Battlefield Modding Tutorials BFMODS

Hi, I'm pretty sure I'm not the first and only to have this kind of problem, but I'm unaware of a solution for the problem, so I still have to ask, searching didn't help . I don't usually make maps, so I might have made some noobish mistakes here.

I redesigned Guadalcanal to give it a desert flair. Base obviously was the Vanilla Guadalcanal map, I completely retextured it using Ed42. I also made some additional small changes like inserting&tweaking the water&skyboxsettings of El Alamein, changing armies to British and Germans and changing the OSTs appropiatly.
I renamed the map to Guadalcanal_desert, making it independent from the original Guadalcanal, I also changed all references in the map .con-files (e.g. Terrain.con, Init.con etc.), triple-checked that by now.
I also included quite a lot of custom object textures for custom desert flair, but I never heard of textures causing CTDs...

I often tested during development, using LAN Create Game, and everything went smooth as intended.

Well, now I fired it up on a server, and everyone trying to connect gets a CTD on about 3/4 to full loading bar. And I absolutely have no clue what causes this.

I can't reproduce the error using the debugger, as it doesn't work on dedicated servers, online or LAN. Server also doesn't generate any helpful log.

First I thought maybe there was a network.con problem in some vehicle, but even when I deleted all objectspawners and templates, still CTD...

Any help would be appreciated
Senshi

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xFire: wgpsenshi

You mean you set up a true-testing server environment locally and it worked..? Or you tested it in your levels folder and it worked?

Can you upload the map somewhere and post a link here?

i have encountered the same problem once, if i remember correctly i used battlecraft some at start of building a custom map based on a original map.

couldnt solve the problem tho and had to start over fresh, this time without battlecraft.

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xFire: wgpsenshi

is it a linux server...?

map name must be lowercase.. will cause a crash if not.

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xFire: wgpsenshi

I'll take a look at it. Perhaps AI con files are causing this? I had a crash error similer that did this. Though that one was debuggable. Also, I use batch files and such to do lightmapping now adays. I don't even touch BC anymore. Though I did use it to make surface maps for a new map I'm doing. But even on that, I will only copy over the texture files it made and use ED42 and batch files for everything else on the non BC f#kked files.

Also, get rid of that "game.setLevelCheck" command. Since the map has been changed, that code won't work. Unless you regenerate the CRC and want content check to work on it.

EDIT: Also, if you didn't change the material map or heightmap settings, you don't have to include them in the map. Just have the init.con file refer to the vanilla stuff. I usually only include anything I changed and all vanilla crap is loaded from con files where necessary.

I'm also recamping the code you used to what I think it should be and this should fix the CTD. I don't see too much in the way of errors or typos. But I am doing slight re-organization/optimization in hopes this will make the map run better.

Also, when I give you the file back, it will be a compressed RFA using the debugger EXE. If you do any more code changes I recommend using a patch RFA as the compressed RFA will work the best (as it was made using the debugger, the only true way of making fully working RFA files).

If your not already aware, compressing RFAs with MakeRFA will brake TGA files and using WinRFA will brake the environment map RCM file.

EDIT: Since you did use BC to do lightmaps, you did remove the extra crap BC put in the BF1942's init.con file? BC is complet utter crap and doesn't know how to simply just start the lightmapping in the mod your map is on and instead just adds the mod to the vanilla init.con file. This will most definitely cause problems (especially if left on the server like this). BC just doesn't know when to undo the stupid sh#t it does.

Also, when using this on a server, you can remove some stuff from the server RFA to cut down on size as most stuff like lightmaps, textures and such are not needed when using dedicated servers. The following files can be removed for a server box:

1. texture folder
2. any textures present in the Menu folder
3. Any textures in the ObjectLightmaps folder (though leave the pallet file if there is one, if not, just remove the entire folder)
4. All textures found in the "textures" folder. But leave stuff like the .lsp file and the rcm files.
5. If present, remove the "sound" file if there is any custom sounds. Don't confuse this with the "Sounds" folder as that is the one with the con files you must keep.

For the main mod folder the following RFAs are not needed: (and all related patch RFAs for them)

1. Menu.rfa
2. Sound.rfa
3. texture.rfa

Be sure to keep the rest. The Animations.rfa and aiMeshes.rfa (if present in your mod) must also be kept.

If your mod has custom treemeshes, that file will also be kept on the server.

The bf1942/Game.rfa file must also be kept.

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Ok here's what I've done to it:

http://files.filefront.com/13641543

It still crashes for me when it reaches 100%, but I'm thinking it's because I don't have the mod the map was intended for. (I did make sure to set the mod ID back to yours after I finished testing, but be sure to check that to be on the safe side)

I left some notes in the code to explain some of the changes I made. Check the tdm/COOP/Conquest.con files in the GameTypes and base folder as I restructured those. Take note of that as that is how they should be configured. (at least that's how it works for my maps and it works fine for me so far)

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I have cameras in your head!