Fractal Tool, Crashing, and yet Another Hassle
Calibre
🖼️ 39 images Mapmaker
Hey guys,
I am a very mild manner guy. I try to look on the bright side of issues; however, even I have my breaking points. I am now having yet another issue with CC3+ while trying to get a game map done for our gaming group. As follows:
Using the fractal CAD tool/drawing tool is crashing CC3+. This occurs on any map I try to use it on. I have done the following:
1: Reinstalled update25
2: used other CAD/Drawing tools: no crashing
3: used fractal drawing tool on empty maps (no other elements on map)
4: Gone to Display Speed Settings, cleared the cache.
The tool, when selected, causes the cursor to flicker/move sluggishly across the screen. It begins to behave as if I'm tracing an entity. Right click to finish, the drawn line attempts to create a filled area of course, then crashes. Hitting escape while fractal tool is active causes a crash.
I am becoming exceedingly frustrated. What have I done wrong? Is there a setting or option I've chosen that is affecting that ONE drawing tool? If so, would someone kindly tell me how to fix this? I have, of course, created various new drawing tools in the All Map Drawing Tools using a fractal option, but NOT on this new map. I have line style: Solid, FS: solid chosen...have I skewed these settings so that the fractal tool is reading thousands of nodes as I draw?
Your help will be kindly appreciated
Cal
Comments
First, which fractal drawing tool?
It sounds like your fractalization level may be too high and the system is getting bogged down when trying to display the huge number of nodes. Using the left arrow with the tool will reduce the number of nodes being generated, which may help with your problem. It would be nice if the system had some way to show you the fractalization level other than guessing, but it doesn't.
How large is your map and how many caves? I sometimes have problems when my cave systems get large (over 300 ft. x 300 ft.) and use the fractal drawing tool, which is a shame.
Another thing that causes a glitch for me sometimes is if I have "attach" option selected with an option that is not appropriate for the tool, but this doesn't sound like it is happening in your case.
Greets:
The tool is Fractal Poly.
Using the left arrow key has made it better. No crashing. How can I set this manual...ie., choose an option somewhere? How did the number of nodes become set so high without my direction? heh.
Thanks, this is working. Can I keep hitting left arrow to keep reducing or how does that work, please.
Cal
Greets, seycyrus
No caves, I meant heh. This is an overland map I need to use Color Key on, but the fractal poly tool kept crashing the program. I have no memory of somehow adding thousands of nodes to the fractal poly tool. In fact, I'm quite sure I didn't------> mainly because I don't know how to do that heh.
thanks
Cal
The FRACTAL POLY tool is still behaving erratically:
1: Flickering, sluggish movement
2: spacebar to randomize: ignored
3: delete to remove placed node: ignored
argh! ?
Cal
UPDATE: each time you choose the tool to use again, you have to left-arrow and down-arrow or the ficker/sluggishness returns and you cash.
I fractalize continents and other large locations only 3 times.
Local maps, such a cities with lakes, etc. get more. Maybe as many as 6 times.
The big limitation is Windows and your computer's ability to show them. I have a 1.6GHz computer, so I do low levels of fractilization.
The fractal is set to 30% strength. But I also have saved settings of 10% and 20%, for some lightly done fractalization of land pieces.
Ok,
My machine is a high end machine, although not current top of the line, less than a year old.
Now starting to get wonkiness with Trace: skipping smooth polies with very few nodes, ignoring selection point and tracing in the wrong direction. It's also starting to crash the program.
All this started right after I installed the fixed file for the City Cliffs sent to me by Ralf.
Should I do a full un-install/re-install at this point?
Cal
That ONE polygon alone in the Color Key (body of inland water) has over 19,000 nodes alone. What are the settings on your drawing tool? As Joe states above you need to adjust that....that's the problem bogging down your map, i believe.
Greets, Lorelei
How? I never set it to add so many ?
I've reduced the nodes to 590. Yet, here is what trace is doing:
Like Joe said above....use the left arrow when you have the tool engaged (look at your line and you can see the level of fractilization and number of nodes. It looks as if you increased the nodes that way somehow. As far as your existing polygons, you can use the Remove Node tool, but your likely better off deleting them and starting a new polygon.
I've reduced the nodes to 590. The trace tool (following Remy's instruction) is erratic. The FRACTAL TOOL was not set by me to increase nodes on this map. Every time I choose it, the nodes are set so high, it crashes the program.
Can someone tell me how to fix this, please
thanks
Cal
The settings in the fractalize tool (on the left hand tool bar) control the fractal path and polygon tool on the right hand tool bar. Changing those settings should fix the issue
I don't know what else is on the sheet you are tracing but try hiding everything else before doing the trace. Also, did you do a straight to smooth on that poly? Some of the angles look rather rounded. Try going back to staight before tracing if so,
Thanks. But I think I've had enough for now.
Cal
If the fractal tool is getting you down, try switching to the straight polygon tool instead. At the scale of most overland maps, you'll likely not notice the difference if you're making an effort to go with a moderately wiggly coastline, and it won't create anything like so many nodes - or (hopefully) problems. That's what I've been using to draw the floor outlines for all my snowflake ice palaces recently, for instance - Forum link.
I agree with Wyvern.
I prefer straight polygon drawing tools rather than fractal ones. It is easy to fractalize a polygon, though clicking any polygon with the fractalize tool more than 3 times is really not advisable. I also don't tend to convert anything to smooth until after I'm sure that I've done all the tracing I want to do. That way, the tracing is always perfect. Smooth lines are no good for tracing.
Calibre is getting at the fact that the Trace command is wonky-wonkertons on fractal polys. I have this problem all the time when I want to put in a wall mask on my caverns.
I think that may be why I only ever create straight poly drawing tools and tend to avoid fractal ones.
I've never had any issue with tracing fractals. Keep in mind that a fractal poly is just a straight poly, but with more nodes. It isn't a separate kind of entity. Yes, a polygon can get troublesome if there are too many nodes, and obviously, it is far easier to make too many nodes when you use the fractal tool rather than the straight tool, but in the end, they are the same.
However, looking at that screenshot, the forms look far to rounded to be a straight poly, it looks like it has been turned into a smooth poly (via the straight to smooth command), and trace do have some issues with smooth polys, especially complicated ones. Following a smooth poly is way more complex than a straight one, since the position of the lines are calculated based on the position of the nodes, and changing one node actually causes changes for the next one too.
I apologize for the delay in getting back to you on this.
Edit: You should be able to set the <Current> depth value without editing the config file as described below by using the FRX command's dialog. You'd still need to manually adjust the config file for <Default>.
If you open up the CC3PlusCfg.xml configuration file using Notepad (default location is C:\ProgramData\ProFantasy\CC3Plus\CC3PlusCfg.xml - be sure to make a backup before modifying it) and look for the <FRX> XML tag. There should be two <Depth> tags below that, one each in <Default> and <Current>. The values should be 1. I suspect that the values in your CC3PlusCfg.xml are much larger somehow.
Mine look like:
<FRX>
<Default>
<Strength>30</Strength>
<MinStr>5</MinStr>
<Depth>1</Depth>
<Frequency>5</Frequency>
<Wave>0</Wave>
<Smooth>0</Smooth>
<Seed>1</Seed>
<MapBorder>1</MapBorder>
</Default>
<Current>
<Strength>30</Strength>
<MinStr>5</MinStr>
<Depth>1</Depth>
<Frequency>5</Frequency>
<Wave>0</Wave>
<Smooth>0</Smooth>
<Seed>1</Seed>
<MapBorder>1</MapBorder>
</Current>
</FRX>
A peculiar behavior with FPOLY and friends is that using the adjustment keys like the arrows doesn't update the onscreen displayed fragment until you move the mouse. This behavior makes it possible to get unpleasant and unexpected changes because nothing seems to be happening on the GUI. The fractal drawing tools don't have the same problem. I've put the invisible keys problem onto the bug list along with investigating the report about crashes with FPOLY.
Greets!
Thanks for all the help everyone. I'm attaching the file noted by jslayton above as well as some screenies.
I followed advice, redrew the inland sea color key using just a normal poly and the trace seems to work fine as along as I use a fractal poly draw tool I make myself. As soon as I activated the fractal tool on the right, drew a line then hit escape, CC3+ crashed.
Just showing machine stats and how the trace is working using the terrain drawing tools in Spectrum Overland. I haven't tried any of this with another style.
It's strange that the FRX items are all showing the expected Depth values in the file that you provided. Do the landmass (or other fractal drawing tools) have the same problem as FPOLY? If not, you should be able to build a fractal drawing tool without too much additional stress, I think.
No other tool, including ones I've made myself, crash the program nor do they deluge my entity with thousands of unwanted nodes.
Question: Is a smooth poly used in a trace supposed to ignore nodes (reasonable or otherwise) and skip over them as I show in the screenshot above?
thanks
Cal
Trace with a polygon or path should get you the exact nodes. Trace with smooth polys and paths is likely running at some constant sampling rate, which would likely miss nodes. I'm away from my dev machine at the moment, so I can't check.
FPOLY (and FRX) is an old command that predates drawing tools. It has a number of corner cases that need to be addressed, it seems. I recommend using a fractal drawing tool rather than FPOLY if you can.
Thanks!
Can you tell me how this happened? I've inserted the JR style into my current map (Spectrum Overland) and now all the fills from JR style show a new drawing tool fill I created for my own use. In addition, the color palette for Spec. Ovrlnd is not the default palette. I have to keep changing it back and it will not save.
Guys, I installed the newest file from my download page which is up to 3.94 and I am having constant issues with the program now. I've never had any kind of issues like this using this program before such as:
Trace going haywire
Color palettes changing
Drawing tool Edits refusing to work
Fills changing without me telling them to (Knowingly)
Fractal Poly crashing the game
Strange command line on the cursor when I try to select a symbol where I have to exit the program just to clear it.
I want to say that this began when I loaded in CSUAC and all that, but a friend of mine who also loaded it at the same time is not having these issues. I've run malware and virus scans until my eyes are bleeding. I've repaired over and over again. So at this point, CC3+ is barely functional---I have to jump thru hoops to use.
Can someone advise or do I need to submit a ticket to tech support at this point?
Here is the strange command on the cursor:
"Trace going haywire" is not specific enough for me to understand what you mean exactly, but there are generally two reasons why using the trace option of a drawing tool might go wrong (in my personal experience, that is).
Tracing a smooth poly is the most common problem, since the trace option in the drawing tool can only follow the nodes and not the curves, so appears to jump between points on the curve with straight lines. This can't be cured by tracing a smooth line with a smooth drawing tool either. You need to use Smooth to Straight from the Fractalize right click menu, and use a straight drawing tool to trace the newly straight existing polygon. If you want both the traced polygon and the trace to be smooth when you are finished just convert both to smooth once you are done with all the tracing by picking Straight to Smooth from the Fractalize right click menu.
The other issue I come across a lot is where the poly being traced by a straight drawing tool is straight (for straight read straight or fractal) but the nodes are too many and too close together. This causes the trace to behave erratically and jump sometimes great distances between seemingly random nodes across the entire polygon. It can be remedied by using SIMPLIFY set to a relatively small interval on the original poly before the tracing operation, so that you remove nodes that are so close to each other that they might as well be right on top of one another.
...
A colour palette (once you have the right one) can be attached to the drawing by clicking the Drawing Properties
button and then the Attach to Drawing button in the Drawing presets dialog.
Don't forget to save your file once you have done this, or it will revert to whatever palette it was set to use before the attachment.
...
Sorry Calibre! The rest are either too general or too complicated for me to understand properly, and in the later case they are already being dealt with by Joe Slayton.
Thank you, Sue
I've posted all about the trace issues further up in the post.
Lookin like I'll need to contact tech support yet again sigh
Cal
Can you tell me how this happened? I've inserted the JR style into my current map (Spectrum Overland) and now all the fills from JR style show a new drawing tool fill I created for my own use.
This happens when you try to use drawing tools from another style without importing the appropriate fills. All drawing tools using a fill not found in the map will instead default to the currently selected fill,.
In addition, the color palette for Spec. Ovrlnd is not the default palette.
That's how the style is designed. It uses it's own custom palette which is attached to the map.
Drawing tool Edits refusing to work
Did you change the layer of the entity or modify it? Drawing tool edit only work if the entity is still on the same layer as the tool originally placed it on. Also, some changes, like breaking hole in a cave wall or similar reduces the polygon to a path, which can't be edited by the tool.
No idea about the command line issues. That particular command is used to "pick up" the symbol from the symbol catalog, you shouldn't normally get that at your cursor like that. I did notice it is only on your cursor, and not on the main command line, so I guess it is a display issue, unless you have problems actually placing symbols.