Workaround for CC3 freezing with directional shadows on battlemaps?
Hello all. I know this topic has been mentioned before, and apologies for bringing it up again but wondering if there have been any recent revelations or insights to tackle the problem...
I have been working on a battle map about 200' x 140' wide. It is a small cave system shaped using the fractal cave tools. The floor of the cave is actually the BACKGROUND sheet and the stone non-cave parts are made on the FLOOR sheet (like the ice cave example in the Tomb of ultimate mapping pg 243).
The problem is, I believe a known one of CC3 taking too long to render the map when I apply the sheet effects. At first I thought it might have been a texturize problem (using the texturize effect with a jpg I downloaded) on the BACKGROUND, FLOOR, Sand and Water sheets but I think direction shadows are the culprit. To show depth I have made directional shadows on a ladder and some hand drawn (sketch tool) stairs.
When I try to apply the effects, CC3 chuggs away indefinately. If nothing has happened after about 5 minutes I assume the program has frozen and I restart. I have tried leaving it for longer than that (over an hour) but nothing happens so I figure after 5 minutes if nothing has happened, nothing ever will. With a map that works fine, my PC usually takes about 10 seconds max to render the map with effects on.
I have been trying to understand this bug and see if there is a workaround for it. I thought I was having some success with this idea:
* Hide all sheets except BACKGROUND, turn on sheet effects and press OK. The map renders then the effect window reappears so all is ok.
* Click more tick boxes to show 3 or 4 more sheets, press OK and the map renders again with the extra sheets included.
* Once they are rendered click 3 or 4 more tick boxes to show more sheets and press OK.
* continue doing this until all sheets are visible with effects applied.
But the program still seems to freeze towards the end of this process and it is not always the same set of sheets that causes the freeze, they may not even contain directional shadows in them.
I don't know the processes going on in the background when sheets effects are applied, so is my above technique feasible or does it make no difference if you turn sheets on a few at a time or just try to render all the sheets in one hit?
I have a feeling things work better if the view is zoomed out quite far on the map to make it easier to render, would this be correct?
I have found if I only have the ladder and stairs sheets visible and turn the sheets effects on, the directional shadows work fine. It's when more things are present on the map that trouble occurs.
Initially I set the sun angle to be different for each set of the stairs to make the shadows more realistic but then thought that might have been the issue so I changed them all to the default sun angle which perhaps helps a little but I still have no luck with all sheets visible and effects on.
Attached is the FCW file and the texture I use on the BACKGROUND, FLOOR, Sand and Water sheets. This is a jpg I downloaded off the internet. Initially I thought that might have been the problem, but the program still freezes if I use the concrete.png file that comes with CC3, or even turn the texturize effect off.
From searching in previous posts, I see other people have had the same issue. Since then, has anybody found a reliable workaround? Or perhaps am I better to leave the shadows off, save a jpg of the whole map and draw the shadow effects in with photoshop?
Thanks for any help or advice
Mike.
I have been working on a battle map about 200' x 140' wide. It is a small cave system shaped using the fractal cave tools. The floor of the cave is actually the BACKGROUND sheet and the stone non-cave parts are made on the FLOOR sheet (like the ice cave example in the Tomb of ultimate mapping pg 243).
The problem is, I believe a known one of CC3 taking too long to render the map when I apply the sheet effects. At first I thought it might have been a texturize problem (using the texturize effect with a jpg I downloaded) on the BACKGROUND, FLOOR, Sand and Water sheets but I think direction shadows are the culprit. To show depth I have made directional shadows on a ladder and some hand drawn (sketch tool) stairs.
When I try to apply the effects, CC3 chuggs away indefinately. If nothing has happened after about 5 minutes I assume the program has frozen and I restart. I have tried leaving it for longer than that (over an hour) but nothing happens so I figure after 5 minutes if nothing has happened, nothing ever will. With a map that works fine, my PC usually takes about 10 seconds max to render the map with effects on.
I have been trying to understand this bug and see if there is a workaround for it. I thought I was having some success with this idea:
* Hide all sheets except BACKGROUND, turn on sheet effects and press OK. The map renders then the effect window reappears so all is ok.
* Click more tick boxes to show 3 or 4 more sheets, press OK and the map renders again with the extra sheets included.
* Once they are rendered click 3 or 4 more tick boxes to show more sheets and press OK.
* continue doing this until all sheets are visible with effects applied.
But the program still seems to freeze towards the end of this process and it is not always the same set of sheets that causes the freeze, they may not even contain directional shadows in them.
I don't know the processes going on in the background when sheets effects are applied, so is my above technique feasible or does it make no difference if you turn sheets on a few at a time or just try to render all the sheets in one hit?
I have a feeling things work better if the view is zoomed out quite far on the map to make it easier to render, would this be correct?
I have found if I only have the ladder and stairs sheets visible and turn the sheets effects on, the directional shadows work fine. It's when more things are present on the map that trouble occurs.
Initially I set the sun angle to be different for each set of the stairs to make the shadows more realistic but then thought that might have been the issue so I changed them all to the default sun angle which perhaps helps a little but I still have no luck with all sheets visible and effects on.
Attached is the FCW file and the texture I use on the BACKGROUND, FLOOR, Sand and Water sheets. This is a jpg I downloaded off the internet. Initially I thought that might have been the problem, but the program still freezes if I use the concrete.png file that comes with CC3, or even turn the texturize effect off.
From searching in previous posts, I see other people have had the same issue. Since then, has anybody found a reliable workaround? Or perhaps am I better to leave the shadows off, save a jpg of the whole map and draw the shadow effects in with photoshop?
Thanks for any help or advice
Mike.
Comments
First, your texture isn't working because it is a jpg. CC3 can only work with bmp and png files. This isn't causing your freezing problem, it just isn't doing anything.
For the crashing, try deleting the effects that seem problematic and then re-add them. Don't just turn them off...delete them. (This is most likely to work so try it first.)
Do a full shut down of your PC if you haven't for a while. Sometimes just clearing out the RAM completely can make a difference.
You could also try reducing the number of nodes in the fractalized entities. (Right click fractalize>Remove Nodes) I wouldn't save the map unless you are sure this solves the problem. As I said I'm not crashing at all so it is something on your system and our high number of nodes probably isn't it.