Disappearing graphics and removing crowd

[HardcoreLegend]

Ok, this is a two part question.

#1 - If you've been following my Busch Stadium I (which originally was going to be a II mod), you'll see that I'm updating it to post-1953. To do that, I've had to add a hitter's eye in CF and some press boxes to the grandstand. Anyways, I've been having problems with graphics disappearing unless zoomed way out. The trees I put in CF disappear once you get behind 2nd base. The pressbox only appears when you are up against the outfield wall looking back in.

What causes these graphics to not be visable up close, and how can I repair it?

#2 - In order to accurately fix the stadium, I have to remove fans from dead CF. I extracted crowd.ord and crowd.orl from sportday.big and then using ord2o, turned them into a .o file. However, whenever I open that .o file in OEdit, it says it is invalid. What gives?

Any help would be appreciated on this, so I can finish up this mod.

[poconoman11]

as far as i know, you should put in one folder the unpack.bat file , o2ord and ord2o bat files, sportday.big with its extracted bmp files then o-edit should open that file. i had the same issue until i did the above.

[Sean O]

(this could be obvious, so bear with me) What happens with the disappearing graphics is that the file system, somehow, knows the location of every single vertex within the mstadium.ord/orl files in a place outside of the mstadium files. So to save rendering power, it stops rendering graphics that are not on screen at that moment. The problem is, there is no way that we know of at the moment to fix this problem, since we don't know what other file has that information, and so the graphics will disappear.

Paul was able to find certain graphics, I think of the scoreboard, that will show up at all times regardless of the viewing direction. Hopefully he'll see this thread, or you could just PM him.

As for the crowds, I've never had a problem opening it in oedit, so I can't help. Hopefully you can get it working, since crowd editing can make a world of difference. Especially in Sportsman's, where I can't even see the ball, unfortunately.

Best of luck.

[Pirate]

SeanO nailed the disappearing graphics, the solution is to use verts from the general area, without moving them too far.

As for the Crowd file, it is probably a defective file. I would extract the .orl and .ord crowd files and run the O converter again.

I have run into this problem with face files and it was dependent on what Oedit version i was using. So now I have two computers with two seperate Oedits.

[MarlinsMY]

Yes, the scoreboard graphics show up everywhere, although you have to make sure that their animation is disabled (in tanim.csv in the .big file). Other "universal" vertices are the squares in the mfieldX files that are the MLB and players union logos.

Most of the time, though, it is true that you have to try to use the existing vertices around to the fullest. The ground on the first base side of my version of Hadlock right after the stands end is actually unused an tree polygon, with the texture tiled so much it appears only green and not tree-like! I'm guessing the game might look at the stadium's render.ifo for the ranges of visibility, though I have no idea on how to change that.

[big shmooz]

Wow... I love it when you guys talk gibberish. I WISH I understood what you guys do. Kudo's to all you modders.

[Sean O]

Yes, the scoreboard graphics show up everywhere, although you have to make sure that their animation is disabled (in tanim.csv in the .big file). Other "universal" vertices are the squares in the mfieldX files that are the MLB and players union logos.

Most of the time, though, it is true that you have to try to use the existing vertices around to the fullest. The ground on the first base side of my version of Hadlock right after the stands end is actually unused an tree polygon, with the texture tiled so much it appears only green and not tree-like! I'm guessing the game might look at the stadium's render.ifo for the ranges of visibility, though I have no idea on how to change that.

At some point i'll try to take a look at that file. I mean, I figure it should be completely possible to locate whatever file has the raw x,y,z coordinates available, cross-reference it in mstadium.o (similar to what I do with the wall.dat file mods), then just change the numbers to their new locations. This is one thing that would open up limitless possibilities, even if it is a pain to figure out.

between that and coll.dat, I would love to figure out how to make it happen. Making a duffy's cliff or tal's hill in all sorts of new parks would make me extremely happy, and I figure it has to be possible.

[HardcoreLegend]

Ugh, well...that's frustrating because there aren't many graphics left to move around. For the scoreboard at Sportsman's, I actually removed all the graphics they had and used just 1 rectangle for the whole thing. The scoreboard setup they had was a clusterbadword, as EVERY box was connected. I couldn't seperate each piece without it looking like a spiderweb. If I could break that up, then I'd be in gravy, because like you said, the scoreboard is in picture 'all the time'.

Thanks alot for the info though, that atleast points me in the right direction.

[HardcoreLegend]

I tried using the crowd.ord and crowd.orl directly from the CD, both compressed and decompressed and still got the same error. If someone (kraw usually comes to the rescue on this) could try and get me a crowd.o file for Sportsman's that DOES work, I'd appreciate it.

[Sean O]

Ugh, well...that's frustrating because there aren't many graphics left to move around. For the scoreboard at Sportsman's, I actually removed all the graphics they had and used just 1 rectangle for the whole thing. The scoreboard setup they had was a clusterbadword, as EVERY box was connected. I couldn't seperate each piece without it looking like a spiderweb. If I could break that up, then I'd be in gravy, because like you said, the scoreboard is in picture 'all the time'.

Thanks alot for the info though, that atleast points me in the right direction.

Yeah, that's the worst part of oedit. Try going to the part that the scoreboard is in, load up a picture in the UV map editor, and select a box there. Sometimes I've been able to fix these issues that way, since it's the only way you can select individual portions of an otherwise tangled mass of vertices.

[HardcoreLegend]

Yeah, that's the worst part of oedit. Try going to the part that the scoreboard is in, load up a picture in the UV map editor, and select a box there. Sometimes I've been able to fix these issues that way, since it's the only way you can select individual portions of an otherwise tangled mass of vertices.

Yeah, I was able to pull a few peices out that I could use on the outfield, but even still some of the stuff in the UV editor shared edges. Annoying, to say the least. My favorite was one piece that only had 3 points?!?! A triangle? Where in the world did they use that?

I'm going to end up having to use the banners that hang above the dugouts for the stuff behind homeplate. Otherwise, it randomly shuts off. The scoreboard stuff didn't work, so this is my last option, without removing huge chunks of the stands and trying to morph them.

Again, thanks.