Corrupted Files

[j meyer]

Hi,
today i wanted to use a modified version of sjefens grass and since i´ve
moved everything to a new computer lately i was aware of the fact that
i´d have to reload the images and so i did.Then i saved the refreshed
version,but when i opened the file again i got an error message and
the nodes were disconnected and some nodes weren´t even there any more,
which i hadn´t have before.As far as i know TG2 has some problems with
non-english letters and with empty spaces(if i remember right) so i
checked the paths again and eliminated all spaces(although i never had
problems with spaces up to now) and tried it once more,but again a
corrupted file.Finally i found out that it was due to an apostrophe and
since that is used in the english language also i thought it´s better
to let you know.
In case this is already known sorry for wasting your time.

[rcallicotte]

Thanks for the information, after pulling through such a problem.

I know that some programs will not allow spaces or apostrophes in the naming convention.

[Oshyan]

Is it a normal apostrophe, or for example `, or ´ for example? Neither is a normal apostrophe and would be considered a special character. Non-english keysets seem to use these kinds of characters in place of English ones sometimes.

In any case the non-English character handling should be significantly improved in the future.

- Oshyan

[j meyer]

It was an apostrophe like in *it´s*or *bill´s files* ,so i would consider that
as normal.Meanwhile i removed it anyway.

[Oshyan]

It was an apostrophe like in *it´s*or *bill´s files* ,so i would consider that
as normal.Meanwhile i removed it anyway.

Actually, believe it or not, those are *not* "normal" apostrophes - at least not from what I can see. I believe they're technically "acute accents", and that's precisely my point - it's not part of the standard 128 character ASCII alphabet (95 of which are printable), so I think that's what causes the problem. Have a look: http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/unicode-decoder/character-identifier

- Oshyan

[j meyer]

Thanks for pointing that out and for the link.I didn't know that before,but
now i've found the right one hopefully.According to the identifier it is
this one ' .It looks definitely different when printed,but on the keys they
look exactly the same.I'll try this one today.

[rcallicotte]

I tend to just do what works generally overall as there are too many exceptions over all in the IT world.  Spaces and apostrophes have always been problems.

[j meyer]

Yep, doing what works is a good way,but first you gotta find out.
My life with computer started in november 2004 and there was and
still is so much to find out.I always wondered why so many people
write like *example_probe_something* now i can imagine.
Generally said it seems one has to change the way of thinking when
working with computers (and not only because of windows).Oh well...

[rcallicotte]

I think your problem (not yours, really) is that Windows allows all kinds of characters when creating files and folders, but multiple programs still revert to what is considered older conventions like apostrophes and spaces within names.  Believe it or not, even Microsoft's own development tools sometimes revert back to some old conventions or doesn't work right and this can leave a developer wishing MS had to deal with this fallacy.

[Ironshirt]

I have also problems with corrupted files but I did not use any strange characters.

Yesterday, I had a scene with about 8 surface layers and three different voroni diff functions for detail.
After colourizing my scene I just wanted to add a single tgo (sweet birch from the Xfrog samples plants).
So I imported the tgo, transformed it and before rendering I just wanted to save. But after pushing the save button
TG2 simply hangs up! It does not even change the files name internally to the new one I chose (but it creates a new corrupt file with this name) - it just hangs for about 20 sec (more or less) and crashes ater this delay. Without the tgo I may save as often as I want to, but after inserting the tgo saving is no more possible.
Now the strange thing - I tried to render the whole scene with tgo but without saving it previously  - I expected a crash, but I was able to do as much renders as I want to! I did one with a res. of 640x480 AA2 Gi 3/3  and another one with 1024x768 AA3 Gi 2/2... without any problems! After rendering I tried to save the scene but the crash happened again...

Strange!  I don't know what it is...

I'm using an Intel C2D E6400 with 2GB RAM and Geforce 7600GT but I guess it has nothing to do with the floating point issue?
Perhaps I should try a different tgo today...

[rcallicotte]

I know this is a topic here, but it's better served to put something like this in the Support area so Planetside will look at it.

I have also problems with corrupted files but I did not use any strange characters.

Yesterday, I had a scene with about 8 surface layers and three different voroni diff functions for detail.
After colourizing my scene I just wanted to add a single tgo (sweet birch from the Xfrog samples plants).
So I imported the tgo, transformed it and before rendering I just wanted to save. But after pushing the save button
TG2 simply hangs up! It does not even change the files name internally to the new one I chose (but it creates a new corrupt file with this name) - it just hangs for about 20 sec (more or less) and crashes ater this delay. Without the tgo I may save as often as I want to, but after inserting the tgo saving is no more possible.
Now the strange thing - I tried to render the whole scene with tgo but without saving it previously  - I expected a crash, but I was able to do as much renders as I want to! I did one with a res. of 640x480 AA2 Gi 3/3  and another one with 1024x768 AA3 Gi 2/2... without any problems! After rendering I tried to save the scene but the crash happened again...

Strange!  I don't know what it is...

I'm using an Intel C2D E6400 with 2GB RAM and Geforce 7600GT but I guess it has nothing to do with the floating point issue?
Perhaps I should try a different tgo today...

[bigben]

At the risk of showing my age, I can remember being excited when xcopy was added to DOS (now that was a time saving feature)    ... but with age comes wisdom .... to avoid potential problems I use old-school naming conventions, avoiding special characters and spaces in both file and directory names for any aplication that might use the commandline. Since I render animations via commandline in conjunction with other commandline utilities this also applies to TG2 for me (to the point where I install TG2 into c:\tg2, but that's probably getting a touch paranoid). 

For animations I also collect all files used for a project into a single directory to avoid potential problems.  This sometimes requires a bit of duplication of files and some extra work preparing to render but it results in far fewer headaches and eliminates one possible cause of problems when troubleshooting errors.