JaFO's BotManager - no preview picture

[legacy-Varpu]

Ok, just came back from dentist so maybe I'm a bit jumpy !

Downloaded the excellent BotManager and tried it out. For some odd reason it does not give preview pictures for the bots. Is this just me or is this a wider spread problem ?

In case this is of the "wider spread" type, I might help in sorting it out.

Nice tool though !

Edit:
Also causes GPF when I click the voice preview button. Might be a platform issue so here are my details:

Windows 2000 with all latest patches and service packs
Avance AC97 Audio driver
AOpen GeForce MX 400 - Windows Xp/2k Driver v31.40

I have had non whatever problems with UT2k3

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

(1) the official site is http://jafo.mienadres.nl ...
Do not post any direct links to my site !
Refer to the mirror-sites if you can't host the download, but still want a 'direct link' to the downloads.

(2) an e-mail is faster (you're lucky I saw this post)

(3) what version ? v2.0.1.0 is the last ...

(4a) What .upl-file did you open ?
(4b) What bot did you want to 'hear' ?
(4c) What was it's species and voice named ?

(5) Have you tried deleting botmanager.ini and opening the offending .upl-file again ?

It was made on a pc running Win2k ...

Note : it does not display 'complicated textures' (ie : anything that uses finalblend, combiner or shader-classes and similar 'advanced' features)

[legacy-Varpu]

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE)
(1) the official site is http://jafo.mienadres.nl ...
Do not post any direct links to my site !
Refer to the mirror-sites if you can't host the download, but still want a 'direct link' to the downloads.

Ok, sorry about that. Will correct the link right after this. And I have mirrored the files on my site.

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) (2) an e-mail is faster (you're lucky I saw this post)

Ok.

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) (3) what version ? v2.0.1.0 is the last ...

v2.0.1.0

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) (4a) What .upl-file did you open ?

xPlayers.upl

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) (4b) What bot did you want to 'hear' ?

Will not show preview for any of the players - only tried the voice thing with the first player - not home atm so I can't tell if this is affected by all.

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) (4c) What was it's species and voice named ?

Awww... don't remember - the first bot in std installation. Have not installed any new bots to my system.

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) (5) Have you tried deleting botmanager.ini and opening the offending .upl-file again ?

No. This was the first installation of the program and it worked othervice well out. It even sniffed the location of my UT2003 installation correctly (from registry I suppose).

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) It was made on a pc running Win2k ...

I know

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE) Note : it does not display 'complicated textures' (ie : anything that uses finalblend, combiner or shader-classes and similar 'advanced' features)

The default UT2003 player portrait pictures are in a very std format. But still there may be some problems with those especially if you read the textures from the file. They are DXT? compressed if I don't recall wrong and I had a lot of trouble encoding that stuff. It is highly platform sensitive. There MAY also be some offending DLL in my system. I believe you have ignored the thrown expection in the image preview pane

Just like I said - I would like to help. I can make you an Delphi object which you can use to access the images from the files. I know mine works well.

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

That would be Diva ... one of the egyptians.

Given that the portrait is 'empty' then I'd have to assume that the combo-boxes on the 'details' tab are empty as well ?

If that's so then do this :
(0) close the program (do'h! )
(1) delete the botmanager.ini (again)
(2) start the program with '/LOG' added to the parameters
(3) close the program
(4) send both botmanager.ini and the .log-file to my e-mail adress ( jafo18@hotmail.com or jafo@mienadres.nl will do )
use as subject-line : '[JBM] bug-report & log-file'
And I'll see what I can do.

[legacy-Varpu]

At Your service !

You will get the files as soon as I get back home.

The details were there and the bot name indeed was Diva (or so my leaking memory claims). I don't know if the details were correct but some of them had a red font in them...

I can also make that Delphi object - I need it as well to clean up some of my code a tad.

I will actually make two sets of the files for you. One before and one after the deletion of that ini-file. So if the symptom goes away you still have something to sniff...

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

*eh* what Delphi-object ? I didn't ask for one, did I ? :weird:

[legacy-Varpu]

Originally posted by JaFO(JBE)
*eh* what Delphi-object ? I didn't ask for one, did I ? :weird:

No, you did not ask for it. But I will make it anyway. It is up to you if you use it or not.
It'll be a class TUnrTexture with method TPicture * Picture;

I need it myself and I don't see any reason why I wouldn't share it. FYI: This part of code is not GNU infected.

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

I understand now & thanks in advance.

[legacy-Varpu]

Did you get my e-mail ???

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

yeah, I got it (that attachment it filled my entire account ).
The problem isn't reading those texture-files ... there must be something that prevents the program from locating them.

[legacy-Varpu]

Another bug crushed ....

Ok, I figured the reason for this.

I have the following setup in my UT2003.ini and it is my belief that quite many mappers have set up their paths this way.
I would like to recommend this setup for everyone who is downloading custom stuff for their game.

[Core.System]
PurgeCacheDays=30
SavePath=../Save
CachePath=../Cache
CacheExt=.uxx
Paths=../CustomMaps/System/*.u
Paths=../CustomMaps/Maps/*.ut2
Paths=../CustomMaps/Textures/*.utx
Paths=../CustomMaps/Sounds/*.uax
Paths=../CustomMaps/Music/*.umx
Paths=../CustomMaps/StaticMeshes/*.usx
Paths=../CustomMaps/Animations/*.ukx
Paths=../CustomMaps/Saves/*.uvx
Paths=../WorkMaps/System/*.u
Paths=../WorkMaps/Maps/*.ut2
Paths=../WorkMaps/Textures/*.utx
Paths=../WorkMaps/Sounds/*.uax
Paths=../WorkMaps/Music/*.umx
Paths=../WorkMaps/StaticMeshes/*.usx
Paths=../WorkMaps/Animations/*.ukx
Paths=../WorkMaps/Saves/*.uvx
Paths=../System/*.u
Paths=../Maps/*.ut2
Paths=../Textures/*.utx
Paths=../Sounds/*.uax
Paths=../Music/*.umx
Paths=../StaticMeshes/*.usx
Paths=../Animations/*.ukx
Paths=../Saves/*.uvx

This way I can keep the non-official stuff apart from the official stuff. Making it this way helps me on housekeeping.

Anyway, as soon as I removed the extra paths settings the program started to wok allright.

So you were right about one thing: the program didn't find the package.

Have fun with correcting this issue !

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

Thanks, with this info I really know what to look for
I hadn't tested with multiple alternate paths, however this at least gives me a realistic example.

I'll definitely have to add a 'can not find file X'-error to the list of log-messages at least.

btw :
Did you try placing your alternate paths at the bottom of that list ?

Or as an alternative :
copy your ut2003.ini-file, remove the alternate paths in that file and tell the utility to use that alternate file.
See the quickstart.txt for details

[legacy-Varpu]

Tested it and as you propably suspected - it worked.

However this is not the cure for this as the custom paths must be before the standard installation paths because some n00b mappers make maps with clashing package names - haven't seen many of these but one is enough to ruin the joy.....

I don't know if the UT2003 engine suffers of the same syndrome that was present in the UT engine - you cannot make packages with names that have identical names the only difference being the suffix (eg. CTF-HolySpit.ut2 and CTF-HolySpit.utx) because the engine uses whichever it finds first when browsing the paths.

Why can't you browse through all Path=... settings and behave just like the engine does - using the first package that has matching filename discarding the suffix as long as it is a UT package ?

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

I could do that, but I wanted to minimize the number of directories to search as well ...

And UT'03 still has the same 'problem', so packages with the same name are to be avoided at any cost. I still think that's no real problem, because package-names should say what is inside anyway.