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View Full Version : HCE The Annoying Tool/Sapien Error Help Thread



Siliconmaster
June 20th, 2010, 01:08 AM
So I keep seeing little threads asking about typical, but annoying tool errors that aren't covered by the HEK tut. Sometimes it will be an error that is covered by the HEK tutorial, but isn't working as Gearbox described it. I've decided to create this WIP thread to act as a go-to reference to those who are still using CE and running into issues with the ever-useful tool program.

There used to be a thread like this on the old gbx forums, but I can't find it. If anyone knows where it is, link me so I can use some of that information. For now though I'll add stuff here as it comes to mind. If anyone thinks of more weird errors and their causes, let me know and I'll add them.


06.13.10 22:19:52 EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATIONTypically this means that for some reason tool or sapien cannot access the scenario file. It's the Halo equivalent of the Windows "The process can not access the file because it is used by another process" error. I've found that this can be fixed by closing all other Halo-related programs that might be using the file, including any dev hacks that are open. As a last resort restarting will shut down all process and usually solve the problem.


Building subclusters...
cannot allocate subclusterThis error is related to Halo's portalling system. By default it needs to break the level up into "subclusters", with so many faces per subcluster. There are only so many subclusters per portal cluster. If you don't have enough portals, eventually the game runs out of subclusters, and you get that error. Adding in some basic portals will usually solve this pretty easily.


### WARNING found nearly coplanar surfaces (red and green)
This error. What the hell. Unless it's related to phantom bsp, which it very well may be, this error is simply the most obnoxious thing ever, and only exists to clutter up your debug.wrl files. Ignore it.


### ERROR: portal does not define two closed spaces. (see yellow in error geometry)
The HEK tutorial covers this one, but the error shows up any time the portal doesn't seal an area. Usually this means go find the mismatched vertex and weld it, but sometimes tool will give this error even when the area is completely and absolutely sealed. Sometimes it will declare an area sealed, and after you change something in a completely unrelated area tool will change its mind and call the first area unsealed. Often this can be fixed by deleting and remaking the affected portal. However, if you are absolutely sure that the area is sealed, then you can probably ignore it- I've had portals still function perfectly even when they're swamped by this error. A good way to check if the portal is working correctly is to go into sapien, into the "cluster properties" section, and switch the weather in one portal cluster. If the weather doesn't show up in the other cluster, your portal is working fine. If it does, you need to actually do something about it.


### WARNING unearthed edge (magenta boxed lines)
The HEK tutorial covers this one for most instances, but I'm including it here because sometimes tool decides it's having a bad day, and it calls a portal edge that is totally outside the geometry unearthed. The only way to fix this is to randomly move the points around until tool likes it. However, I'm not entirely sure it matters- the portal might work anyway.


### WARNING: a surface clipped to no leaves (see cyan in error geometry)
Normally, as mentioned in the HEK tutorial, this references a face that is coplanar with another section of geometry, like a box resting on a plane. You can usually fix it by raising the box slightly above the plane, thus giving the local portal system a chance to differentiate the faces. However, this error will also show up if you have a lot of faces in a single cluster, and then you start having multiple objects. For instance: You have a sealed construct floating slightly off the ground in one object, then the ground and surrounding level in another object, and then the lights in a separate object. In rare instances tool will pick random faces and call them "surfaces clipped to no leaves", which leads to some very confusing and meaningless .wrl debugs. This however is easily fixed by consolidating the objects into a single level object, or even better, actually connecting them physically to the level, instead of having them floating above the ground.


08.11.12 17:17:53 radiosity error: smooth triangle group too big for page levels\d40\d40\shaders\large lt steel08.11.12 17:18:02 EAX: 0x00000000
08.11.12 17:18:02 EBX: 0x1F379D01
08.11.12 17:18:02 ECX: 0x00000000
08.11.12 17:18:02 EDX: 0x00000000
08.11.12 17:18:02 EDI: 0x0018E560
08.11.12 17:18:02 ESI: 0x00000000
08.11.12 17:18:02 EBP: 0x0018E438
08.11.12 17:18:02 ESP: 0x0018E428
08.11.12 17:18:02 EIP: 0x77B10C22, 83 C4 04 C2 ?????

08.11.12 17:18:02 EXCEPTION halt in \halopc\haloce\source\structures\radiosity\interme diate_radiosity.c,#2305: surface_index==last_material->first_surface_index+last_material->surface_count
This error is caused by having too many faces using the same smoothing group. This occurs most frequently with exported bsps, since sometimes all faces get set to smoothing group 1. I have yet to determine if this is a fault of the export program or a fault of 3ds max importing the .obj file, but it's somewhere in that process. To fix it, disable smoothing groups or do a better job at them if it's a totally custom bsp.


08.11.12 03:00:30 EXCEPTION halt in \halopc\haloce\source\memory\array.c,#130: index>=0 && index<array->count
This error has popped up from time to time on forums, but it's never been pinned down. It may be a general error, rather than a specific one, meaning that it could result from multiple problems. One I have heard is that it is exceeding the poly limit of tool's import function.

In my case, it was an issue with double-sided glass. When exporting bsps from Halo, be aware that a single face imported with the % symbol will become two faces, one facing each way. Therefore, upon exporting bsps from Halo, any surfaces that used the % symbol originally are now doublesided physically in 3ds max. If you try to use the % symbol again, tool will try to make them 4-sided, which then causes a crash. Solution- delete one side of the glass and recompile, still with the % symbol. Getting rid of the % symbol and keeping the double-sided glass might also work, but then any new glass also needs to be double-sided so it's all the same.

Kornman00
June 20th, 2010, 03:09 AM
this thread and this thread: http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?18957-Tutorial-The-Ultimate-Halo-CE-Tutorial-Index need to be converted into some kind of wiki article (one for each of course). Less stickies = better....uhhh wikis :-3

Siliconmaster
June 20th, 2010, 09:14 AM
True, that would be nice, and we wouldn't have as many stickies floating around. I'll make this into a wiki article as soon as I have a chance. The main issue is getting new members to look at the wiki for answers. You think the better the wiki gets the more people will use it? Right now it's generally a thing of mild interest- not exactly the first place people look for tech answers.

Edit: Perfect example: I just had to google the wiki to find it. There isn't even a link to it anywhere on this site, or the home page. And then when I got there, Chains had done some scavenger-hunt edits to half the posts, and it says that Podacity is hosted on Agrabah and it's accepting stories of sexual content. - _ - I'll make the wiki article anyway, but seriously- some organization or something needs to be done to integrate it more.

Edit edit: Oh, brilliant: I actually ended up here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:OasisGames/Modacity), and didn't realize it.

Edit edit edit: http://wiki.modacity.net/wiki/Obscure_Tool_And_Sapien_Errors

Linked it under the HEK section of the HCE page.

Maniac
June 21st, 2010, 10:08 PM
http://halopc.moddercentral.net/article.php?story=20080903003125296
http://halopc.moddercentral.net/haloforum/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=204&sid=3a638af2c23c4aa48c8dc6c09fcb56d3
there was a more up to date one, but i cant find it.

Siliconmaster
June 21st, 2010, 10:13 PM
Beautiful, thanks. I'll add those as soon as I have time.

LlamaMaster
July 1st, 2010, 09:49 PM
This isn't sapien or tool, but it's been annoying me none the less.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/2092/70792050.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/i/70792050.jpg/)

I used to be able to use it just fine, but one day it just decided to break. Reinstalling max didn't help at all, so I have no idea what to do. Also, before anybody says "use Bluestreak," i've tried, and it screws up my models (which Blitzkrieg didn't do when it worked).

teh lag
July 2nd, 2010, 10:23 AM
Aren't there some DLLs that go with Blitz as well? I think I remember getting that error when I tried to use Blitz without having them as well.

LlamaMaster
July 2nd, 2010, 11:49 AM
err...
I see you running Windows Vista or 7. I'm not sure because I don't use either of those, but I believe you need to place the dlls that came with Blitzkrieg in your sysWOW64 folder.

I already had two of Blizkrieg's dll's in that folder, but the other two seemed to have deleted themselves. Copying them back over fixed it, and everything works fine now.

Dwood
July 24th, 2010, 02:43 AM
tag_file_count<Maximum_tag_files_per_index ?????????

ps archiving tags and pulling out another tag set to see if that does anything...


http://lookpic.com/d2/i2/2753/d7XJLvz2.png

sleepy1212
July 28th, 2010, 07:28 AM
ERROR: OUT OF MEMORY (attempting to run radiosity)

what is this exactly?

Dwood
July 28th, 2010, 11:31 AM
ERROR: OUT OF MEMORY (attempting to run radiosity)

what is this exactly?

Not enough RAM

sleepy1212
July 28th, 2010, 12:12 PM
Not enough RAM

doubtful. i've only gotten this error a few times. If it were it would be could be dependent on the model and so far i've seen no correlation between that error and the map's size, texture's, or poly count nor between it and the number of programs running at once (i've seen it when only running sapien and not seen it while running max, guerilla, tool, PSPX2, firefox, and sapien together.)

CrAsHOvErRide
July 28th, 2010, 01:50 PM
The memory error has nothing to do with system memory.

Jose
December 13th, 2010, 01:04 PM
wtf is sticky
it small like a stick????

Siliconmaster
August 11th, 2012, 11:01 PM
Updated OP with two new errors. Since the wiki died, I can't update it there.