possible bug. very weird one too.

Well my database is now fixed and I can use trainz again. Because of my curiosity of what caused the issue I went diving into the asset.
I have discovered what I believe to be a bug. If a smoke container lets say 'smoke2' is set to mode 'speed' then you can use the 'enable-steam-physics' tag. However, if you wish to edit the parameters of the drag, spring, and dampening be careful! While the drag and spring parameters can be written out 'dampening' can not be added to the config. If you do not only will the asset go faulty but it will cause the game to crash to desktop and the whole database will be broken.

Hope this info will save someone from what happened to me. I also hope someone from the trainz team reads this to see what the problem is.

Thank you for your time.

regards,
The Brougham Gamer

PS: all of my content is ok and the 9000s are still under updating!
 
Pays to read the fine print as apparently this is a known problem:

dampening
Type: Decimal List
Default: 0.02
Compulsory: No
Desc: The spring damping constant for particles created in this phase. The spring damping constant affects the 'stability' of the link between individual particles (see 'spring'). Requires the 'enable-steam-physics' tag. Defaults to 0.02. This setting will cause an asset to be faulty when used in 'speed' mode.

Maybe CTDs weren't encountered before but that would mean it's only gotten worse over time. 8-(

Bob Pearson
 
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Pays to read the fine print as apparently this is a known problem:



Maybe CTDs weren't encountered before but that would mean it's only gotten worse over time. 8-(

Bob Pearson
Fun fact. If you check the edit date there I was the one who added that note to the wiki to help others. Lol
 
Guess that wiki account finally came in handy for that one moment XD
My apologies. It definitely bears more investigation as it probably is not a known problem to N3V. You might want to file a bug report to let N3V investigate it since they might not follow up based on just the forum post.

I tried it in TANE SP1 and it seems to work ok. I took an old steam loco and I added enable-steam-physics 1 tag and the spring, drag and dampening tags to a smoke container with mode speed and I had no problems. I used non default values for the tags. The loco was submitted and I added it to a route and drove it around in driver.

In TS19 (NA Regional build 100240) I DL'd the same loco from the DLS and modified a smoke container to use the speed mode and added the same tags but Trainz closed when I tried to submit the edited loco. When I restarted Trainz it initiated a database repair that's been ongoing for just about an hour now. I'll see if it finishes up. I've been able to use CM while the DB is under way and opened 2 sister locos that didn't get the modified smoke container looked at and reverted them and it seems to be OK.

I have locos in TS19 that use anim2 mode and have spring, drag and dampening tags in the smoke containers. In fact I've never used the extra steam-physics particle effect tags except with the anim2 mode.

Bob Pearson

PS[EDIT] DB still running for over 2hr 20m

PPS[EDIT] There seems to be some database corruption involved with this. I stopped the repair and deleted the edited loco. I started a new DB repair and it ran quickly but before ending Trainz closed down. I dl'd the loco again but can't submit it if I open it for editing. DB repair runs for awhile but ends up closing down Trainz. On reopening a new DB repair starts and we end up at the desktop again. Tried and extended repair but it also end up closing Trainz before completing.

I ended up deleting all versions of the loco and dependencies and the DB repair ran to completion. But it did work in TANE so if this is supposed to work with the speed mode then this is a bug that does appear to mess up the database.
 
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My apologies. It definitely bears more investigation as it probably is not a known problem to N3V. You might want to file a bug report to let N3V investigate it since they might not follow up based on just the forum post.

I tried it in TANE SP1 and it seems to work ok. I took an old steam loco and I added enable-steam-physics 1 tag and the spring, drag and dampening tags to a smoke container with mode speed and I had no problems. I used non default values for the tags. The loco was submitted and I added it to a route and drove it around in driver.

In TS19 (NA Regional build 100240) I DL'd the same loco from the DLS and modified a smoke container to use the speed mode and added the same tags but Trainz closed when I tried to submit the edited loco. When I restarted Trainz it initiated a database repair that's been ongoing for just about an hour now. I'll see if it finishes up. I've been able to use CM while the DB is under way and opened 2 sister locos that didn't get the modified smoke container looked at and reverted them and it seems to be OK.

I have locos in TS19 that use anim2 mode and have spring, drag and dampening tags in the smoke containers. In fact I've never used the extra steam-physics particle effect tags except with the anim2 mode.

Bob Pearson

PS[EDIT] DB still running for over 2hr 20m

PPS[EDIT] There seems to be some database corruption involved with this. I stopped the repair and deleted the edited loco. I started a new DB repair and it ran quickly but before ending Trainz closed down. I dl'd the loco again but can't submit it if I open it for editing. DB repair runs for awhile but ends up closing down Trainz. On reopening a new DB repair starts and we end up at the desktop again. Tried and extended repair but it also end up closing Trainz before completing.

I ended up deleting all versions of the loco and dependencies and the DB repair ran to completion. But it did work in TANE so if this is supposed to work with the speed mode then this is a bug that does appear to mess up the database.
Yes that's what happened to me. It really corrupts the whole database. I'll file that report to them because it's quite the weird issue. I run tane sp4 so that might be why. Something in the newer versions must have done it. I'll 5est it in a reg anim instead of anim2 to see if it's messed up in that too. I had to do the same thing of deleting it manually from the database.
 
Hi All
Just checking, are you saying that you only have

enable-steam-physics 1
dampening 0.2

in the config?

Or do you have all of these in the config:

enable-steam-physics 1
drag 5
spring 3
dampening 0.2




I've honestly just checked one of my own assets here, and it is using these four tags with the mode set to 'speed' without any issues, but admittedly they are all not visible by default (one is the whistle, and the others are scripted to appear in specific cases).

It would be very helpful in this case if you can provide the exact smoke container that you are using that causes the crash so that we can use it to reproduce the issue here :)

Regards
 
Hi All
Just checking, are you saying that you only have

enable-steam-physics 1
dampening 0.2

in the config?

Or do you have all of these in the config:

enable-steam-physics 1
drag 5
spring 3
dampening 0.2




I've honestly just checked one of my own assets here, and it is using these four tags with the mode set to 'speed' without any issues, but admittedly they are all not visible by default (one is the whistle, and the others are scripted to appear in specific cases).

It would be very helpful in this case if you can provide the exact smoke container that you are using that causes the crash so that we can use it to reproduce the issue here :)

Regards
It will work in any smoke container as long as you use speed mode then write out enable-steam-physics and dampening. You can write drag and spring out all you want but just writing dampening and it's value out will cause it to crash. I've confirmed that it happens in tane sp4. Rpearson has shown that it seems to happen in ts19 but that it doesn't happen in tane sp1. I have no clue about tane sp2 or 3.
 
Hi All
Just checking, are you saying that you only have

enable-steam-physics 1
dampening 0.2

in the config?

Or do you have all of these in the config:

enable-steam-physics 1
drag 5
spring 3
dampening 0.2
... :)

Regards
Zec I have to correct one statement I made in my last post. Trying to duplicate my results again in TANE SP1 I found I had used the wrong version of the loco. Re-doing the test using both the 1st loco and another steam loco dl'd from the DLS I was able to make the changes to a smoke container and submit them with no errors shown in CM but I wasn't able to place the loco in Surveyor. The program closed and left me at the desktop every time I tried to select it in the pick list in the trains tool. This is different from TRS19 where the program closed in CM when I tried to submit the edited asset. In TANE the DB repair seem to finish most times which is also different from TRS19.

Here's the smoke container I used for my corrected try in 1 of the locos:
Code:
smoke0
{
  attachment                            "a.stack0"
  mode                                  "speed"
  color                                 10,10,10,10
  period                                1
  rate                                  15
  velocity                              2
  lifetime                              3
  minsize                               0.5
  maxsize                               3
  enable-steam-physics                  1
  spring                                0.25
  drag                                  0.5
  dampening                             0.05
}
I also tried just the dampening tag without adding the spring or drag tags with same results. I'll leave it to you to sort out.

Bob Pearson
 
Zec I have to correct one statement I made in my last post. Trying to duplicate my results again in TANE SP1 I found I had used the wrong version of the loco. Re-doing the test using both the 1st loco and another steam loco dl'd from the DLS I was able to make the changes to a smoke container and submit them with no errors shown in CM but I wasn't able to place the loco in Surveyor. The program closed and left me at the desktop every time I tried to select it in the pick list in the trains tool. This is different from TRS19 where the program closed in CM when I tried to submit the edited asset. In TANE the DB repair seem to finish most times which is also different from TRS19.

Here's the smoke container I used for my corrected try in 1 of the locos:
Code:
smoke0
{
  attachment                            "a.stack0"
  mode                                  "speed"
  color                                 10,10,10,10
  period                                1
  rate                                  15
  velocity                              2
  lifetime                              3
  minsize                               0.5
  maxsize                               3
  enable-steam-physics                  1
  spring                                0.25
  drag                                  0.5
  dampening                             0.05
}
I also tried just the dampening tag without adding the spring or drag tags with same results. I'll leave it to you to sort out.

Bob Pearson

What you say with it closing in cm in ts19 I'd what happens when I do it in tane sp4
 
Hi All
In this case, could someone please send an example asset showing this issue (an edited existing loco with the smoke effect would be fine) to anewera(at)n3vgames(dot)com (replace '(at)' with @ and (dot) with .).

As a test though, I'd suggest trying this smoke effect (change the attachment to your preferred attachment name, unless you want to try it on whistles) and seeing if it works better, as this might help us track down what may be causing this to occur.

Code:
smoke5
{
  attachment                            "a.whistle"
  mode                                  "speed"
  color                                 255,255,255,228,255,255,255,228
  endcolor                              255,255,255,0
  rate                                  15
  velocity                              1.9
  lifetime                              1.25
  minsize                               0.1
  maxsize                               0.9
  conesize                              0.01,0.01,1
  inherit-velocity                      1
  enable-steam-physics                  1
  drag                                  5
  spring                                3
  dampening                             0.2
  physics-delay                         3
  mass                                  11
  mass-scale                            0.15
  accel                                 10.5
  texture                               <kuid:103475:60079>
}

Regards
 
Zec, I noticed a difference in the smoke container you posted above and the one I'm testing - yours includes physics-delay tag. This is TANE SP1 by the way I find it easier to recover in it after this bug crashes than TRS19.

This container generates no errors but the game closes to desktop at some point in surveyor.
Code:
smoke0
{
  attachment                            "a.stack0"
  mode                                  "speed"
  color                                 10,10,10,10
  period                                1
  rate                                  15
  velocity                              2
  lifetime                              3
  minsize                               0.5
  maxsize                               3
  enable-steam-physics                  1
  drag                                  5
  spring                                5.25
  dampening                             0.1
}

This one works as expected:
Code:
smoke0
{
  attachment                            "a.stack0"
  mode                                  "speed"
  color                                 10,10,10,10
  period                                1
  rate                                  15
  velocity                              2
  lifetime                              3
  minsize                               0.5
  maxsize                               3
  enable-steam-physics                  1
  drag                                  5
  spring                                5.25
  dampening                             0.1
  physics-delay                         1
}
Only difference is with physics-delay tag - included it works without it it doesn't.

I tried your smoke container and got similar results with the physics-delay tag.

So something going on with a combination of dampening and physics-delay tags. I haven't tried other combinations of the extra steam physics tags - drag and spring to see if they also are affected.

If you still need to get the loco I'm using I can cdp it and send to above address.

Bob Pearson
 
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Hi Bob
Thank you for confirming this for us. I've updated my notes on the issue here to include what you have found. It shouldn't be necessary to send a test asset in this case, as I should be able to make a small test asset using the information here now.

At this stage, I would strongly suggest including the physics-delay tag; this tag shouldn't make a huge difference to the look of the particle effect as it controls the delay before a particle effect 'spreads' outward, but it'd probably be worth a little experimenting to see if it creates any useful effects for you anyway. However it definitely shouldn't be allowing you to crash Trainz, so we'll definitely be looking into it further.

Regards
 
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