Level Design Help: Map size, speed, optimizing, zones

humm

humm



Okay, what is going on here. half the items i rename with only new package names turn out black and white, faded, and blurred. Luckily i have backups, but what the heck is going on there?

Also, i tried exporting just the textures for my balcony. Everything seemed to export fine, then when i opened the map i got this.... what next?

does this occur because my working map is not in the KF map folder? Just a theory, will provide updates if this is the case... testing..testing....testing....

Nope, that wasn't the problem. Okay, so this is what I was afraid of. There doesn't appear to be a method of renaming a texture's package without then having to reassign that texture everywhere it appears in the map. Is this accurate? Since my map is huge and 75% complete, this is not an option.

Okay, god this is complicated, i hate poorly written programs. I think I know what to do but it is complicated and I keep missing steps, 200+ textures and i've tried and failed to move them like 10 time... getting tiered of it. Here's what I think I need to do, we'll see if it works:

1. open KFSDK
2. open map
3. move cursor on map (you need to do this because the program will think there is no change to the map later and will not ask for save prior to program close, so you lose all associations on the map side of things).
4. select a texture, right click, ctrl+C (copy), ctrl+P (paste), ok.... repeat 200+ times.
5. close the texture editor, close the program. SAVE THE PROGRAM AND THE PACKAGE. when you save the package, be sure to put ".utx" on the end of the package file name. PACKAGE WILL FAIL TO SAVE AND YOU'LL LOSE IT ALL.

DAMMIT ALL TO HELLLlll!
It failed at this point. same error "package couldn't save, maybe the file is read only". It was a fresh package, how could it be read only. I'm screwed. I thought it might be the ".utx" that was the problem, I also thought it was the that I had a previous version in the texture folder, so I have been deleting it before trying. I'm starting to think it can only be done in segments, because I was able run through this process successfully with a small chunk of the textures... but I could have swarn I previously got all the textures out simultaneously before I figured out the steps below. Oh well, try again in 5 hours....unless someone has better instructions than the guy above?


NEXT
1. open KFSDK (NOT MAP!!!!)
2. open your saved package (NOT MAP!!!!-opening the map will remove all textures from the map)
3. Open map (YES MAP!!!!)
4. Move cursor on map so map knows it needs to save
5. close
6. save all, except default packages of course.

Now that I have it all written down, lets see if I can follow instructions without getting a single thing wrong.

Well, i found a pattern that worked well for a while, successively moving 20-30 at a time. The first time I had to close to save but after that I could save both the package and the map without closing. Then after 5 iterations I got the same error, "sorry couldn't save, maybe the package is write protected." Every time I get this error, it DELETES the original package file from the texture folder; can you believe that, they warn for the purposes of protecting the file and then delete the dam thing.

It has to be size based right, is there a maximum size to these texture packages? Literally, every time this process fails I have to start all over because the texture package seems to like to delete itself. Or maybe I have one file somewhere in there that is messing it up? Help me!!! Help me!!!

Weird development. MyLevel has a texture group called Doors, used to hold door textures obviously. I moved everything out of MyLevel and into KF_PalaceTextures.utx. I have noticed in this process that I have to do move the doors in a certain order, sometimes i move them and they dont move they just stay in mylevel... whats up with that? when i do move them in a certain order they do disappear. but then I now have a copy in both packages which is wierd, I have repeated and i'm not pressing duplicate.

I just noticed it is a lot of different groups, not just doors that are duplicated. Why does rename sometimes duplicate.

ok now this is wierd, i just saved and now doors is gone from mylevel and others I moved like balconies are now BACK!! WTH is going on, AAAhahahahha!


Fl, you gave me stuff I already know. Your advice would be great for someone trying to move 1 or 2 textures, i'm trying to move hundreds. Thanks for trying.

Isn't there a freaking text file somewhere I can just search "myLevel" and replace with "KF_PalaceTextures"?

Someone, this problem should be easy to replicate. Create copies of a map w a lot of internal textures and try to move them to a new package.

Until then, I'll keep trying to save with the procedure above until all are gone. I am taking backups prior to each save.

Well, I've wasted 4 days on this, guess my map is staying as one single file... so be it.

I do apologize to sending you one PM to let you know that your answer is only like 10% of the puzzle, but you are on the internet and your set to accept PMs so I don't know what the big deal is. Thanks anyway.

Let me ask this, why is it that when i get the package i create open, then open the map, the mylevel "package" in the map now has a group called mylevel? i never created a mylevel group, it appears to be pointers to EVERYTHING left in mylevel after creating the separate package. Is it supposed to be like this? Was I trying to move that stuff, was that the problem? mylevel is soome kind of necessary pseudo something?

I know mylevel is a pseudo package contained in the map itself and is actually part of the map. What i don't understand is why a mylevel group is created when I move textures from there to a new package.

Anyway, I have my map at like 50MB and my texture package at like 211MB and everything seems stable, slight increase in performance as well. There are still 5 textures in mylevel that I cannot get out, there's nothing special about them so I'm thinking size is what caused the biggest problem.

What happens is I rename one, go to the new package and try to save. it gives me the warning "package on disk ([num]) is smaller than the package in memory (-1). are you sure you want to save. As long as you say no and never save the map prior to successfully saving the package, you can just close out. But these last few won't move. Anyway, it isn't important, I have for the most part accomplished the goal.