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| Red Faction : Lounge : Why Red is unreliable |
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  Posted 19th Sep 2007 1:11am |
L4Y Member
Post 131 / 312
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There's something seriously wrong with the Red Editor 
when it comes to saving files, for if it dosen't close
the file handlers properly then it starts to write
invalid filenames with nothing in them.
The map had portals in it.
But I got a TOO MANY FILES OPEN error from Red Optimized
after several failed attempts to try to save my map and lost two
of my backup files of the map I was working on, they
were overwritten with invalid filenames with nothing in them
when the editor kept crashing and refused to save any changes..
Now I have one master copy left. So I can make copies of the map. But after I
made copies, and open the map up and try to make any changes to the map
and try to save it, CRASH is the result with an invalid filename... So I cannot
save anything because Red just keeps crashing when i try to save.
So I've lost this map by the looks of it because I needed to make a
couple of changes to load in the next level, now I can't add those changes
and will have to start all over again.
Abt 4 hours of work was wiped out.
I'm growing tired of Red's many problems.
Although when I save to another map, its fine. It's just this one map
that's become corrupted..
But then again has the map become corrupted because of the Internet? Has the internet got something to do with interferring everynow and again with the HDD with all the constant caching that is going on when you're connected?
However speaking of limits...
There might be a limit on the number of movers or keyframes you have have in a map or within a portal as I don't know what the portal limits are for detail or movers.
But in another map I did, I I had up to about 30 movers, 20 portals, and found one of my movers had suddenly stopped functioning.....  |
| Red limits breached?, Yep, (20,000 fces and its still going !) |
Modified Sep 19th, 03:46am by Enforce |
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| goober |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 1:22am |  |
L4Y Member
Post 5712 / 265
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1. The internet obviously has nothing to do with it since you can run RED without an internet connection.
2. All these threads about red being "unreliable" really dont help as most mappers have these errors once or sometimes even never.
3. In all of this; did you ever get the bright idea to rename your file?
(dot)(dot)(dot) can only describe this thread for me. |
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Assman15  |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 1:32am | |
Post 639 / 2085
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Your internet connection will only interfere if the program was designed to use internet connectivity; otherwise it doesn't know or care if you're connected.
As for RED being unstable, no. While there are a select few things that will cause a crash 100% of the time (namely cutscenes and a specific lightmap resolution bug I'd found) the rest of the time it runs fine. I suspect the crashes you've been encountering are because of either your own mistake or a problem with your computer.
If it's telling you the file name is invalid, change it. Don't expect to win an argument thinking you're more stubborn than your computer. Try to refrain from using special characters and punctuation in your map names. Including, but not limited to: / ? ! . , ; : '
Side note: I always close and reopen RED when I scrap or start a new map, this may be why you have "too many files open." |
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Modified Sep 19th, 01:34am by Assman15 |
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| D2k |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 1:51am |
L4Y Member
Post 1247 / 1923
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Ok, your first problem is using RED optimised.  Second, you need to realise that RED was made in 2002, and that the people that coded the editor and the game probably didnt have time to sort out all the bugs and crap. It's now 2007 and your'e complaining about the operation effeciency of a 5 year old program that hasnt been suppported since it was made.
Also, RED has alot of problems and bugs that require work arounds to get the desired effect you want. As far as naming files don't use weirdo characters in your filenames like assman stated. You know what, just dont use any special characters in a map name other than - or _. Its a bad practice to use various special caracters. Also NO SPACES IN THE FILENAME!
As far as the actual map file becoming corrupted you should note that RED has limitations as to what you may stuff inside a level. from my experience putting too many details like glass could cause the level to become corrupted and unable to open. Other than that I havnt ever run into any other bugs that made a level un-usable. |
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| Assman15 |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 1:55am | |
Post 642 / 2085
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| Quoting D2k | | As far as the actual map file becoming corrupted you should note that RED has limitations as to what you may stuff inside a level. from my experience putting too many details like glass could cause the level to become corrupted and unable to open. Other than that I havnt ever run into any other bugs that made a level un-usable. |
Expanding on that statement; if the dialog box in the lower-left of the editor is redish-pink don't save the level. It could be something minor, like a hole, or you could have exceeded the limits and can corrupt your data. |
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| Enforce |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 2:40am |
L4Y Member
Post 134 / 312
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Don't use special characters in a filename?
Why?
The Red Editor automatically adds in a special character when the autosave is turned on,
If you don't turn autosave on when you go to save and something goes amiss, like if Red crashes or shuts down to low mem (you know how windows hogs ram) can cause a crash, you lose the file, but if you packed the file you can extract it again out of the vpp and carry on where you left off.
But unfortunately that didn't solve the save crash problem I was having. So while I'm working in the map I have it turned off to avoid the resetting of keyframes and brushes glitch with the autosave.
But when its time to save after a few minutes of work I turn it on and save to the backups every five minutes and always pack the file to be on the safe side during testing. I'm not one of those mappers who do an hour or more work in red and then decide to save it, as
there's more risk of losing the work if the editor shuts down during the work before you've had time to save it..
So if I had a file called Ruins.rfl then the autosve will save the backup file as Ruins~.rfl .
So are you guys trying to tell me that the tilde character Red puts in the autosave files is responsible for corrupting my backups and writing invalid filenames and then corrupting the map so it can't save?
hmmm..
Holes: No Assman I'm a lot more knowledgable than that. There were no holes in the map that I was salvaging as a group from the corrupted rfl file because had portals in
the map...
"Ok, your first problem is using RED optimised. Your second problem is..."
What do you mean Red Optimized is my "problem"?
All I experienced here with the program was just a standard save failure that can happen from time to time from a map that somehow got corrupted and preventing me from saving it as a normal RFL file... I got around the problem by saving the map as a group file and have salvaged it. Now things are back to normal again. I've only lost about half an hour of work in having to redo all the keyframes again. That's better than losing 4 hours of work.
As for others who say they cram lots of stuff in their maps and find Red won't open them.
Sounds like its to do with too many objects for the map to render, which probably means there are not enough portals in the map to keep the engine stable, the designers
of the game put in up to 30-40 portals in their maps and that's standard  They used alot of portals so the engine wouldn't have to render too much of the map at once.
You might beable to load the map it if you turn all the rendering off |
| Red limits breached?, Yep, (20,000 fces and its still going !) |
Modified Sep 19th, 03:39am by Enforce |
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| goober |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 3:45am | |
L4Y Member
Post 5713 / 265
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Why dont use special characters in a filename? Because most programs (windows based or not) have trouble when it comes to using special characters.
As a general rule for filenames, only A-Z, 0-9, underscores (_) and dashes (-). Nothing else. Not even spaces. |
For anyone reading this in 2019 or later: The RF community is alive on the Community Discord
[Faction Files] |
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| Enforce |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 3:54am |
L4Y Member
Post 135 / 312
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I see...So the Autosave is not really safe because it puts an invalid character in the filename. I do not use spaces in my filenames, but speaking of those who put spaces in their filenames I've downloaded some maps from here from some mappers and
had a hard time unpacking some of their files because they put spaces in the filenames which Windows XP hates.
Anyway, I will have to save manually from now on and save my backups to different filenames myself and not use the autosave function no more... |
| Red limits breached?, Yep, (20,000 fces and its still going !) |
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| KERPAL |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 4:08am | |
L4Y Member
Post 882 / 1353
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I know something that will solve all of your problems! Just stop using RED, and use a better and more efficient level editor like hammer or gtkradient.  |
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NoClanFrank  |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 5:08am | |
Post 4011 / 5840
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Also don't use the tram light. I can cause errors when trying to create a level pack file.
There are other objects that cause this type of error that I can't think of right now.  |
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| Assman15 |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 5:14am | |
Post 644 / 2085
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| Quoting KERPAL | | I know something that will solve all of your problems! Just stop using RED, and use a better and more efficient level editor like hammer or gtkradient. |
Not helping!
Anyways, RED uses the tilde(~) because it is programed to understand it. Windows dislikes (though, won't always have a problem with) special characters in file names, spaces in file names, and file names longer than 32 characters. As for your "standard" saving issue, I've never had or heard of any such problem before.
Have you tried reinstalling Red Faction and RED Optimized? Maybe the problem lies in a corrupt installation rather than a bad map file. |
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| Enforce |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 6:31am |
L4Y Member
Post 136 / 312
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NoClanFrank, whatever gave you the idea that the save error was caused by a corrupt clutter object? If that was so then Red would've told me which object was missing or texture missing from the clutter if that was the case, I don't have any tram lights or other dodgy objects in the map. No this was a corrupted save, not a corrupt object. Textures and objects are ok. |
| Red limits breached?, Yep, (20,000 fces and its still going !) |
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| NoClanFrank |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 6:46am | |
Post 4012 / 5840
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| D2k |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 8:29am |
L4Y Member
Post 1248 / 1923
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Dude, just listen. Use the stock RED editor. If you can get it through your head that "red optimised" is modified by a 3rd party. You should know that using it in the first place puts you at greater risk of loosing your progress than using the stock version. RED also doesn't report missing or corrupt objects upon saving and loading a map. Also, It is very possible for a corrupt object to destroy a rfl save.
As for the tally marks the autosave adds to the autosave files, just load the autosave and and then do a save as and rename the map to whatever its original name was. I think its very unlikley for you to keep a file named "autosave~~" and then pack up the level and distribute it.
Again, just stick with normal characters, it will make your life easier and everyone elses. Adding special characters to a levelname may look cool to you, but it sure as hell doesn't look professional and I personally dislike it when mappers name a map something like ">{R^E}< killb[]x" or some crap like that. Doing that makes it very difficult for someone to switch to that map using an ingame console. It becomes frustrating, confusing, and redundant. Which will make your map downloaded and played less than you may have wanted. Keep that in mind when making your levels. Choosing a clean name for a map is a big factor on a maps scuccess.
Take a look at the micro faction maps, if wrecks named all the maps like "m][cR0F/-ct][o//" i bet they wouldnt have been played on nearly as much as they did because switching to them would be the biggest pain in the CENSORED to remember and find the proper letters, numbers, and symbols to get the game to switch to that map without having to restart the server and add it to the rotation.
Anaways, its up to you to listen to the advice were trying to give you. If you wanna be l33tz0rz and name your maps with all kinds of weird characters, don't expect to become a scuccessful mapper. Its true that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but the rest of the world does, and will.
Oh yeah, one more thing i need to repeat. Trash RED optimised and use the stock RED editor, you will save yourself a big headache. Again, its up to you to decide what you want to do, but if I didnt wanna help you I wouldn't have posted. |
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| goober |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 10:38am | |
L4Y Member
Post 5714 / 265
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D2k - Im going to have to disagree on so many levels. Ive had more problems with the default RED than with RED Optimized. I recommend it to everyone. |
For anyone reading this in 2019 or later: The RF community is alive on the Community Discord
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| Assman15 |
Posted 19th Sep 2007 3:05pm | |
Post 647 / 2085
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| Quoting goober | | D2k - Im going to have to disagree on so many levels. Ive had more problems with the default RED than with RED Optimized. I recommend it to everyone. |
Likewise, though, you do have a point. RED Optimized is third-party and has the same risks any other third-party software has. |
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