Why would an area go black a second after loading?

[Kulyok]

I've been testing my Sellswords mod, and everything went fine until I decided to check it out on another computer. All files remained the same. I copied my entire BG2 folder to the second computer and ran it there.

 

However, the main area, O#L001, stopped loading on the second computer. It loads, half a second passes, everything goes black. It loads fine on the first computer, however.

 

I've got an old O#L001.are file that loads on both computers, so I'll probably have to edit it again to add all the containers and ambient sounds and whatnot. But I just thought I'd ask: has anything like that ever happened before? If the area goes black after loading, does it indicate something specific?

[Avenger]

Could be missing night tileset with extended night on?

[Kulyok]

Thanks! I went and checked in DLTCEP, but I wasn't(or, rather, Lava wasn't) using extended night on this one - it's just an underdark city area.

 

In the end, I opened the old version of the area which opened on both computers, and edited items/ambients and such all over again. It seems to work now, though I still wonder if I screwed up something.

[Kulyok]

Okay, it seems I still got a problem on some beta testers' machines when they enter new locations.

 

The reports say that when they remove area ambients, they load normally.

 

Is there something wrong with area ambients? A way to do it right, maybe? I'm adding them with the latest version of DLTCEP, if it helps, but I'd be happy to add them via weidu, instead, if only I knew how.

 

EDIT: The user who reported this said that he had a clean install but he struggled with some other quest mod(same problem - area wouldn't load with ambients, would load without them).

[Kulyok]

I've just restored a clean backup(override and so on), and the game immediately crashed upon entering the area. Sigh. I'm attaching the .are file - maybe you guys know where the problem lies?

o#l001.zip

[Kulyok]

I *think* it might be the ambient from AR2200 I'm using, because when I load the game, load AR2200 and THEN load O#L001, everything's okay. Otherwise, a big ca-boom. Is there anything I can do about it? Killing the ambient file would kind of make the area totally silent.

[Wisp]

It's probably something stupid with how areas are biffed and loaded. AM2200.WAV is biffed together with AR2200, and the engine probaly has difficulties loading files from another biff like that. You might want to try placing AM2200.WAV in the override, or if that fails, include a renamed copy with your mod and see if that works.

[Kulyok]

Thank you! Sounds like great advice. I'm a bit reluctant to make the mod even bigger, but I guess that's what I'll have to do in the end. I hope I'm not going to have to do it for ALL ambients, though.

 

(It's a bit late where I am right now, but I'll try to extract and test it tomorrow).

[jastey]

Yes, what Wisp said: You have to use a renamed copy of your ambient with your area, because the biffed ambients etc. makes the custom area crash (I learned this only recently and it's an issue a lot of players will have (more than in passed times) because of the increasing numbers of BGT-Megamod players around.)

[Kulyok]

Yeah, I will now keep it in mind. I guess we need a FAQ or something like "a list of stuff to remember" with things like these.

[Wisp]

Incidentally, you are probably getting the same crash as in this thread, and conceivably for the same reasons (the regular Underdark is cached on your first computer, so no crash, but not on your second computer, so crash). How to best resolve the problem may remain unchanged, but if your mod requires a lot of files from the regular Underdark biff, it might be more economical for your mod to decompress it and use the biffed files.

[Kulyok]

I've checked, and one .wav ambient loaded via dltcep is about 1,86 mb in size, so, yeah, I'd rather decompress the .biff. Can I really do it in .tp2? Weidu Readme only mentions --biff-get X, which requires a copy of weidu.exe during installation, which probably isn't the prettiest solution.

 

 

And to make it very clear, in case someone else stumbles into it:

- to check if your ambient "opens", clean the cache folder in your game directory(not just the override; you'll have to delete the contents cache\data but NOT the data folder in the game directory, obviously) and re-load the mod area(s). THEN you'll know.

[Wisp]

I've checked, and one .wav ambient loaded via dltcep is about 1,86 mb in size, so, yeah, I'd rather decompress the .biff. Can I really do it in .tp2? Weidu Readme only mentions --biff-get X, which requires a copy of weidu.exe during installation, which probably isn't the prettiest solution.

Just so you know, I wouldn't be surprised if area2200.bif expands from ~12 megs to ~30–35 when decompressed.

You can't do it through TP2 yet (or even with WeiDU on the command line), but I'm working on it. You will be able to with the next version.

[Kulyok]

Sounds great!

 

In the meantime, I wonder if there's a list of "safe" ambients to use somewhere - I should experiment with stuff available in the override, maybe. I wonder how other mod-quest-area makers manage.

[Kulyok]

... Or maybe I should do a silent transition via cutscene? Party arrives to AR2200, the screen stays dark, party immediately jumps to my mod area O#LL001, the .bif in the cache?