I'm attempting to consolidate all of the Strife missions into a single campaign. Unfortunately, I used 7 different gamesys during the course of time. Rather than attempting to making one gamesys, which would be a total nightmare, I decided to just throw them all into the zip folder.
Problem #1: Some zip folders had identically named gamesys files, even though they weren't the same. I renamed all of the gamesys files, re-loaded each mission, and assigned them to the newly-named gamesys's. I also re-numbered the .mis files, from miss17.mis to miss31 mis, as many of them were also given identical names.
Problem #2: Since the custom textures remained the same--I never messed with these--I didn't think I'd have a problem in this area. WRONG! Half-way through the missions, I notice huge areas of Jorge showing up. I carefully checked to make sure I didn't accidentally assign the wrong gamesys. Then I loaded up the problem level in its original zip. Looks good.
So I saved that file into the work folder where the consolidation is taking place, along with the gamesys. I did not rename the gamesys file, only the mission file. When I loaded this up into Dromed, Jorge returns, just as before.
Remember that through the Strife series, I never renamed or changed the custom textures in anyway. The directory structures remained the same. The only thing that changed, is that as the Strife series progressed, more textures were added. Of course, these are now showing up as Missing in some of the missions that never used them.
If someone can think of an easier solution...what am I saying!!...this is Dromed we're discussing...nothing is easy with that ugly girl.
Right now, I have two copies of Dromed running, one with the original game, the other with the campaign file. I'm going back and forth, assigning textures to the Jorge, a tedious process at best.
I imagine that while the textures have not changed their numbers have. One mission a brick texture might be 10 that same texture 44 in the next. But it's been a long time since I've worked with dromed...shouldn't the .mis file do things correctly as long as the texture in present? Sorry...I'm just rambling...as I said it's been a while. Guess this didn't help
I'm certain you're right. I wish someone had made a tool where a mission could be loaded as a database, where numeric changes could be made quickly for stuff like this.
Ref. Multibrush Texture Change Tutorial and How to import large multibrushes without having to retexture them.
But I'm confused. You are keeping different mis and gam files for each mission in your campaign, right? And the textures are still getting messed up, depending on which zip the files are in??? That is, you have missxx.mis and missxx.gam in their own zip and there is no JORGE, but if you move missxx.mis and missxx.gam to join missyy.mis and missyy.gam in a new zip, you have the problem of JORGE showing up??? Really?
Last edited by LarryG; 14th Apr 2012 at 11:47.
Correct, LarryG. It appears that in miss25.mis, there are, let's say 10 files in fam/stoner. Now, in the campaign, with all textures consolidated, fam/stoner has grown to 33 textures. This throws all the numbers off.
Did you compress_family all where it worked before moving the mis and gam files to the common zip? That should keep the numbering correct regardless of the number of files in the fam folder ... and I don't see how the number of files in the fam folder should matter anyway. You can add and remove them while working to no detriment. The gam file should be keeping a record of which file goes where in the texture list by name. The numbers should only be used to look up a texture in the list when used on a brush. It should be a look up table for the textures, texture id mapped to the filename on your system. Very odd.
Last edited by LarryG; 14th Apr 2012 at 14:14.
Funny you should mention that. I did notice that just about every level I opened in Dromed had too many textures in the texture preview window. It seems they all needed that "compress all" applied. I've always been quite religious about that practice. Hmm...Originally Posted by LarryG
I'm thinking about taking the missions I've fixed within the campaign and inserting them back into their original locations, just to see what happens.
Is there any chance that you forgot to use set_gamesys miss25.gam after changing the mission's name to miss25?
It looks as I may have to abandon the effort altogether. I just multi-brushed a chunk of map to delete parts of it. All of a sudden, every object in the mission turned into triangles. I hit delete, and POOF! Instant triangle world. I didn't mess with the gamesys, either.
I'm still puzzled by how the zip file can make a difference in getting the right texture. All of the subject missions are already released, yes? If you want i can try to package them together, not as a working campaign, just in the same zip without your texture assignment issue.
I appreciate the offer, but even if you were successful, I'd have to go back and re-do a whole lot of stuff I already fixed in the first 8 missions. (And of course, I didn't keep notes.)
I can upload the campaign and you can take a peek if you want. The problems start with miss25.mis. miss17-miss24 are fine.
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