UTzone's got a new CTF map

[OjitroC]

Did anyone else have that issue?

Yes, almost certainly it's down to Wood.utx - I think there are 7 versions of that floating around. I see I'm using the smaller of the two versions I have - the other is in my Store folder and I didn't swap it to have a look at this map.

[EvilGrins]

Did anyone else have that issue?

Yes, almost certainly it's down to Wood.utx - I think there are 7 versions of that floating around. I see I'm using the smaller of the two versions I have - the other is in my Store folder and I didn't swap it to have a look at this map.

It is the problem of mappers that when they make their own versions they don't add a number to the filename or something unique.

I may open up the one I have and the one he sent and find what's missing and edit those textures into MyLevel.

[SkYlInE]

The wood.utx was not my own creation. Just had it in my textures folder. Didnt even know that there are different of them with the Same Name.

[sektor2111]

My two cents: Plain wrong way...
When a file used in a map has such a generic word as file-name instead of being tagged - made unique (perhaps time-stamp based), there are chances to see Wood.umx, Wood.utx, Wood.uax and even Wood.unr causing more pain than fun. Why not importing these in MyLevel ? Why generic words ?

[OjitroC]

My two cents: Plain wrong way...
When a file used in a map has such a generic word as file-name instead of being tagged - made unique (perhaps time-stamp based), there are chances to see Wood.umx, Wood.utx, Wood.uax and even Wood.unr causing more pain than fun. Why not importing these in MyLevel ? Why generic words ?

You're right of course - but, in part, it's down to mappers being aware that the name they want to use is generic and, in certain cases, that there are already packages out there with the same name. Until recently (with the advent of the package feature on Unreal Archive), that knowledge was only acquired by chance - by downloading maps with different but identically named texture packages for example.

There are five versions of Wood.utx listed on Unreal Archive - two are used in only one map each - of the others, two are mainly used in MH and CFT/BT maps respectively. Only one is used in maps for a range of gametypes. If one doesn't play MH or CTF or at all much offline then it would be possible to be unaware of the existence of the other Wood.utx packages.

Of course from now on there is no real excuse for using names for packages when these names already exist - but again this requires knowledge and awareness of how to find out that a package name has already been used.

As we know the issue is an old one - starting in the early years of UT when mappers would, in some cases, deliberately extract textures, for example, from an exisiting package and give their new texture package the same name as the exisiting package simply to reduce the file size and thus improve download times

[sektor2111]

Exactly reducing download size is earned by importing in MyLevel only needed textures without messing up with mismatch errors and all that "entertaining" show.

[Delacroix]

Until D3D11 became a thing, MyLevel was a surefire way of a texture being unable to ever get HDified.

And even then, for UT99 the renderer is no longer developed. So yeah... maybe think about it.

What I do think should happen is to have a specific section of UnrealArchive dedicated to... maybe special, combined versions of packages of a given filename that have content from all versions out there? Preferably netconformed unless it damages package... and with a big, bold-red-text notice that downloading such "patched" package is required to avoid conflicts.

[sektor2111]

NOBODY can conform properly a Texture package having 3 Textures with one having 10 Textures. The guy with 3 Textures will always fail to load normally a map requiring 8 of 10 Textures from the second version. THIS IS why EPIC did not do anything with Credits.utx, because TWO incompatible packages even if are conformed will return a crash instead of a mismatch and having the same result: NO GAME or strange things happening and asking later in forums about errors which nobody is bothering to investigate.
This conforming stuff does more damage when people are not understanding it. As for HD stuff here is another work which is not that easy for everyone. Plenty of players are still using D3D and NetSpeed 2600 - draw conclusions. "Wood" is not a stock file and never was, another future file will mess up with "HD-fication" process when file content is different - this goes nowhere. And here is fascinating how community is busily engaged to ruin things more than is needed.

Story here is similar to Predator package, one of them has monsters, other has Players and Bots - different content. Conform these if you can, without to do in-game damage.

[Delacroix]

Then this is why I still think that having a composite package having contents of all existing versions is better... and aggressively advertising it.

Luckily, e.g. with U1 227 if you have the wrong package, server doesn't kick you anymore, you just download the right one to cache... maybe UT99 469 should have that feature?

[sektor2111]

Yes, the answer is merging all versions in one single big monster version in hoping that two textures won't have the same name and group. If player is smart and keeping files in CACHE, it will always download required file - this feature is in stock since forever. UNcaching is a bad practice heading to mismatches, files from cache are not a problem at all because... their name is different in cache.