Weird particle system problem

Flayra

<div class="IPBDescription">Read if you're having problems</div>This is a private message sent from Comprox to me, in regards to a problem he and BadMofo are having.  I wrote this up somewhere else, but it obviously didn't reach everyone.  Listed first is the IRC conversation (he's apparently talking to himself ;)), then there is Comprox's commmentary to me, then there is my reply.  Sorry for the confusion, post here if you have any questions and I'll get right back to you.

-- (<b>BadMofo</b>)

<BadMofo|PM2talk> ok
<BadMofo|PM2talk> this is weird
<BadMofo|PM2talk> you have two sets of identicle commands under the entities...examples:
<BadMofo|PM2talk> :pGenSource
<BadMofo|PM2talk>  :particleGenerationSource
<BadMofo|PM2talk> the problem is
<BadMofo|PM2talk> pGenSource - is what shows up without smartedit on - thats what everyone keeps putting the values for
<BadMofo|PM2talk> BUT
<BadMofo|PM2talk> particleGenerationSource is the one that the game reads the values from
<BadMofo|PM2talk> so if you're filling out the PS entity - you're not "really" filling it out with any values
<BadMofo|PM2talk> i discovered this when looking at one of the maps you guys gave us
<BadMofo|PM2talk> if you look at it's entity values - they are all blank
<BadMofo|PM2talk> then you click smart edit
<BadMofo|PM2talk> and it has TONS of values
<BadMofo|PM2talk> so i took smart edit back off - and entered something into the name
<BadMofo|PM2talk> when turned smart edit back on - i noticed that the value i entered was under a different command than wat is being used by the engine
<BadMofo|PM2talk> i was wondering why none of my ps worked

-- (<b>Comprox</b>)

Also, you can head to <a href="http://www.kreation.org/~comprox/particles0002.avi" target="_blank">http://www.kreation.org/~comprox/particles0002.avi</a> for a quick video of the problem, Badmofo said - it just shows the difference in the size of the list between the version from the premade map BOUNCE and if you put in a new entity.

-- (<b>Flayra</b>)

I am sorry about this problem.  This is the one thing I know about that slipped through the cracks, even through we had a bunch of people beta testing the NSTR2.  I think I wrote up this problem in a forum post somewhere, but it probably got lost.  I should add it to the mapping guidelines at some point.

It's very simple: fields that start with "particle" is outdated.  The word "particle" has been replaced with "p".  In addition, some of the other field names were changed in subtle ways.  This was because of a field length limit that Worldcraft was bumping into.  The reason why the old fields are still being used, is because I still read in those values for backwards compatibility.  The <b>best way to fix this</b> is to delete all your particle systems and recreate them.  If you've spent time tweaking them, you'll want to write down the relevant values first, so you can quickly get the results you want.

KungFuSquirrel

I just checked in WC, and all the parameters listed had the p prefix rather than particle... As it sounds like they are supposed to. Also, I've had no problems with PS implementation (what little I've done to date).

Flayra

I neglected to mention that this problem only shows up when you load a map that was created with a pre-NSTR2 version of the .fgd.  Maps created in the NSTR2 should never have this problem.

KungFuSquirrel

That would explain that -- I didn't add the PS work until after the NSTR2 release to avoid some of the reported issues in NSTR1.

Yamazaki

I had an old NSTR1 particle system that was generating particles at two different generating entities, and one particle system that wasn't generating at all. So I had fire in an explosion wreckage, and fire burning on the ceiling where there was supposed to be dripping water. Very odd.

I'll have to see if recreating the systems in NSTR2 fixes it. I haven't tried yet.

Comprox

He was talking to himself because I kindly edited out my stupid "Ahh, i see"'s <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo--> Damn, I knew he had mentioned it only occured in the pre-NSTR2 but I didnt specify that, least Flayra seems to have fixed it all up

ChromeAngel

I'll add this to the Quickstart Guide ASAP.  Probably tonight.

[edit]
Done.
[/edit]

Hand_Me_The_Gun_And_Ask_Me_Again

Oooh! Oooh! I've got an issue with Natural Selection's particle systems!

The defaults file thingy has a '<b>.ps</b>' extension. But that's already taken by Postscript! And yes, I do deal a lot with Postscript files, usually generated by LaTeX or some other Unixy things.

I know, I'm being pedantic.  <!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->