invisible collision hulls - the bad kind (UT)

[Megatherium]

so i'm using a VERY large brush that does not line up to the grid in a lot of places. i heard that this is BSP error central if i leave it solid, so i set it to semisolid as i was directed. but now i've noticed an extra 5 feet of invisible matter you can walk on all around the edge of the brush. this will not do for the map i have in mind.

any ideas for fixing the cause of this? or perhaps a shortcut fix to removing the ICHs?

 

[Skorch]

does it have sharp edges or edges that stick out from the main body?...those are the ones that always gave me inviso-walls...

If so, you can subtract the offending edge and put it back in as a seperate brush...then go to properties and give it 0 collision...this works well with moving switches that have extended collision problems, as well...

 

[Megatherium]

hmm... the shape is similar to that of a boat; with a rounded bottom and a flat top would that 90 degree angle from the side to to top be enough to cause them? i thought it might be the size of the brush i'm working with dimensions in the nieghborhood of 12000 units.

i'll try cutting off them edges, when i re-add them do you think it would be better to have them non or semi solid?

 

[Skorch]

Non solid, probably...while walking the edge you wouldn't notice you were falling off too soon, if you kept the section your altering relatively small...

 

[milb]

Try to rebuild geometry, lighting, paths and so on seperated. Don't do a rebuildAll. Sometimes I have the same problem and mostly that helps.

 

[Skorch]

Strange...I get holes when I do that...

 

[milb]

Mostly it helps, sometimes it causes that! Just build the brush again, or do anything with it. Maybe semisolid, merge polygons, or use the order options. Id don' t know. Ehm, are there shadows where the ICH is? If there is really no lighing it is such an damned ICH. If all the Area around this brush is lit it is anything diffrent I dunno!

 

[Megatherium]

ok, i tried a lot of different techniques but nothing seemed to cure it without causing other problems i've decided to try making the entire brush non solid, then use invisble collision hulls to make up the walkable surface. if i don't let them touch, there'll be no sharp corners... right?

and, i don't think the ICHs are causing shadows...

 

[Bot_40]

Please don't turn it into a non-solid, this is a recipe for disaster (they are EXTREMELY prone to causing horrible bsp errors)
If you create brushes that don't line up with the grid, and also if you use intersect/deintersect at all then you are bound to get errors sooner or later, if you want to avoid errors in the future then I suggest you try to keep everything on the grid and you should be able to avoid the problem in the first place (though I couldn't really tell how messy it really is without seeing the brush itself)

A tempory solution might be to set the grid size to 16, then select the brush. Right click and go on Polygons -> To Brush, then press delete straight after to get rid of the original brush and be left only with the builder brush, then with the builder brush selected, type "Actor align" in the command box (minus quotes) and hit enter. This should align all the verteces to the nearest grid point.
If that causes UED to crash then keep repeating the process with smaller grid sizes until it works

 

[Megatherium]

ok, bot40. i tried the actor align, and it worked fine... but the ICHs were still there. if you think you or any others think you could help if you saw the brush i was working with, i'd be willing to send it to you somehow.

i'm starting to think it's just not possible for this shape to exist

 

[Bot_40]

Well first the next thing I would check is that you have no "twisted faces". UT engine doesn't triangulate surfaces automatically, so if you have bent poly then you will almost always get bsp errors and collision problems.
Best way to imagine it is if you look at each surface and imagine it was a peice of paper. If you would have to bend the paper in any way to make the shape then it's twisted and you'll get errors. All surfaces should be completely flat.

 

[Megatherium]

i believe they are flat... the shape is generally that of a boat. like a half cyclinder that curves to a point on one end. it's really not that complicated of a brush... it's just really big if that matters and it doesn't match the grid in all places.

would perhaps brush clipping help? like cutting the boat up into several sections? i don't really know much about brush clipping so...

 

[Bot_40]

well if you zip it up and attach it to a post I can prolly have a look at it

 

[Megatherium]

it's been a while, but i finally figured it out

there was a really sharp edge in the brush. i had made the brush by combining two shapes (sticking them together on their flat sides) then i made a box around them and used "intersect" to combine both of them into one brush. so on the outside i did not really see and sharp edges, but it was still counting the flat sides that i had put together (one of which did have a pretty sharp angle). so i ended up separating them, reworking the map a bit, and implementing them again separately and fixed.

it works fine now so i'm continuing on with the map, but i'm wondering, is there any interest in UT maps now that UT2k4 is out?

 

[Skorch]

I'm still having fun finding new things you can do with the original UT engine, and myself and two others are building an entirely new SP game...I think the original engine is easier to mod script for and create new models for...if we could get decent vehicles in, it would still be a viable game engine to create entirely new games with...including full conversion games.

 

[Megatherium]

ok, i guess i'll go ahead with it

by the way, do you know any way to slow down an animated texture's animation? i tired messing with a bunch of properties but nothing worked... the issue is that i have a large fire that is supposed to be very very far away but it animates like a small fire that is very very close.

it's a minor detail but i place importance on those

 

[Skorch]

Yes, but I'll have to get home to where my editor is to refresh my memory...I'll get back to you...

 

[Skorch]

Export the graphics you want to use for your flame...rename them slightly, but keep the A01, A02 etc. intact...

import them into your "mylevel" file...then you can right-click on them individually in the texture browser, and by manipulating their properties > animation > minframerate and maxframerate you can slow them down...this allows you to use the texture from the mylevel file without altering the original texture that came with the game.

 

[Megatherium]

hmm... throughout the whole process i kept getting general protection faults, so i just decided to leave it. thanks a lot anyway

 

[Megatherium]

rather than make a new topic, i thought i'd just keep asking here since i was getting such good responses .

do you have any tips for the vertex editor? it always seemed like it would be very useful when used in conjunction with the terrain tool. but i never figured out how to use them. with the vertex editor i can move one verticie once, then the whole shape locks up and i can't do anything else to it oh yeah, i was editing the red builder brush. any idea what's wrong with it or what i am doing wrong?