[august1929]

In the thread "Microsoft Terrain Simulator" in screenshots, I was bemoaning that, even using Swissie's approach to getting beyond the 500-550 kb size limit for the World Tiles, I was getting 3 out of 4 save attempts still wiping out all objects. (not a problem as long as you remember to backup after each successful save - just slow).

Well, I had finally got to 4 out of 4 wipe outs around 1,752 objects and I was seriously considering manually removing some items from the World Tile in Wordpad. That got me thinking though, why not add objects using Wordpad - again, slow, but could be useful.

Would be fairly easy as I was repeating objects that I had used over and over, so they would be simple to find within the text document, but the problem would be location.

To solve that, I went into the RE, placed the object I wanted on the offending tile, right clicked on it to get its co-ordinates, closed the RE without saving, then manually placed the text using Wordpad, saved then went back into the RE - surprise surprise, there it was.

Example;

)
Static (
UiD ( 5447 )
FileName ( Object.s )
Position ( 720.519 296.218 -149.063 )
QDirection ( 0 -0.878815 0 0.477163 )
VDbId ( 4294967295 )

The thing to remember is to put in the next UiD - 5447 as above.

All very easy, but it meant it would be difficult to work out orientation and get that precise. Then, in the small hours of the morning I had a bit of a brainwave - why not use the wiped World Tile to my advantage.

Followed this sequence, and I am now able to manually increase the objects on the tile;

1. Create a blank World Tile (easy to do if you are in that desperate position :lol: )

2. Go back into the RE and place a single object on the bare tile (in this case, a treeclump) where you will want to place more.

3. Save

4. Open the World Tile in Wordpad, and there you will see a single object (as above)

5. Renumber the UiD to the next number required in your original, full, backed up, World Tile.

6. Save

7. Go back into the RE and place as many objects and rotate move them as required (within reason :wacko: ) on the still relatively blank tile.

8. Save

9. Now, have a look in the World Tile in Wordpad, and you will have all those objects listed, and in numerical sequence, starting with the revised UiD you changed at stage 5 above.

10. Save this under a new name (can be in the World file), you will need it in a few minutes.

11. Reload your original backed up World Tile (btw - I use Route Riter, and I routinely replace all that RR backs up - I don't know if you can get away with just replacing the World Tile. I think not).

12. Open the original World Tile that you have just put back, and go to the last numerical entry.

13. Copy the entries you saved under 10 above, and paste after the last numerical entry you located in 12 above.

14. Save, then go have a look in the RE.

It works B)

Not a lot of point in posting any screenshots - but I will if they are needed.

Rod

[captain_bazza]

Wow, this is an important 'find' ===== attention Admin ===== can we please 'Sticky' this one, thanks. And thank you Rod for sharing this workaround fix.

Cheers Bazza

[august1929]

Thanks Bazza - only had one more go at this since the last post, but I placed over 100 objects without the slightest hint of a problem.

Working on a "workaround" to delete large numbers of objects in the same way. Problem being that when you try to delete & save, you get the same blank tile. A unique object is easy to find in wordpad, but what if you have incorrectly placed 10 out of 70 or 80 identical objects...

I have a cunning plan....

Rod

[captain_bazza]

Quote

In that case Baldrick, as a reward, take this large rancid turnip and hold it........and mind you give it back, I never said anything about giving you a turnip rise.

Cheers Bazza

PS I'm sure our American friends will never work that one out. :wacko:

[timmuir]

 captain_bazza, on Jun 21 2008, 10:57 PM, said:

Cheers Bazza

PS I'm sure our American friends will never work that one out. :wacko:

""Baldrick, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips and telling the prince that you walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?"" :lol:

Rod, you may be onto something here. Thanks for sharing this.

[august1929]

...a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it....

Well Bazza, at least one American friend did :lol:

Cunning plan #2 is fairly simple, but it works.

To get rid of objects or replace them...

1. Open the World Tile in Wordpad (having backed it up first, of course).

2. Open the RE

3. Highlight the object you want to remove in the RE and right click - this will give you the co-ordinates.

4. Select the first number and do a CTRL>F search for the number in the open Wordpad doc.

5. Check the name of the object and other co-ordinates to ensure it is the correct one.

6. To replace - replace the Filename with the name of your new object (e.g. FileName ( Pine2.s ) )

7. To remove - it seems, from the limited testing that I have done of this (one object only! ) that the World tile doesn't seem to mind a gap in UiDs either - in other words having 4567, 4568, 4570. - If that is the case, then delete the object - This needs to be tested further with backup ready to replace.

8. Save

You are then back into the same sequence of copying and pasting into the full world tile using wordpad.

I have replaced 10 items tonight (tree billboards I didn't want in a particular location), then I have gone back into a deliberately clean wiped world tile, and have placed further tree objects around the rough location of the replaced billboards.

Net result - at long last this grossly overloaded tile is finished :wacko: B) 1,929 objects in total.

Tested in sim and appears to be o.k. - Framerates the same as before (I am essentially placing the same group over and over - repeated textures etc.).

Tim - it seems to work - hopefully, though, with a bit more care, I won't have to resort to these underhand tricks again.

Rod

[timmuir]

Quote

...1,929 objects in total.

Hmm, is that a co-inkydinks, or by design, august?

[Genma Saotome]

Hmmm am suprised this is regarded as news... thought it was routine for builders to edit .w files by hand. Ok, here's another neat tip then: use excel to mess w/ .w file data. I unlocked the object rotator spreadsheet, added a page that referenced the lay it out straight page, and "calculated" all the .w file data needed to add the ROW fence. See, there were too many breaks (roads & water courses) to use the gantry method and so this let me place the first one and calculate & load as many more as I needed to fill the space to the next break.

On two occasions I've used excel to lift every object by 20m, gone into DEMEX and done the terrain too. Works fine and lets me manipulate the "seabed", which wasn't possible when it's altitude was zero. If I could figure out how to move terrain a few hundred metres within each tile, I'd again use excel and push everything 400m east and 400m north as that would let me spread my dense, urban scene over more tiles.

Something else: you can renumber your UiD's so long as you are careful not to duplicate any of the values. I've had problems when the values exceeded 8000 and so I've renumbered several tiles to avoid that (some more than once).

Last tip that comes to mind: if you assign a view value (0 thru 10) to everything, using some logical scheme, it's easier to find everything of like sorts in your .w file. Also, if you do this, your /global shapes will sort out together in the .w file, eliminating a lot of directory switching when /w files are read. Sure, changing directories are just microseconds, but with .w files all helter-skelter there can be a whole lot of directory switching going on in your busiest .w files -- do you really want it going any slower than it need be?

[timmuir]

Dave you're more of a scientist than I am. I lack the experience of using spreadsheets and am more of a hacker when it comes to route building. The only time I went into a .w file to edit out something it was actually a .ws file to remove a sound source that wouldn't delete the normal way (It was way out in the middle of a field and every time I deleted it in the RE, it was back again upon re-opening. So, this is news to me. All of it. You are very wise my friends. :wacko:

[august1929]

"1,929" - guess who hadn't noticed that - will take it as a good omen :wacko:

Quote

Hmmm am suprised this is regarded as news...

Sorry if this is old news guys - I searched all over, but didn't find any reference to it, though I agree that it is obvious :lol:

Dave - the problem is, 6 years or so down the line, there are still those desperate enough to start fiddling with the RE. All tips gratefully received, particularly where they involve activity outside the RE itself to solve problems, or ease potential problems.

Rod

This post has been edited by august1929: 23 June 2008 - 03:09 AM