TPDC bug.

Lou-saydus · Post by **Lou-saydus** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 10:07 pm

Well i found a bug remdul. Anyways i was trying to save a new "experiment" this is how it happend.

I click File>save as then i saved it.

then i clicked File>save and i got an error. some kind of runtime error. and it really screwed up my dino go thing i wasnt really far in to it.

Lou-saydus · Post by **Lou-saydus** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 10:14 pm

Run time error 55 "file already open"

Post by **Asjad** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 12:29 pm

Heh,i cant get my mesh to be visible when start with the new dino thing.....i cant see the skin mesh.........the FPS just keeps changing and it says "loading textures" and it never loads.

maybe i am doing something wrong.....can you please point it out Remdul.iam using the JPOG Trex mesh in TPM format.....i want to use the trespasser's rex's bones for it......please explain when youve got the time.thanks

Post by **Asjad** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 2:52 pm

ok......now......what i want to do.....is use the original TRexX's bones structure for the JPOG Trex mesh........
how do i start??
i use the create new dino.......use the TRexX.TPM as the preset.....then it asks me to choose a "dinosaur skin model".ok fine,i choose the "eyelids_mesh.tpm" (the JPOG trex mesh)......now it loads....then asks me to choose the model i want to use as "skin mesh"......a dialogue box with the heading "Meshes" occurs..and gives me two choices...."None" or "eyelids_mesh",when i choose that...It only says loading textures in the bottom left corner and the FPS thing keeps changing between 60 and 80.......nothing happens for a long time.

Ive tried using the Eyelids_mesh by exporting it by TresEd and 3ds max....to .TPM. same result it never shows up in TPDC,it just states loading textures and that FPS just keeps changing.......

What am i doing wrong??

Post by **Remdul** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 6:56 pm

some kind of runtime error...
...Run time error 55 "file already open"

Uh, well, it seems as if the file is opened already, maybe in notepad or something? Might still be an error though. Are you running XP (if so home, or professional)? TPDC should work fine in XP (I tested it) but there are some many flaws in the XP support for Visual Basic apps that it might mess up. Does the error message have the red icon, and does the caption say "Error"?

the FPS just keeps changing and it says "loading textures" and it never loads

Well, at least it hasn't crashed as long as the FPS counter is updated

.
Try to move the bmp files to another folder and load it again, lemme know what the results are. Also, you running XP?

Might wanna zip up your files and upload it to the diehard public ftp, drop me a line and I'll test it here.

I expected there would be problems (especially because of the XP-VB issue) so all feedback at this stage is welcome.

* Oh, and btw, if exported TPMs or the original dinosaurs do work (test this first!) then it is most likely to be a problem with the data, and not a bug at all.

Lou-saydus · Post by **Lou-saydus** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 8:14 pm

Xp pro. And i didnt have it open in another app i was shure of it. and it did have red icon. oh ya and one more thing this was made in vb right so can i use the openGL ocx's and dll's to play around with them?

Post by **Remdul** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 8:25 pm

I got a test version here:

http://www.trescom.org/downloads/tpdc012.zip

DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE!

Try to open the test file, your own creations and save them as anoter file. If you are not sure it saved right (even if it doesn't display an error) you can check it simply by comparing the files sizes, which should be the same.

There indeed was a program error in there, but not related to any of the problems mentioned by you, and it only occured with some files.

I can't seem to find the source of the texture problem. I used the same code in TPDC as all of my other application, has proven to be quite stable and has never ever given me any problems before. It might have something to do with an library I used (GLU32.DLL), but it has been around for years, and is pretty much bullet-proof.

If TPDC crashed before (and really exited, not just an error message) then you might have to reboot in order to get rid of strange behaviour viewport (and possibly texture) -problems. This really depends on what drivers you have, and how stable Windows wants to be at that exact moment.

Also, do not attempt to load files located in the root path of any HD, it will not cause TPDC to crash but it will complain about files not found etc.

About the "file already open" error; I can't seem to find any possible way to reproduce this error. Did TPDC crash before you got that error message?

Like I mentioned before, try moving the textures out of the .tpm folder, shouldn't affect editing at all.

Lou-saydus · Post by **Lou-saydus** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:02 pm

nope it didnt crash before the massage. But the new test version works just fine much more stable that the last vbersion.

mega raptor · Post by **mega raptor** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:03 pm

Ok, remdul I just got everything to work, turns out the test folder works fine. So I ask you, how do you actully edit dinos? Or is it in the readme file?

mega raptor · Post by **mega raptor** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:17 pm

Also, dinos from the preset folder can not be seen, which is what really frustrates me. And I have plans for a lot of dinos, too...

Post by **Remdul** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:38 pm

Actually, the presets only include the bone systems (so there really isn't anything you can see), something that can't be changed (can be but it won't work). What you do with the new dino wizard is merging several TPMs actually.

Otherwise you might want to go into the TPM files' code and try moving some objects to other files, mess around some. I think the format is pretty staightforward, but heck, I designed it so it looks all familiar to me.

It has been a while since I wrote this app, might take some time for myself to understand how it works, and fix any remaining bugs.

Post by **Asjad** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:50 am

How did you make your compy??if we know what steps you took while making the compy......maybe whatever the problem is we'll know.Was it xported from Gmax or 3ds max?in what folder you put them etc

Post by **Asjad** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:58 am

As far as the original dinos are concerned,they work fine.but i cant import a new mesh from that new dino wizard or whatever that is.

eatme · Post by **eatme** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:28 pm

alright. i've loaded a dino p int the dine editor thing. now can i move verticies around once i've selected one so you can make a sort of... fin.

Post by **Remdul** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 8:23 pm

Like stated in the readme (did any of you actually read it?) you can't edit the geometry itself. The sole purpose of the app is to select vertices and link those to a bone in the bone system.

If you want to create a new dinosaur you should first export the dino you want to use as host. Then export the model (try a tree or a jeep or anything else for testing).

You can open the tpm file in notepad, remove the skin model code, and it's corresponding instance. Put that file in the presets path.

Only then run TPDC, click file > new dinosaur. Then select your preset you just created. Then browse to your model (tree, jeep remember?), load that.

If TPDC doesn't automaticly select the skin mesh, you can do it manually; click the select skin model button, select the model name (tree, jeep whatever). Click ok. Should become visible in the viewport.

Only then comes the editing part. To assign vertices to a bone (that means that those dots will move along with the bone you select, and thus the triangles connecting the dots) you select a bone in the list; it will light up orange in the viewport. Then you can select the dots in the viewport, those which lite up red are linked to the bone selected in the list to the right.

Then save your file.

Run GeomAdd, select your tpm file, check warning messages, import if things seem ok.

That's how I created the TC-Isle compy.

Really, you should experiment with it. Compare the files after you changed stuff. Load up the test file (RaptorB), see how that one works. Edit that one, import it, see the changes in your level. And if you think you are up to it, you might want to juggle with the code in the tpm files. It's really works like HTML code, it just looks different. You can create webpages with Frontpage and they'll work. But you'll only have full control over the page's content when you get into the code. TPDC is the same. Frontpage sucks, TPDC sucks. Code rules.

Maybe next weekend I'll have the time to write a tutorial. I knew TPDC (or it's documentation) wasn't really ready for it's release, but I didn't want to keep it from you guys, so I released it. Just play with it, but report any bugs when they surface...