using faulty assets in a route

[jytte]

At the moment the route I'm working has a number of faulty dependencies, causing my route itself to show "faulty". That's annoying. But the faulty assets are all someone else's. I guess I could just not use faulty asssets, but for one thing I don't know untill I've actually added them to my layout, and then spot it in CMP, and there'd be a nasty limitation on the stuff available.

What do I do then? I cannot fix errors on somebody else's assets, can I? and If I can, locally, what happens then when I upload my route? Can I even upload a route that has faulty dependencies? Whomever downloads my route is going to have all the faulty assets (unfixed) as well, and my route will be "faulty" for them, thus my work (fixing that is) was for nothing.

What do other people do???

PS: I'm working in 2006, and some of the dependencies are "old", guessing that's the problem.

 

[mtldrm38]

Repairing faulty assets is a pretty common thing and by far most are really
harmless.......
http://www.worldoftrainz.com/Pages/Tutorials_TRS2006/TRS2006CMPErrorCorrecting.htm#Chapter1

This link has a basic idea of mostly know errors and how to fix em......

Dave =)

 

[gfisher]

Can I even upload a route that has faulty dependencies?

Sure, why not. What's showing as faulty for you, because you haven't fixed it yet, may run perfectly for someone else who has fixed their version of the assets. When I first got TRS2006 I went through and fixed most of the assets on my computer, but probably not all. I just disabled the "black screen of doom" and forgot about it. When I download an asset, if it shows up faulty I will try and fix it. If I cannot but it runs OK in the game I just use anyway. Most errors in the early assets are just typos, and easy to fix.

The good news is that Auran has promised to clean up the DLS for TRS2009, and will make all the minor corrections to DLS stuff that they can, and contact creators for stuff that Auran can't fix, and give them the option to fix it.

 

[jytte]

Great link, thanks, I will try to fix some then.

So, it's possible to upload a route then, even if has dependencies that are faulty? cause, when I go to fix'em, it'll only be local.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Jytte

Yes you can, and probably will, upload a route with faulty dependencies. Just be prepared to get e-mail from angry/frustrated people saying "your layout causes my Trainz to crash to desktop" or "I can't run your session, it has missing assets"...or whatever. People always blame the route first rather than it's dependencies which, as you said, were most often created by someone else. Unfortunately, they have to do the same hard yards in making local asset fixes as you have done if they want the route to run properly.

This has been a perennial problem in the Trainz system, not helped by the fact that successive versions of Trainz have not been fully backwards compatible due to changes in standards. Under these conditions, even good old assets will show up as faulty in later Trainz editions.

~ D

 

[jytte]

Yes, that's a little hmmmm... weird. I can just imagine 3 million people sitting night after night fixing the same ole assets. What a gigantic waste. There ought to be a way of uploading a fixed asset, even if it IS someone else's, so that this tedious work would only have to be done by ONE person ONE time.

And I certainly do NOT blame whoever made the asset, it was perfectly fine when they made it, I know that, and can understand why someone who created hundreds if not thousands of assets (for the rest of us to enjoy) doesn't fancy fixing every one of them all over again, whenever Auran feels like changing the parameters of the game.

So where does that leave me, I wonder? I was just thinking, that I could save every asset that I've used and been able to fix as cdp and/or archive, and then offer it along with the route on my website (where I'll present a route when it gets released to DLS). That would make life easier on a lot of people, no skin off my nose. That wouldn't be illegal or anything, now would it?

 

[jytte]

Dave, that link was very helpful, thanks again.

I get a lot of "could not load texture ......", and then discover that the texture .tga in question does not exist in the folder. There's not a whole lot I can do about that. I must assume that the textures are ones that were readily available in previous versions of Trainz, and now they're not?

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

..I could save every asset that I've used and been able to fix as cdp and/or archive, and then offer it along with the route on my website ..

Unfortunately, I think it would be illegal in many if not all cases Jytte.

 

[jytte]

Aiiii santissima! And I won't print the next words that came to my mind.
They really make it difficult for us, don't they?
Well, I really do see how that might be questionable, now that I think about it, but for crying out loud.....

Oh, well, I guess the whole question is mute then. There's little or no reason for me to sit around and fix all this stuff, when it works on my layout. And I guess if I can live with it, others can too. Hmpf.

Thanks for your patience and help.

 

[Mike10]

And I certainly do NOT blame whoever made the asset, it was perfectly fine when they made it, I know that, and can understand why someone who created hundreds if not thousands of assets (for the rest of us to enjoy) doesn't fancy fixing every one of them all over again, whenever Auran feels like changing the parameters of the game.

Actually, no. All those faulty assets just appeared to be fine because Trainz was not checking as thoroughly as it could have been. The assets were (in the vast majority of cases) wrong when they were uploaded, it is just people didn't realise. Very, very few of them were 'broken' by changes in later versions

So where does that leave me, I wonder? I was just thinking, that I could save every asset that I've used and been able to fix as cdp and/or archive, and then offer it along with the route on my website (where I'll present a route when it gets released to DLS). That would make life easier on a lot of people, no skin off my nose. That wouldn't be illegal or anything, now would it?

If you get the permission of every creator of every item you want to host to do so, that would be OK.

Mike.

 

[Mike10]

Dave, that link was very helpful, thanks again.

I get a lot of "could not load texture ......", and then discover that the texture .tga in question does not exist in the folder. There's not a whole lot I can do about that. I must assume that the textures are ones that were readily available in previous versions of Trainz, and now they're not?

The textures have not mysteriously vanished, the asset was created with the extra textures specified but not used. In the past Trainz worked around the issue but in order to improve performance this workaround was removed and the assets is now flagged as faulty.

Mike.

 

[jytte]

Thanks Mike.
When you say "in order to improve performance", do you then mean, that by having faulty assets in my route, it will effect performance, as in run slower or whatever? Now, that would be a good reason to rethink the issue for me.

 

[Mike10]

In order to improve the performance of the game some of the code to workaround problems with faulty content was removed (that's how I understand it anyway). What this means is that in particular cases when Trainz comes across a faulty asset it will not be able to work out what is wrong and deal with it properly. This may cause Trainz to crash.

Fixing faulty assets will mean that Trainz does not have to waste time blundering its way around a problem and there is a much reduced chance of it crashing because it isn't able to.

Mike.

 

[jytte]

Hmmm, I just checked my CMP. There are 1,500 faulty items in my folders (locally). That's a lot. But maybe not so much considering there seem to be over 80,000 assets total (local & DLS).
So maybe I should just sidestep the entire issue by deleting all faulty assets from my PC, including finding and deleting the one's I've used in my route, and then use only "clean" ones, and just get over the fact that there were some real nice looking ones I can't use.

 

[jytte]

Good point Mike, thanks again.

Given all this information, and a little bit of thinking about it, I think the way to go is to get rid of all the faulty stuff, as I said just above, and try to run a "clean show". Might save me a lot of agrevation later. And I'd feel much better about my route if it didn't have that ugly ! on it.

To you all, I'm glad you take the time to discuss these issues with a newbie. Dealing with it now will save me a lot of time down the road.

Like Dino mentioned, "people" would probably be frustrated with downloading a route that has a lot of missing or faulty items, I know I would, so I should take care to avoid any of that.

 

[mononlaf]

jyette - if you refuse all 'faulty' assets, you are keeping yourself from using almost all the fine stuff that was developed for TRS 2004. For every 2004 asset that I dowload and can't use because of critical faults, there are 50 or more that work and look fine even though they have faults (obviously not critical).

When I download an asset and find that it has faults, I look at what kind they are, may fix the easy ones, let the others go and almost everytime go ahead with its use. If you put up your route and it showed faulty in CMP, I'd do the same thing - if I like the route I'd use it, faults or no faults. No frustration at all.

Dick

 

[jytte]

Thanks Dick,

You are very right, there is so much stuff - a lot of it quite unique - that was made for 2004, and has very little "faults" in them. I was not aware of this when I first started, and downloaded a lot of things, so I'm a little daunted by the number (1500) of them on my CMP.

Like you mention, if I was to delete them all, I would have some pretty odd looking 2004 routes on my PC (and I do have a lot of those), so that won't do either.

I think I've found a middle road. From now on when I download, I will check on the files as soon as they're down, and then check the faulty stuff, if any. If it's not unique, I can probably live without it, else I will have to consider a fix.

My main problem was some (very unique) objects that I really wanted for my route (and I still don't want that to be "faulty" if I can help it). But I have had the best of luck. I emailed the author, and he very kindly offered to work with me in fixing/re-uploading those assets, which will take care of that. Great!!

Now I'm wondering, though. When you "fix" an asset for 2006 (locally or not), will it then create a problem for a 2004 route that may use that asset? I still have problems getting my head around all the inconsistencies between versions. And I'm beginning to dread what the situation might be when the new 2009 comes around, cause I really want that one for all the new features for surveyor.

 

[jytte]

Little did I know when I started, what all this Trainzing entail.

I thought I'd just drive some trains, and build some little fantasy-worlds to my pleasure, no big deal, and great fun.

Now I find myself spending 10% of my time route-building, and 90% on the forum, fixing assets, learning God only knows how many new programs like Gmax, setting up websites, uploading (now there's a long process), creating new objects, and so on and so on. Yea, you're right, 10+90=100, I haven't driven a train in ages:hehe:

Boy, this really IS an all-consuming hobby.