BAT problems with Vista

[miguelkuk 109]

Up to now I had used BAT on Windows XP with no problems. I have recently bought a new laptop with Windows Vista, on which I installed BAT, gmax, etc.
It all seems to run fine apart from a few graphical glitches once in a while, especially when switching viewport windows.
The really annoying problem is when rendering. It seems to render all the models fine, but once I open them with the Lot Editor, they're nothing more than a grey mish-mash...
Can someone help please?

[JakeMD 107]

Hello,

What you can do is switch your display drivers.  OpenGL, HEIDI, or Direct3D.

To do this, click the Customize Tab > Preferences.  Click on the viewports tab and click on "choose driver" :

[miguelkuk 109]

I have tried all three, HEIDI (Software Z Buffer), OpenGL, and Direct3D, and although the glitches have stopped with HEIDI, the end rendered model is always the same mess with all three...

[tungston 19]

I installed gMax, and the BAT on Vista with no problems. Try a fresh install of gMax, and using the BAT installer, and like Swat suggest, choose openGL.

[miguelkuk 109]

I'll give that a try then.

[miguelkuk 109]

I've uninstalled and re-installed gmax and BAT as you suggested and I still have the same problems! How frustrating.. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.. Heeeeelp!

[JakeMD 107]

What quality render's are you doing? Maybe try a lower quality or higher quality depending on where you are now.

Also, try installing the Texture Problem Fix

[miguelkuk 109]

I was rendering at high quality. Tried lowering the quality and installed the Texture Problem Fix also, and the result is the same

It has nothing to do with the dual core processor right? I'm truly ignorant about these things...

[SimFox 800]

GMAX BAT works on Vista fine (as far as actual export is concerned) Although viewport glitches are there.

Changing driver (OpenGL, Direct3D, Software) affects ONLY viewports and has NO effect on rendering what so ever.

To figure out what's wrong with your setup it would be helpful to see the resulting SC4Modle file. Could you post it somewhere?

[spa 968]

Renders in gmax tend to get screwed up if you have stuff in your plugins folder. Before you render move all your plugins to some other folder on your computer.

[miguelkuk 109]

I've tried rendering to an empty Plugins folder with no luck..
This is what the rendered model looks like (it's the Welcome to Las Vegas sign btw):

 

[SimFox 800]

what it looks like in LotEditor doesn't really tell the story... I need to see the file itself, it's content to get some idea of what is going wrong.

There is not point of trying to guess (things like an empty Plugin folder. I mean why would it affect it? what are the mechanics here...I can't think of any GMAX Bat doesn't really interact with it. the flow is strictly one way. So I see no way how anything in Plugin folder may affect GMAX BAT.

Miguelkuk, zip your ready SC4Model file together with your GMAX one and post it somewhere on Rapidshare and give us link...

[miguelkuk 109]

Sorry SimFox. I've uploaded the zipped files here: http://rapidshare.com/files/209682451/Welcome_Sign.zip.html

[SimFox 800]

Well, for starters, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way your GMAX rendering. All FSHs are perfect and, at least internally all the connection between LODs and FSHs are working fine.

I'll need to take a look at how it would behave in LOT editor a bit later...

One very odd thing,. though is the Instance ID of your FSHs. And this may be the reason  for gray mess as it may conflict with something in-game. BATs suppose to have (depending on the update) either starting Instance ID  of 0x0003000 of all the time this one (in thins case it is Group ID that changes from model to model) but this low range - 0x0001000 doesn't really look normal.

[miguelkuk 109]

Thanks SomFox.. I'll wait for more on this ))

[SimFox 800]

On closer investigation here is what had transpired:

1 the problem manifests itself ONLY with Zomm5 – all rotations of it. And it only appears when LOT editor, or game is simply pooling the instance ID from the entire database. In iLive Reader bat looks fine at all zooms and rotations.

This suggests very strongly, with almost 100% certainty that we have here texture conflict.

I’ve checked the in-game assents that have same T (type) and I (Instance) IDs and I can with almost 100% certainty conclude that your model is textured with this image:

 

Well it’s smaller zooms from SimCity_5.dat

Solution would be to download naming Script update from the SimCity site.

After you’ll install it BAT will change the method it creates the names, or to be precise TGI code in it. Your I (instance) will always be 0x003000

 

alternatively you can create several new BATs (I suspect you’re using old version of naming script that increases Instance ID with every new BAT by one EG next one would have 0x0002000 (which would still most probably be conflicting with something) But one after that 0x0003000 should be fine.

But personally I would recommend to get a new script…

[miguelkuk 109]

Thank you so much SimFox. I had installed the new script before, as SWAT MEDIC had suggested but had copied it to the wrong folder..

It works fine now. Many thanks for the help guys!

[JakeMD 107]

Hey not a problem, always here to help. Glad you got it fixed!  Thanks a lot to simfox though.  I had no idea about the render thing