Texture Clones of shared instances of images & BTB xpack update issues.

Ahoy folks.

Ive run into some significant problems with a track im working on. The track (project) itself consists mainly of imported 3ds objects made in max.
In my max project i have a number of buildings.. each of these buildings share alot of textures with other buildings in the scene, the only difference being that the objects uv coords may differ. What I usually do is group each building in max then when i want to export a building i will choose that group, delete everything else, ungroup, then attach all the buildings objects (elements) together, then save out as 3ds. I will repeat the process exporting a bunch of buildings.
So i now have some 3ds files of buildings.. and all these buildings will share some of the textures that others have... so i start to import these 3ds files into xpacker, into the one same xpack. However I notice that xpacker is making unique instances of every texture on every imported object even if its the same image file. So for a understandable example if I import 10 buildings into xpacker, all of which are sharing the same textures, lets say they all use 1 texture each but the same image file.... xpacker will create 10 instances of that texture. This is a major problem because the project im working will perhaps contain 100`s of buildings and other things that will share certain textures. Right now my btb project has over 8mg of cloned textures that the game has to load.. in fact all the cloned textures vastly out number the non-cloned textures by about 80% .. so as u can see when i come to test on rfactor i am assuming that the game is loading these 80% of textures when it dosent really have to.

Someone advised me that I can change these textures in btb`s mats editor itself. So I would go to the mats editor find all the references of the same texture and reload each one to point to one source image file. The problem there is when I try to attempt that BTB gives me that "object not set to a reference" error (or whatever it was.. cant remember the exact wording of it)... This leaves me unable to "ok" out of the mats editor, so btb then forces me to quit the programme.

The only way I can think of avoiding xpacker making these clones is to export my whole 3ds max project out as one 3ds, which in my case is not going to work.

Dose anyone know why xpacker is creating clones of shared textures that are using the same source image file.. and in addition if anyone know a good way around this it would be also great.

Just another thing while im posting here:
Can someone give me the procedure in simple steps on how to update an xpack. I am fed up of having to create brand new xpacks for every tiny little change made on either an imported object or texture xpack. For example if im working on one object i may import into to btb 10 times to make sure the object is correct.. i always end up with 10 xpacks in btb.. Reloading an xpack into xpacker itself dosent seem to work.

Please note the first issue regarding cloned textures and the 2nd minor issue regarding updating xpacker are separate issues.

I hope someone can give me some genuine help here... Ide hate to end up with a track using 100`s of needlessly cloned textures.

Regards
pan :)
 
well, i didnt mean btb related.. but i know u can open rar and zips with each software even tho the extension is incorrect.. then some software ive come across can open up zips if they are rar, and vise versa.. one that springs to mind are cbr files.. (electronic comicbook files, similar to pdfs).. u can simply rename zips, to rar, to cbr, and all the other way around... i most certainly remember other software that only had import for either a rar or a zip, .. so sometimes renaming the extension would work.

I did however end up using winzip itself for the project (thought it would just be safer).. so im still getting zip related errors even using winzip.

Its always the same with me tho, when it comes to the technical stuff, however straight forward for others, i fail, at least for a time.... ive neglected to learn about properly creating, maintaining & updating xpacks.. so in that regard im complete novice
ill sort it out im sure
 
the winzip i downloaded the other day was most likely a x64 .. or at least the installer must have installed an x64 versions on it detecting that environment.
I know 32 and 64 can cause all sorts of compatibility probs with other general things.
I shall re-install winzip and see if there is a i86 option.. or look online for an older win zip
What BTB error returns when 7-Zip is used to compress Xpacks to zip?
I have not tried it with 7zip yet.... but the last "zip related errer" was as a result of using that winzip i download (i assume x64)
the error was
http://www.fractalscapes.net/btb/btbclones/008.jpg
however the other errors before using winzip (for example the one about file header) was as you said, probably due to me using winrar. (lesson learnt) :D

forgive the pun, but ill be all raring to continue with this first thing on monday morning.. i shall prevail
 
wasnt having much luck with re-zipping xpacks after editing them .. in fact i wasnt even having any luck updating a zip file while its open in winzip itself (or winrar, or 7zip) ... so I saw you mentioned about leaving the zipped xpacks unzipped.
I did that, but errors are still coming think and fast.

heres the latest one
1. u can see the unzipped "Bollard" here
http://www.fractalscapes.net/btb/btbclones/02/002.jpg

2. u can see the xml file is pointing to atlas object
http://www.fractalscapes.net/btb/btbclones/02/001.jpg

3. an error on project load attempt
http://www.fractalscapes.net/btb/btbclones/02/003.jpg

:cool:

ps. im curious.. now that ive opened and examined some xpacks... where exactly is the actual mesh data stored? .. i assumed the xml files are texture and mapping data.
 
im not sure what u mean.. must i unzip the atlas xpack and copy the Materials\Objects\ATLAS\mat33.xml into all the subfolders of the xpacks that are using that texture? .. or do u mean paste the line ""Objects\ATLAS\mat33"" into all the xml files where that texture is shared.. for example
replace the line
<Path>Objects\bolrd\STONE38.JPG</Path>
in Bollard/matierals/objects/bolrd/mat0xml
with - Objects\ATLAS\mat33

i had already changed it in
bollard\objects\bolrd.xml to that.. or was i supposed to edit the other one?

heh
well look folks, i think this is all gone way above my head... . Ill post an entry in unfinished projects in the next day or two so if someone likes the track idea they can do what they want with it.
I do of course thank you all for the help and patience, but this sort of stuff is just way too complicated for me, im beyond help on this one :D

regards pan
 
You’re showing us the contents from a zip file. We need to confirm the address of mat33.xml in your My Projects Xpacks folder (Screen shot example #1) BOLLARD xpack is unzipped.
there is no "mat33.xml" in bollard xpack/folder other then the reference path i pasted into the objects xml file

A simple yes the mat33.xml is in the ATLAS folder or not will suffice for now.
yes there is a mat33.xml in the ATLAS xpack/zip/folder (wether or not not i unzip ATLAS to a folder matt33.xml its still in there as shown in last screen shot link
 
http://www.fractalscapes.net/btb/btbclones/02/006.jpg

ok guys, i think its time for me draw a line under this whole thing.. I have some other music projects I want to get back to anyway, so i might come back to btb some time in the future..
I will organise the project file and all relevant support files to post in unfinished track in the next day or so, people are more then welcome to continue with it if they wish.

I cant thank everyone enough for the help, in the past its been so valuable to me, but I think i have to start to face facts here and realise this is not the sort of stuff I understand very well, but the main thing is ive completely lost all interest in this project.. i just have to walk away from this for my own good.

thanks to all who helped, and all on race dept, its been so much fun, really! :D

I shall no doubt return some day till then, stay creative and productive :cool:
 

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