Over 200 of my assets "updated" - who did this and why?

[Paul_Bert]

So do we think that all built-ins for TS12 SP1 will be available on the DLS for TANE. That would be ideal.

 

[mezzoprezzo]

How come a huge number (?all) of these recent uploads are TRS2004 version?

 

[clam1952]

How come a huge number (?all) of these recent uploads are TRS2004 version?

Because thats what they are in TS12 SP1. Other than that pass.........

 

[BuilderBob]

How come a huge number (?all) of these recent uploads are TRS2004 version?

There is no need to upgrade the build number unless the changes required for TANE are incompatible with the version for which they were originally built. We can only hope that compatibility with the original version was adequately confirmed, but some checking back to 2.9 indicates that is so. Older than that might be uncertain.

Upgrading the build number would require more changes than could be easily automated.

 

[BN1970]

So do we think that all built-ins for TS12 SP1 will be available on the DLS for TANE. That would be ideal.

Yes, it's my understanding that all TS12 assets that will not come built into TANE will be accessible from the dls.

 

[nexusdj]

That doesn't explain why most of my built-in content from TANE is now on the DLS for download ?!
My kings cross roof has never been available other than as built-in as it's used on all the East coast mainline route versions (including TANE) , but it's now available to download on the DLS with the same kuid number as the version built into TANE ??

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Yes, it's my understanding that all TS12 assets that will not come built into TANE will be accessible from the DLS.

That's my understanding too, and I support the intention behind it. It means that assets which were only available as built-ins cannot become "missing dependencies" if they are not built in to later editions of Trainz.

My annoyance stems from the fact that all my assets have always been placed on the DLS. There was no chance of them becoming missing dependencies, even if some became built-ins to TS12.

That was until N3V independently and without notice, decided to make some trivial changes to those built-ins which then required their kuid version numbers to be increased, making them "new" assets. Since I was never cajoled into buying TS12, I had no idea that over 200 of my own assets had been made obsolete by these "upgrades", or which ones were affected and what changes had been made. Out of the blue, these so-called "upgrades" are now dumped onto the DLS requiring many people, including myself, to download them in order to keep things up to date. As far as I know, there have been no technical improvements, no error corrections. It's all been done for the highly dubious benefit of a few foreign-language tags, not even a complete set of them.

I'm in no doubt that N3V have stayed within their legal rights in creating all this needless work, but I really wish they had just kept their clumsy hands off.


.

 

[iannz]

Im not sure why you are so hostile and over-dramatic over it, it seems that whatever the problem was, it has saved you a bucket load of work doing it yourself. In my experience, just because you have them in the DLS, it doesn't mean they wont become missing. Plenty of peoples creations from past times have been removed when they no longer work or other reasons. There is nothing worse than downloading an asset and finding missing dependencies, script faults and such, good on the admin for having a clean out and fix-up every once in a while for the benefit of us all.

 

[BuilderBob]

Out of the blue, these so-called "upgrades" are now dumped onto the DLS requiring many people, including myself, to download them in order to keep things up to date.

Obsolete assets will continue to work like they did before. There is no need to download the updated assets if you don't want to.

 

[nexusdj]

Yes but with these higher kuid2 items of TS12 built-in content on the DLS my (and many other users) installation of TS12 is having kittens every time it is allowed to connect to the net !
4 times I've connected it in the last 5 days and each and every time it causes Taddaemon to run an asset check , 3 times the asset check has been in excess of 14,000 items (and before someone states the bleeding obvious I do allow TS12 to shut down correctly each and every time including waiting for Taddaemon !!) .
So that leaves me with two options :
1, Download the updates even though most of them will generate faults , due to build number , .texture files , uniform colour etc. which in itself will make any future asset check take longer to complete !
2, Don't download , keep TS12 away from an internet connection and hope that this ridiculous situation is sorted soon .

So at the moment I'm Damned if I do , damned if I don't !!

These TS12 built-in items should of either been uploaded to a separate server for TANE users to download from or all of the content upgraded to 2.9 standards before it was uploaded to the DLS !!
Once again one rule for us when uploading , one rule for them !!

 

[BuilderBob]

Yes but with these higher kuid2 items of TS12 built-in content on the DLS my (and many other users) installation of TS12 is having kittens every time it is allowed to connect to the net ! 4 times I've connected it in the last 5 days and each and every time it causes Taddaemon to run an asset check , 3 times the asset check has been in excess of 14,000 items (and before someone states the bleeding obvious I do allow TS12 to shut down correctly each and every time including waiting for Taddaemon !!) .

There's something else going on. For instance, adding TS2010 ja files to your Builtin folder can create this sort of excessive checking.

I have connected many times in the last 5 days and I can't recall that there was any excessive asset checking. I did notice some validation at one point, but that was after I deleted handful of assets that had replaced with these upgrades. But until I did the deleting, there was no problem with checking.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Im not sure why you are so hostile and over-dramatic over it, it seems that whatever the problem was, it has saved you a bucket load of work doing it yourself. In my experience, just because you have them in the DLS, it doesn't mean they wont become missing. Plenty of peoples creations from past times have been removed when they no longer work or other reasons. There is nothing worse than downloading an asset and finding missing dependencies, script faults and such, good on the admin for having a clean out and fix-up every once in a while for the benefit of us all.

Hostile yes certainly I am hostile about it. Over-dramatic, I don't think so, just factual. From what you've said, I can only conclude you don't understand the issue.

 

[BuilderBob]

Hostile yes certainly I am hostile about it. Over-dramatic, I don't think so, just factual. From what you've said, I can only conclude you don't understand the issue.

Unfortunately not. If you were factual about the issue you would not have jumped to the conclusion that the problem was with the upgrades and was therefore someone else's fault. You would instead have investigated the problem with an open mind as to the possible causes, and a much better chance of solving it.

 

[iannz]

Hostile yes certainly I am hostile about it. Over-dramatic, I don't think so, just factual. From what you've said, I can only conclude you don't understand the issue.

Well, I think I understand the issue, just not your hostile issue.
I can understand you want to understand whats going on regarding your assets, but let me say this.

Having several hundred assets is something you can be proud of.
Having your assets considered good enough to be built into the game, I would think is a privilege and something many creators would want to aspire to.
Having the game developer maintain your several hundred assets so you don't have to, well, what can I say.

Im sure N3V/Auran or whoever maintained them, did so because they had to. Im also sure they have plenty to do without creating "needless work" and putting their "clumsy hands" on them as you put it, just for the hell of it.
Sure you want an answer and you deserve one, but personally, I feel you are going about it all wrong and throwing your toys about wont get you the answers you are seeking.
Cheers.

 

[JamesMoody]

Over 200 of my assets "updated" - who did this and why?
All I know is I didn't do it

We did the update, and we did so because we have later versions of many assets that originally came from the DLS, but for which the latest versions are not on the DLS.

nor did I give permission for anyone else to do it.

You may wish to review the DLS license agreement, as there is sufficient provision in it to cover these updates being provided to users.

I can not find any modification in ANY of the 5000+ assets that were unecessary updated in the last few weeks!

Depends what you compare them to.

This is really intended for the people who are running T:ANE, and downloading ancient versions of dependencies uploaded many years ago, then finding those versions are, well, ancient and broken.

If you instead compare them to TS12 SP1, which already contains most of these updates, then you won't find all that much has changed, for what are hopefully obvious reasons...

All it actually DOES is to annoy users who want to play MP

Actually, one of the specific sets of people I've tried to help with this upload IS the people who play multiplayer.

Included in this set is a batch of content that was sourced from the DLS and has been fixed by us, but instead of being used as dependencies in Trainz itself, it was used in DLC packs. The fixed versions of this content is also been uploaded, which means that the problems people have with multiplayer where some people have a DLC pack which includes a newer version of a dependency and others don't have that DLC and can't get that dependency will be solved.

The "few" I see in 61388 amount to 285 most of which will not download

The "not downloading" part should be fixed now.

It looks like they are converting the .textures as they put them up.

For the most part, these aren't conversions. They are the original versions that have not been through the .texture process.
We did have to do a few conversions, but only where the originals were either never provided to us or have been lost to time.

(although I have caught a couple that have slipped by, lol)

Please send me a message with the KUIDs of any like this, and I'll get them fixed. Unfortunately with ~12000 assets to go through just in the first pass, some mistakes do happen.

How come a huge number (?all) of these recent uploads are TRS2004 version?

Because thats what they are in TS12 SP1.

This.

Also, changing the version number of an asset often requires a significant update to the config file format and sometimes even mesh changes, which is rather time consuming when you are talking about that many assets.

That doesn't explain why most of my built-in content from TANE is now on the DLS for download ?!
My kings cross roof has never been available other than as built-in as it's used on all the East coast mainline route versions (including TANE) , but it's now available to download on the DLS with the same kuid number as the version built into TANE ??

Answer to this one is it was on the DLS previously. Looking at the date, it was probably uploaded when the TS2010 dependency content was uploaded to the DLS at about the release of TS12.

As to why it's the latest version, where there has been an update to a DLS item, we've used the latest copy we have rather than uploading an older, possibly still broken version.

Download the updates even though most of them will generate faults, due to build number, .texture files , uniform colour etc

None of the uploads are faulty. We have fixed every one, and every piece of content has passed a full DLS asset approval check on upload, including having thumbnails taken where content creators failed to provide any. We have precisely two exceptions to the process compared to everyone else. These are that we can do updates to any content without having to go through the DLS cleanup process, and we have an exception to the minimum build number error. Aside from those two things, we have no magic 'free pass' -- we have to meet the exact same validation rules you do.

My annoyance stems from the fact that all my assets have always been placed on the DLS. There was no chance of them becoming missing dependencies, even if some became built-ins to TS12.

Yes, they will become missing dependencies. If TS12 SP1 has a later version number for an asset, a map made with TS12 SP1 will require at least that version. It will not step back to an older version.

As far as I know, there have been no technical improvements, no error corrections. It's all been done for the highly dubious benefit of a few foreign-language tags, not even a complete set of them.

The examples you looked at happened to be "just" translations -- which are very important for the people running Trainz in those languages, but admittedly of less importance to people who are not. From personal experience with your content though, there are quite a few that did need technical fixes. I can't quote example KUIDs at you right now, but I remember fixing vast swathes of content with duplicated LOD levels (where the game is forced to load a new mesh and switch over to it, but the new mesh is the same as the previous one), and I'm pretty sure a fair amount of your content was included in this set.

Having several hundred assets is something you can be proud of.
Having your assets considered good enough to be built into the game, I would think is a privilege and something many creators would want to aspire to.
Having the game developer maintain your several hundred assets so you don't have to, well, what can I say.

Im sure N3V/Auran or whoever maintained them, did so because they had to. Im also sure they have plenty to do without creating "needless work" and putting their "clumsy hands" on them as you put it, just for the hell of it.

Thanks IanNZ -- I can't think of a better way to sum it up than this

 

[JamesMoody]

I use the following built-ins in about half of my current TS12 routes and at present none of them work in TANE because of errors. As a result half my current routes cannot be used at all in TANE?

This is a surprise, given that Uwe's PCC cars are included in T:ANE deluxe, and do work. Admittedly they are different versions, but they are broadly similar in construction.

It could be a bug in the asset that has since been fixed in the T:ANE versions, but the fix has not made it into those versions.

It could be a missing dependency or a dependency only available in an ancient version. Fingers crossed it's one of the 90%+ that are now uploaded.

It could be a problem with how the content has been extracted from TS12 or installed into T:ANE. Note that T:ANE will not load TS12 format compressed textures. Source textures will be required.

I'll look further into this after the content updates are all uploaded to the DLS.

 

[BN1970]

James---> you have a pm.

 

[BuilderBob]

We did the update, and we did so because we have later versions of many assets that originally came from the DLS, but for which the latest versions are not on the DLS.

Has this list of updates been checked against the DLS Cleanup list to see which items should now be removed from that list? I suspect it would reduce the outstanding items significantly, for those assets repaired for release with DLC and not previously on the DLS.

 

[Paul_Bert]

This is a surprise, given that Uwe's PCC cars are included in T:ANE deluxe, and do work. Admittedly they are different versions, but they are broadly similar in construction.

It could be a bug in the asset that has since been fixed in the T:ANE versions, but the fix has not made it into those versions.

It could be a missing dependency or a dependency only available in an ancient version. Fingers crossed it's one of the 90%+ that are now uploaded.

It could be a problem with how the content has been extracted from TS12 or installed into T:ANE. Note that T:ANE will not load TS12 format compressed textures. Source textures will be required.

I'll look further into this after the content updates are all uploaded to the DLS.

As an example the PCC Non Real-301 <kuid>2:82412:58199301:1 ends up having 126 errors and 40 warnings when I import the asset into TANE from TS12 SP1 (which shows no errors or warnings for the asset)

There are so many errors I don't even know where to start. Here is just the beginning of the list.

- binary texture file 'route-front-frame-01.texture' is not a texture file for 'C:/Users/Paul Bert/AppData/Local/N3V Games/TANE/local/hash-DC/kuid2 82412 58199302 1'
- Texture 'route-front-frame-01.texture' is missing or could not be loaded in mesh 'PCC-NonReal-301-INT-01.im', material '*PCC-NonReal-301-INT-01*7142AD3A*mtl #0*m.onetex'.
- binary texture file 'window-01-window-01-opacity.texture' is not a texture file for 'C:/Users/Paul Bert/AppData/Local/N3V Games/TANE/local/hash-DC/kuid2 82412 58199302 1'
- Texture 'window-01-window-01-opacity.texture' is missing or could not be loaded in mesh 'PCC-NonReal-301-INT-01.im', material '*PCC-NonReal-301-INT-01*5CCE9A3D*window-01*m.onetex'.
- binary texture file 'route-background-day-01.texture' is not a texture file for 'C:/Users/Paul Bert/AppData/Local/N3V Games/TANE/local/hash-DC/kuid2 82412 58199302 1'
- Texture 'route-background-day-01.texture' is missing or could not be loaded in mesh 'PCC-NonReal-301-INT-01.im', material '*PCC-NonReal-301-INT-01*43CB74E4*mtl #0*m.onetex'.
- binary texture file 'texture dest-texture dest.texture' is not a texture file for 'C:/Users/Paul Bert/AppData/Local/N3V Games/TANE/local/hash-DC/kuid2 82412 58199302 1'

 

[Paul_Bert]

This is a surprise, given that Uwe's PCC cars are included in T:ANE deluxe, and do work. Admittedly they are different versions, but they are broadly similar in construction.

It could be a bug in the asset that has since been fixed in the T:ANE versions, but the fix has not made it into those versions.

It could be a missing dependency or a dependency only available in an ancient version. Fingers crossed it's one of the 90%+ that are now uploaded.

It could be a problem with how the content has been extracted from TS12 or installed into T:ANE. Note that T:ANE will not load TS12 format compressed textures. Source textures will be required.

I'll look further into this after the content updates are all uploaded to the DLS.

Maybe this will also get sorted out when built-in TS12 SP1 content (which all the PCC Non Real assets and their dependencies are) is uploaded to the TANE DLS. I am of course assuming that this is what will happen at some point.