Anyone else still need a SUR generator?
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LancerSolurus wrote:
Glad the problem was found, adding in the HPID section hopefully won’t be too difficult. The single part does add them.So if we use single part sur files from your builder we shouldn’t have a problem?
But the multipart sur files are bolloxed?That’s weird if true, as ST was still getting crashes when using single part sur files from what I recall.
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You may be right but I don’t think I tried single part surs with Sur Builder, Timmy - I don’t use single-part cmps, I’ve been trying the multi-part surs. Remember the group cube box and triangle tests were all multi-part.
I did make some single-part surs just to help me to isolate the problem of Sur Builder not making sur parts for all ship parts, and it was the same as with multi-part. But I don’t think I ever used them for testing, I don’t like them! lol
In passing, another reason for multi-part ships and surs is that when the ship is destroyed, the groups fly apart when using process = shatter in the explosion (defined in FX\EXPLOSIONS\explosion.ini) called in shiparch.ini.
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StarTrader wrote:
I can now confirm that single-part surs for the same two ships also fail within 30 minutes.Sad.
Retested yet again with vanilla surs - all runs well for over 3 hours.
Here are the single-part surs if anyone would please test these and the multi-part ones (the ship cmps are the same) I would appreciate the help, it would tell me if the crashes are genuine or if it is indeed my setup.
The only thing I can think to cause this type of crash after a certain amount of time is perhaps large numbers of error messages accumulating in a hidden FL Server log or buffer?
Does anyone know where there is such a log/buffer? I don’t mean C:\FL-Server-errors.log, I know about that one and there is nothing in it.
I’m confused, when I read this I thought you meant you had proved single part were also failing for you.
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ST, how are you generating these single part surs, with the sur builder or some other way? If they are with the sur builder i find that odd because i don’t have crashes with single group surs made with the utility, ever.
If it’s another method then i’m curious how you make them.
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Hmm, my memory loss is evidently more serious than I thought. I had forgotten I did that completely. Funny how the mind plays tricks once we’re over 20!!
Gibbon - I’m assuming that I used Sur Builder. I’ve also used the Sur Exporter v1.1 and I’ve also stitched them with Sur Splicer. The result was always the same, they fail during extended testing.
But don’t forget none of my surs had hardpoints.
And this is the problem. Vanilla surs never failed during my tests.
How long have you tested your surs? Half an hour is not enough.
Set up the same test environment that I have - NPCs attacking a heavily-armed base station or base ship, I’ve repeated this many times and the results are always the same.
The base ship uses cannon, missile turrets, and flak turrets. I replaced all with one type one at a time, flak turrets are useless at killing NPCs. Cannons only and missile turrets only both brought on the crashes.
Adoxa’s GetCollisions dll logs bad hits. The last hits at the time of the crashes were always to the thruster or the cm dropper.
Once we put them in (me using Sur Exporter v1.1 to generate a new sur with hardpoints and adoxa by manual insertion of the hpids into the sur file) the crashes stopped and GetCollisions logged only hits to my base ship’s turrets, which also had no sur parts.
I then added the HpTurret hpids to the base ship’s sur and there were no entries logged by GetCollisions for more than two hours of testing.
So the cause and solution are clear.
Keep on testing but test it my way.
I know I’m pedantic. But in fact I want whatever I do to be as good as I can get it.
I want a trouble-free sur so that my mod server does not have intermittent crashes due to these, there will be enough other causes in most mods! lol
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Right, this is how i do it. Custom system, custom base, all custom ships including capships, fighters and traders. Capships using guns and missiles only. It stays up all day if i want it to.
Custom surs created using the sur builder only, on a duplicate radius setting of 0.1, anything else gives holes on large models. All models are single group with single group surs, no crashes, ever.
This is what i can’t figure out is why myself, and LS for that matter, have no problems. He has custom surs in his mod, some even multipart ones and he doesn’t crash, and neither do i. I’m baffled tbh
I don’t go near the sur splicer as i don’t know how to use it and can’t be bothered learning either, not when i have a tool that for me at least, works fine. I even put in the multipart model i uploaded yesterday and my test server was up all evening without issues, 3+ hours. Those poor little gunboats were getting slaughtered left, right and centre, no errors showing in console or anywhere else i could find, no crashes.
I don’t doubt there is an issue somewhere, just wish i knew where
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StarTrader wrote:
But don’t forget none of my surs had hardpoints.And this is the problem. Vanilla surs never failed during my tests.
The question is: Do they have the right hardpoints defined? And as I already asked, what if I add hardpoints to a vanilla ship cmp without updating the sur?
Anybody having a solution for the problem I mentioned before?
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Gibbon, put in adoxa’s GetCollisions.dll and let’s see what it logs in your test environment. It will be good to know.
I will test your model too.
By the way: Weapons hardpoints (HpWeaponxx, HpTurretxx, HTorpedoxx) are not being logged and are not causing the crash.
The crashes were caused only by HpThrusterxx and HpCMxx hits. By putting in the hpids only, or by putting in the whole sur part, we cured the crashes.
Quarks: if you only added weapon hardpoints to your vanilla cmp and with a vanilla sur then you should not get a crash from this.
As for your problem, you didn’t give me enough info yet. Is it an FLServer.exe crash or a Freelancer.exe crash? Narrow down which model is causing it and try to isolate how - replace the fuses with standard ones one at a time.
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On mine both were equipped.
Adoxa - can you tell us when GetCollisions.dll is triggered exactly? What, when, and why is it logging is what I want to know.
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StarTrader wrote:
The crashes were caused only by HpThrusterxx and HpCMxx hits. By putting in the hpids only, or by putting in the whole sur part, we cured the crashes.There’s your answer straight away why mine are not crashing. The sur builder adds those entries to single group surs, why i’m not suffering with this. This is all to do with multipart surs and the fact the sur builder doesn’t add that in for multipart surs. Jason has the source for that these days btw.
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Hardly that big a deal then is it. It’s not like small ships need to have a skin tight sur file, for all the difference it will make.
Do capships, where you would really benefit from multi part surs even use cm’s or thrusters? Stations and solars certainly have no need of them.
This does explain why I’ve never encountered any crashes either.
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Half agree with you Timmy, where multi part surs would come in handy is odd shaped ships like Star Trek Enterprise style, bases most definately need them though. Just think docking bays and asteroids you can actually fly into or through.
Surely a solution would be to simply add the HpID’s to the multi part sur builder like it already generates them for the single part surs?
Other solution is to fix the sur exporter for milkshape, especially 1.1 as that at least is almost there and generates proper form fitting surs complete with holes for docking bays and the like.
I know Smack is almost there with his his sur builder so clear solutions seem on the horizon for sure.
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with multi-part surs, is there a way to manually edit them to attach to a certain mesh part other than “Root”? where would that be? or to rob even more time from our programmers: is it a challenge to read out the name of the mesh part the tool is generating a sur part for and then add this as attachment reference instead of “Root”? would be good for e.g. animations of station (and docking ring and jumpgate) and warship bays/airlocks.
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Gibbon wrote:
StarTrader wrote:
The crashes were caused only by HpThrusterxx and HpCMxx hits. By putting in the hpids only, or by putting in the whole sur part, we cured the crashes.There’s your answer straight away why mine are not crashing. The sur builder adds those entries to single group surs, why i’m not suffering with this. This is all to do with multipart surs and the fact the sur builder doesn’t add that in for multipart surs. Jason has the source for that these days btw.
No. Sur Builder only puts in the HpMount - the shield bubble sur part.
No other hpids are in the single-part sur file. I just checked by making a single-part sur for my DevilRay.
Run your test again with GetCollisions.dll and let us see the text file that is generated.
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Gisteron wrote:
with multi-part surs, is there a way to manually edit them to attach to a certain mesh part other than “Root”? where would that be? or to rob even more time from our programmers: is it a challenge to read out the name of the mesh part the tool is generating a sur part for and then add this as attachment reference instead of “Root”? would be good for e.g. animations of station (and docking ring and jumpgate) and warship bays/airlocks.This is what is being done by the Sur Exporter and Sur Builder and by the Sur Splicer, only the first part is attached to “Root”, the others are named after their cmp group. Or do you mean something else?
How would it be good for animations?
Gibbon: I’m testing your model now, it is generating the same hits as my model in GetCollisions.txt to the shield bubble (because HpMount and HpSHield01 are not present in the sur file - they use the same shield sur).
Here’s a sample:
00:12:30.489: idx = -2, end = 0x3709B90
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000000:12:50.027: idx = -2, end = 0xA35730
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000000:12:50.077: idx = -2, end = 0xA35730
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000000:13:04.478: idx = -2, end = 0xA35730
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000000:13:38.346: idx = -2, end = 0x2EBD404
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000000:14:27.247: idx = -2, end = 0x2EBD230
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x00000000When the HpThrusterxx or HpCMxx is hit then it should crash…
And of course that all depends where the HPThrusterxx and HpCMxx are located, on my ships they are both prominent at the rear of the model.
If your models have them in protected places it is possible they will never be hit.
May be this is the real reason some of you didn’t have this problem yet.
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Gibbon: Here it is, your gunship failed too. After almost 6 hours the thruster on one ship was eventually hit.
This is a gunship and there is more ship surface to hit, and the countermeasure and thruster are at the back, this is why it took so long:-
01:05:03.322: idx = -2, end = 0x36AAEB8
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000001:05:03.543: idx = -2, end = 0x36AAEB8
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000001:05:25.114: idx = -2, end = 0x36AAEB8
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000001:06:23.718: idx = -2, end = 0xA35750
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000001:07:36.493: idx = -2, end = 0xA35750
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x00000000–----->>-------
06:51:03.564: idx = -2, end = 0x2EBD184
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000006:51:17.154: idx = -2, end = 0x2EBD150
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000006:51:27.439: idx = -2, end = 0x2EBD150
object 1 = 2001 SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000006:51:27.749: idx = -2, end = 0x2EBD150
object 1 = 2001 equipment\models\st\ku_thruster.3db
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x0000000006:51:27.789: idx = -1, end = 0x2EBD150
object 1 = crash!
object 2 = 0067
CRC 1 = 0x00000000
CRC 2 = 0x00000000So let’s not waste any more time. The problem exists and we know the fix.
Note:
These entries: SHIPS\liberty\li_elite\li_elite_shield.3db
are caused by the shield bubble (HpMount) missing from the sur file.
As Sur Builder puts in the HpMount (but only in single-part surs) these won’t be present in single-part surs but the others will.I’ve attached the whole GetCollisions.txt file for the Thomases here and you can get Gibbon’s superb gunship model in this thread.
I don’t care if you can’t get yours to fail. If you test long enough and in the right environment it will.
Every component listed by adoxa’s GetCollisions.dll needs to have a sur part in the sur file.
This includes any special-named equipment or weapon hardpoints that you want to make such as HpDogsKennelxx and HpMassCannonxx :-?
The good side is that you can now make those special hardpoint names and include them manually in the sur file.
A Nice Result overall!!
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StarTrader wrote:
As for your problem, you didn’t give me enough info yet. Is it an FLServer.exe crash or a Freelancer.exe crash? Narrow down which model is causing it and try to isolate how - replace the fuses with standard ones one at a time.I mostly test in singleplayer, haven’t tried mp with that mod for quite some time.
Will try some isolating now (again). If anybody is interested, I could give you the files or parts of them. -
OK so it’s Freelancer.exe that is crashing. That’s not this sur problem.
Bad Surs usually crash FL when you launch, and sometimes when you destroy a ship using the bad sur.
Start a new thread so we keep this one clear for the sur tools, and let’s see if we can’t help you to find it between us. Upload the files you think may be causing it, zip them up.
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I found another way, just have to test it further
1. Create the sur using the SUR Creator
2. Import the sur into MS
3. Import the model on top of that with the hardpoints (Delete the unnecessary one’s like HpPilot, HpCocpit, and Lights).
4. Delete the model leaving the sur and the hardpoints (If you have a multipart you need to find the part name for each part of the sur xxxxxx_lod1) and export it using shield bubble + disable mesh directx reduction
This has work well so far on smaller models (No console errors with both single part and multipart surs). I’ve also used this on my bigger ships with full success too (Full success meaning that it didn’t crash on takeoff and took damage without any shots going through the hull). Now it is time for stress testing and see if anything comes up in the GetCollisions and GetRoot. I’m writing from work so I hope I remembered everything.
