Disappearing Towns, stations etc!

chrispierce · Post by **chrispierce** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 9:15 pm

I'm in the process of creating a modern day version of Mideast, for my step dad. I've been using NSU gantries. I've done the whole route, and it looks great. However the first time I 'electrified' the route St Noets disappeared, and this time Peterbough. The trains still run, but there no scenary, no track, nothing.
I'm a bit of a novice a RB so I don't fancy relaying track, and buildings. Is there something I've done wrong? Help!!!!!!!!!!

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:26 am

New one on me. I have, at times, in the RE had objects disappear such as the default Kuju hedge pieces (I suspect because the tile is getting loaded with objects) but have always been there on a drive.

Just a thought, you have maxed out all the detail settings to the highest possible, as some objects will not display at the lower settings?

chrispierce · Post by **chrispierce** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 11:26 am

Didn't work

I'm totally stuck. The whole track, station, and surrounding buildings have gone!

alanhowat · Post by **alanhowat** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:00 pm

Hi,

Did this happen when (or just after) saving the changes to route?

Cheers,

Alan.

chrispierce · Post by **chrispierce** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:02 pm

not too sure, RE crash once, or twice.

alanhowat · Post by **alanhowat** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:19 pm

Hi,

When you drive along the route, do you arrive at an area where there is no track or scenery? I do NOT mean a "whiteout", what I'm saying is when driving along the route do you arrive at an area where there is no track or scenery, but you can drive through it (indicating the track is there but not visible) to an area where the track and scenery are back to normal?
If this is the case it suggests that the tile is losing all af the scenery information.

Cheers,

Alan.

chrispierce · Post by **chrispierce** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:06 pm

that certainly is the case. how do I stop or prevents this?

alanhowat · Post by **alanhowat** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:25 pm

Hi there,

You need to find out what the "Tile Number" is. It will be something like 6121,15094 for example. You can find this from route editor. Once you get a note of the tile number you will then have to go into your route/world files then find the same file as previously noted. There should be a w & a ws version of each tile.

Perhaps someone else could take over now because I'm not entirely sure what to do next.

Cheers,

Alan.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:25 pm

chrispierce wrote:Didn't work I'm totally stuck. The whole track, station, and surrounding buildings have gone!

Cause:
Crash when exiting RE after making changes to that tile (insufficient PC memory due to too many objects placed in the tile, and an inefficient game engine).

Remedy:
Go to the offending tile in RE and find the tile number (two numbers in the JUMP window - e.g. Swindon is on tile 6137 14929). Leave RE.

Go to your routes WORLD folder and look for the w file that corresponds to this tile. The numbering is subtly different but you should be able to find it. My guess is it will be 1kb in size, indicating that it's almost empty of data, which is why the tile is bare of scenery. Next to this 1kb w file will be a .bk file corresponding to the same tile which, if you have not gone back into that tile in RE and made any changes and saved them, will have a nice large healthy looking file size indicating it is still full of scenery objects.

Move the 1kb w file somewhere else (the root of your route folder will do since in 5 minutes time you'll be deleting it if this works). Next rename the .bk file to a .w file.

Go back into RE and your corrupt tile should now have all the scenery back on it. However the changes you made before the crash happened will be lost (e.g. you won't have your gantries).

Note that if you went into RE during the tile's corrupt stage and changed anything on that tile and saved the changes I'm afraid you have had it since a new .bk file is created each time changes are made to the tile in RE and the healthy .bk would have been overwritten by the corrupt .w file. In this case your best option is to go back to a recent backup of your route (you have been making regular backups during construction, haven't you?), or failing that, take the w file again from MidEast and lose any changes you'd made.

However all this does not help you that much since the crash in RE is because you are trying to put too many objects on the Peterborough and St Neots tiles. Gantries unfortunately count as lots of objects and even if you do the above fix, this may happen again next time you put gantries in. I would suggest you redo the gantries then fly or jump your RE camera to an empty tile and try to save there. Also clicking in the sky before you save is a good trick to use since this guarantees no scenery object is red-highlighted as you save which may cause crashes. If you don't get the crash, you are safe. If you do get the crash, the only option now left is to begin removing scenery objects from the two tiles in question until the tiles are stable enough to allow placement of gantries without crashing RE.

In the JUMP window in RE you will see a tile object count. Try to aim not to exceed 1400 here, and in the w file size try to keep below 600Kb. Over this the sim begins to get flaky.

Please come back and let us know how you get on.

If you read the routebuilders sticky at the top of this forum I think this has been covered in there, and much more useful stuff besides.

chrispierce · Post by **chrispierce** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:22 pm

I've reinstalled the route, and keep the count below 1400. Which has solved the probem!!!! However the route looks a little silly with no gantries around the stations.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 12:13 am

See if you can slip some gantries in and still avoid the RE crash. It is like tightrope walking sometimes, coaxing RE to play with you!

terrycunliffe · Post by **terrycunliffe** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:27 pm

Have a look at this thread
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?t=12448

Pay special attention about the 'watermarks'

Your proceedure would be
1)cut scenery objects
2) add gantries
3) paste back scenery objects

Terry

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:51 pm

Chris - was this helpful?

chrispierce · Post by **chrispierce** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:09 pm

Yes. I'm very much a novice at RE, so many thanks to yourself and everyone else for their advice.

montylowe2 · Post by **montylowe2** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 10:05 am

Hi all

If I'd seen this thred eailer I'd have helped you. But the other have given you sound advice! The same thing happend to me a week ago or so, when a whole tile disspeared! Tim court told me wha to do. Just re-instate the backup file into the co-ordingating route tile:-). Worke a treat!.

Regards

Richard Lowe