Well that's amusing

[normhart]

I spent a fair amount of time updating bobo88's Woodville rolling stock to TS12 standards. TS12 49922 build 3.6 that is.

They are quite without error in TS12 49922 build 3.6. However they were rejected by the Planet Auran due to "The texture 'blackside.tga' is a uniform color."

So? That shouldn't be a problem should it?

I suspect that this is probably what is happening with davesnow's recent upload problem. He is trying to upload build 3.6 and the server is treating them as build 3.7.

And another generation of customers/contributors is marginalized by N3V.

 

[RRSignal]

I recommend uploading content as trainz-build 2.9, even if made for TS12. That might help, and is a good idea even if it doesn't.

That said, a workaround is to modify a single pixel of the offending texture, making it ever-so-slightly (and, usually, unnoticably) lighter or darker. Then it's no longer a uniform color.

I understand why N3V started flagging it as a warning way back when - why use a texture when a mesh can be painted - though I do hope this doesn't start breaking assets, as so much content uses uniform textures.

 

[mcguirel]

It seems to break content............ I feel there is no need for this flag as long as the file structure meets the need of Trainz.

 

[mjolnir]

Norhmart, the error message you've received suggests to me that the problem might be the size of the one (or more) of the texture files. If the texture "blackside.tga" is a single color, and is larger than a certain size it will be rejected. Single color textures are now to be 8 x 8 pixels, or smaller, as I recall.

There have been a number of threads on this error in the forums over the past two or three months.

ns

 

[fran1]

Try running it through pev's images to tga, set fix uniform colour in options.

 

[normhart]

I recommend uploading content as trainz-build 2.9, even if made for TS12. That might help, and is a good idea even if it doesn't.
That said, a workaround is to modify a single pixel of the offending texture, making it ever-so-slightly (and, usually, unnoticably) lighter or darker. Then it's no longer a uniform color.
I understand why N3V started flagging it as a warning way back when - why use a texture when a mesh can be painted - though I do hope this doesn't start breaking assets, as so much content uses uniform textures.

Good point about build 2.9, I almost always upload content at that level. I had not intended to upload these and, after I discovered how fun they were, changed my mind.

Norhmart, the error message you've received suggests to me that the problem might be the size of the one (or more) of the texture files. If the texture "blackside.tga" is a single color, and is larger than a certain size it will be rejected. Single color textures are now to be 8 x 8 pixels, or smaller, as I recall.
There have been a number of threads on this error in the forums over the past two or three months.
ns

Good call on the texture size. It is 128 x 128, not surprising since the original assets were build 1.3 or earlier. I will have to check to see if resizing this causes problems with any alpha files.

But...

The point of the original post wasn't the problem with my assets, after all only 200 or so folks download my stuff, I mostly upload stuff of interest to a few. What concerns me is how requiring assets to meet 3.7 standards is going to affect people who are making lots of stuff. Folks like davesnow, pweiser, and others who are building to 3.6 or 2.9 or somewhere in between and all the folks that don't have TS12 SP1 HF1 HF2 and don't intend to get it. How many of them are going to throw up their hands and go looking for another place to play?

 

[uracco]

I must, say, that is an absolutely ridicolous error. Are N3V just trying to make pointless irrelevant errors, just so people have to trawl through content fixing it.

 

[mjolnir]

I don't think N3V is trying to make pointless errors. It has been made pretty clear by responses from N3V staff that there were some aspects the original design intent for content that when uploads were not compliant, were not flagged as errors early on, but now, the standards are being tightened to make a better product than could be produced when the standards were previously ignored. And, I'm guessing, that some of these non-compliant standards came about, in part, because the content creation guidelines were not particularly clear on these areas. Others may be being emphasized now because of enhancements to the game engine that have not yet been documented to the general trainz community.

My speculation (and it is only that--I have no non-public information to back it up) is that TS12 SP1 is actually an pre-release of TS14 (or whatever it will be called) which will include future improvements to the game engine that we don't yet know about.

Also, N3V staff postings have made it pretty clear that thing that are now throwing warnings, may eventually cause errors.

ns

 

[AntonyVW]

Ive come across several items by different model makers that come up with this error. Its a pity really as they worked perfectly well before the patch and hotfixes came out. Now they just wont even show up. CM gives them a yellow exclamation marker not a red one so I dont see why there is a problem with them.

 

[VinnyBarb]

The easiest way for a content creator to fix these "single colour" faults is to use a main texture map with all textures needed on it and UVW texture the mesh/object with the colour required from it. One can even place a panel of many different 1 or more pixel sized colour swatches in between the main texture map as there is always some space for this.

Repainters of course can not do this but still can get around this issue as said further above.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[paulhobbs]

Ive come across several items by different model makers that come up with this error. Its a pity really as they worked perfectly well before the patch and hotfixes came out. Now they just wont even show up. CM gives them a yellow exclamation marker not a red one so I dont see why there is a problem with them.

A warning won't stop the assets showing up. If the uniform texture is larger than 64 pixels then you'll get an error. Just resize the texture to 1x1 and you'll be back to a warning but you won't be able to use the modified assets in multiplayer. Mail the original creator and ask him/her to fix it.

Paul

 

[normhart]

The easiest way for a content creator to fix these "single colour" faults is to use a main texture map with all textures needed on it and UVW texture the mesh/object with the colour required from it. One can even place a panel of many different 1 or more pixel sized colour swatches in between the main texture map as there is always some space for this.

Repainters of course can not do this but still can get around this issue as said further above.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

A warning won't stop the assets showing up. If the uniform texture is larger than 64 pixels then you'll get an error. Just resize the texture to 1x1 and you'll be back to a warning but you won't be able to use the modified assets in multiplayer. Mail the original creator and ask him/her to fix it.

Paul

There is a LOT of old but wonderful content on the DLS and or on the net that are orphaned. Bobo88's Woodville is a good example; his email is no longer valid, he has never participated in this forum, his web site is gone, fortunately his licensing allows for folks to modify his stuff so long as they don't retail it. Thanks to PEVSoft tools and teddytoot's tip I was able to fix the only serious problem with the rolling stock, the coupling points were offset. However there was lots of other conversion stuff that had little to do with getting them working in the game but were required to be able to upload them to the DLS. I suppose that there are valid reasons for many of these requirements althought how solid textures or a lack of thumbnails are worth throwing out the babies with the bath water excapes me.

Edit: turns out Bob has been on the forum I have no idea where I got the idea he hadn't been.

 

[Retro00064]

[...] Bobo88's Woodville is a good example; [...] he has never participated in this forum, [...]

Not sure about that: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/member.php?6226-Bobo88

 

[RRSignal]

I must, say, that is an absolutely ridicolous error. Are N3V just trying to make pointless irrelevant errors, just so people have to trawl through content fixing it.

Conspiracy theories aside, I understand very well why this should be a warning, but not an error that would break content.

 

[normhart]

Not sure about that: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/member.php?6226-Bobo88

I stand corrected. I have no idea how I missed that. D'oh!

I see he was online just a few days ago. I'll try to contact him via PM. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Edit: No, wait... I did send him a PM a week ago and have not received a reply yet. I must have confused him with one of the other creators that I've been attempting to contact.

 

[johnwhelan]

Does it matter, I assume they will get dropped on the community repair whatever shortly and the DLS version get fixed.

Cheerio John