying that making an advanced tutorial which would cover all the things needed to make a map would be approx 100 pages.

Also, remember that the editor is in BETA stage, does that not mean anything to some people? at that point in time theres no meant to be extensive tutorials and guides to help you, some beta applications dont even have them at all. The tutorials given out were very handy, alot of people would not of got their head around basic terrain making and texturing if it wasnt for them, yes YOU made of been able to pick it up after 15 minutes but you are not everyone, just becuase you could figure that stuff out doesnt mean everyone can. Just by following the tutorials I managed to make a basic map no problem which is what the tutorial was designed for, keep in mind the word basic. I've worked with many game mappers but I still needed help finding the basic stuff on the editor so it helped me alot. After you do a basic map and think that it is easier to use the editor than you thought then you mess around and find new stuff out. If you wanted full extensive guide to mapping you should wait until the final version comes out, beta versions are not designed to have extensive documentation.
just my 2 cents


but yeh... back to the topic...

[maranello]

If you are talking about lawrence brown doing rubbish tutorials and being slow + not being that knowledgeable then quite frankly you are very ungrateful.

I dont think he actually has to do any of that, from what i understand he is a very busy person:
working on stuff at EA
working on his pirate style maps/mod
writing tutorials to help people
helping people out in the forums to the best of his ability
actually having a life

I think i remember him saying that making an advanced tutorial which would cover all the things needed to make a map would be approx 100 pages.

Also, remember that the editor is in BETA stage, does that not mean anything to some people? at that point in time theres no meant to be extensive tutorials and guides to help you, some beta applications dont even have them at all. The tutorials given out were very handy, alot of people would not of got their head around basic terrain making and texturing if it wasnt for them, yes YOU made of been able to pick it up after 15 minutes but you are not everyone, just becuase you could figure that stuff out doesnt mean everyone can. Just by following the tutorials I managed to make a basic map no problem which is what the tutorial was designed for, keep in mind the word basic. I've worked with many game mappers but I still needed help finding the basic stuff on the editor so it helped me alot. After you do a basic map and think that it is easier to use the editor than you thought then you mess around and find new stuff out. If you wanted full extensive guide to mapping you should wait until the final version comes out, beta versions are not designed to have extensive documentation.
just my 2 cents


but yeh... back to the topic...

you are right, i absolutely 100% agree with you. but my point was different. they said they were gonna release the tutorial

1. early in april
2. end of may
3. in june
4. before BF2 hits the shelves
5. in july (the term they used was "days not weeks")
6. it was released on august.

i m a programmer myself and i know what is involved to make a bug free working software. when you write a program, you first set a deadline. if that deadline is not met, you dont get paid thats as true as 2 x 2 = 4. but these guys had over 4.5 extra months, they did nothing but postponed the release date, and played with us. i totally think it wasnt programmers' or any other EA workers' (like brown) fault. it was the company's policy. the question wasnt "how we can satisfy them" the question was "how we can make the big bucks". and i bet on everything i own right now, the final release will not be made public before expansion pack is released. the people who made the game. how long do you think it would take them to get this 49.3 MB editor done? believe me its not that hard. but i m also sure EA put an unrealistic deadline which was impossible to meet. its how "the corporation" works. and you are right, maybe i was a little be over aggressive about lawrence brown, he is doing what was told to do by his superiors. but as a gamer, as a mapper, as a person i am pissed, and i am pissed very very much. just to play this game and to use the editor, i paid over $200. a game like BF2 should not require over 2 GB DDR2 RAM (for a decent play- 1024 x 768 - settings high), but i did pay it didnt i? i paid for the game, i waited, i had to format my harddrive 7 times, i had to stay up all night and figure out how i can actually play this game. and still i dont see a company who really cares about its customers. i have actually read every single interview about the BF2, and in all of them, i have never seen an EA employee apologizing for the bugs, for the delays, for the memory leaks. in contrast, what i do hear is "how many copies they sold in 2 weeks" or "how many ranked servers they are gonna be adding to their server list". see the big picture. these are huge companies. DICE...EA...if they wanted to deliver a bug free editor (or a beta) on time, they would do it. if they wanted to make a bug free game, they would do it. consider microsoft. i have dozens of friends working there; in windows team, office team, server team. do you have any idea how long it takes them to test their software before its release? the production of windows XP took them about a year and a half whereas its testing took over 4 years (even then they had lots of bugs), that is the way you write a program and release it to public. and i am talking about games here not operation systems or professional business software. 90% of the people who buy the game wont have thousands of dollars to hire technicians to fix the bugs or fix their hardware.

anyways, this is really getting out of hand. yes i know this is a beta release. but i am trying to get EA's attention because this bug we are having wont be fixed by itself. what i am saying is "they dont care". they dont even say "ok maranello, noted, i ll make sure this problem is included in the final bug report". that is my point. they give us temp solutions or nonsense explanations. i dont want an explanation or a solution. i know this thing cant be fixed if we dont modify the original editor files which we cannot, so all i want is to see that i am being taken seriously and that this thing wont happen in the final release. in the meantime, maybe we can find a workaround. workaround is not a solution. workaround is something that works 90% of the time but it fails 10% the time. so those 2 things (getting EA's attention and the workaround) are the main reasons why i posted this on every single BF2 mapping forum i could find.