PlugPak 2.0 known issues

 Are there "known issues"?

Yes, unfortunately there are. Thanks for all the people that helped finding them (you know who you are ;-)

I'll try to find more elegant solutions for the problems than the ones mentioned below, but these workarounds should keep you going for now... 

NOTE!! There is a BugFix patch available for PlugPak 2.0 - it affects Scenes, SkyGen, Refgen, and OC Shadow.
 

Generic issues

This is now fixed. When running the scripts, a 4 digit number is added to the suggested name of the control objects, in the cases where there may be more than one controller of the same type. There's a 1 in 1000 change of getting the same number twice in a row, if this happens, just delete the last instance and run the script again. Also, if you name the controls manually, use unique names.

Solution: Do not apply sliders to the first object in the scene. If PlugPak scripts that use sliders are applied to an empty scene, the scripts will add a null object to the scene. DO NOT DELETE IT!

This can be caused by a missing content directory, or a content directory that's set to the root of a hard drive. The solution is to use content directory properly - the content directory should always be a folder, that the user and the cripts have access to. If your content directory was copied from CD, the files may have "read only" attribute which causes troubles. Change the file's attributes. The scripts also will not work if your content directory points to CD rom.

FIX: this seems to be a bug in the sliders plugin. No known fixes so far...

This is now fixed. The scripts read the current state of the control, disable it while the script runs and turn it back on at the end.

There's two workarounds:
A) Save all objects, or all objects PlugPak has added, before saving the scene.
B) Simply locate the contol objects from Objects/Overcaster subdirectory when prompted.

If you then save this version of the  scene, there will be no more missing object errors.

It means that for some reason the script has been unable to save an object to a correct location. I will use Can't find object  "Objects/SkyGen/Moon_preview.lwo" - Select another object? error message (SkyGen) as an example, but similar steps apply to the other scripts.

7.1. Are you on a mac, with LW 7.0b or lower?

If you are on a mac, the reason for the error is a bug. There's an incompability between LW and MacOS, that makes many of the file operations not function in LScript. The missing files are most probably in the content directory's root. If you use LW 7.0, i strongly recommend upgrading to 7.5, which is a free update.

Fix: When you get that message, browse to your content directory, move the SkyGen folder from the content root to Objects folder. Move Moon_preview.lwo from content root to Objects/SkyGen subfolder. Then answer yes to "Select another file", and locate the Objects/SkyGen/Moon_preview.lwo.

7.2. Is your content directory write protected?

If your content directory is write protected, the script is naturally unable to write files there, this will cause errors.

Fix: Make sure you have full access to the content directory.

7.3. Is your content directory pointing to hard disk root?

Fix: The scripts will not retrieve path information correctly from a hard drive's root. Make a folder (or many) and keep your content in it. Point your content dir there.

Overcaster issues

Unfortunately, the LW6.5 version of the Overcaster HUB refused to work properly. This is due to a bug in LScript for 6.5, which was fixed in 7.0 - and there are no known workarounds to the bug.  So, 6.5 users should run the separate scripts, and not the Overcaster HUB. Sorry!! Also, there's been huge problems on macintosh installations. This was due to bugs in Lightwave LScript, which were fixed in LW7.5. So, the scripts DO work on macs, but only on 7.5. Meanwhile, the mac users that haven't upgraded to LW7.5 can use the Pre-LScript versions, which are a free download from the files section of the mailing list for the PlugPak users. The "final" Pre-LScript version was Overcaster V4. The last 5.6 compatible version was Overcaster V3

The position bar is at frame one - but the key is not!!

Another way to easily destroy the Overcaster spinning motion is to create a keyframe for all objects somewhere other than between frame 0.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ;)

This is now fixed, the Scripts take the current scene FPS into account. The FPS shouldn't be changed after adding the overcaster setups.

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!
I have looked around Newteks forum and found several people having problems
which seem to stem from the 'ChanFollow.p" plugin. I have downgraded to the
7.0 version off the CD and all is now working. It would appear that this
bug only crops up on some machines (quite a few mp machines if you look at
the forums). While I dont like using old plug ins at laeast I can sleep
tonite...

5. Self rotating lights: This is a weird one. If you run, say, Overcaster sun, and try to rotate the SUN light (which won't work as the rotational values are grayed out) and then continue with rotating the SUN_mixer control object, the SUN spot may rotate randomishly - even if you don't move the mouse!! As the Overcaster rigs are just regular LW scenes even though they are loaded via LScripts, this must be a bug in LW itself. I think. Interesting.

This is now fixed, there are now separate lights just for the OGL preview.

6. If you run the SUN script and clear the scene (without doing anything else in between) LW may loose it's menus, or crash. No known fixes for this one for now i'm afraid.

I have not seen this happening with PlugPak 2.0 - like that proves anything ;-)

7. When applying OC Shadow, the automatic scaling does not work correctly.

This is now fixed (It works again - this bug was introduced in 2.0 and squished in 2.1).

There's a bug (most likely in LScript / LightWave itself) that gives this error occasionally when trying to read pixel info from an image. It seems that it occurs very rarely when the script is run in an empty scene, and more often if there's a lot of stuff in the scene.

FIX: No real solution to this, except to run the script in an empty scene, and then doing a "load from scene" to get the ambimage rig to your actual scene.

Bugs that affect also other scripts are detailed in detailed in generic issues

SkyGen issues

1. SkyGen crashes on some systems when loading the setup

This is now fixed: There is an option to open Textured Environment manually, which eliminates crashes.

This is not a bug, but a feature ;-) If you want to keep the sky in the scene constant, always make all the adjustments for the sliders or endomorph mixers at frame 0. If you adjust lighting in any other frame, you will generate an envelope for that morph channel. This is a good thing though - animating the sky's properties couldn't be easier.

Bugs that affect also other scripts are detailed in detailed in generic issues

SeaGen issues

1. LightWave crashes when saving a new SeaGen surface preset

No known fixes at this point i'm afraid

This is not a bug, but a feature ;-) If you want to keep the sea in the scene constant, always make all the adjustments for the sliders or endomorph mixers at frame 0. If you adjust sliders in any other frame, you will generate an envelope for that morph channel. This is a good thing though - animating the sea's properties couldn't be easier.

Bugs that affect also other scripts are detailed in detailed in generic issues

RefGen issues

1. The image saving options are not set correctly with RefGen1, and you get warnings about missing images with RefGen 2.

This is now fixed (i hope).

The old workaround was:

1a When you are using still image method, set image saving options as follows before rendering the RefGen1 scene:

Save folder: Images/RefGen (under your current content directory)
Name prefix: RefGen
Type: Flexible format (.flx)
Output filename format: Name0001.xxx

1b When using sequence image mode set image saving options as follows before rendering each of the six RefGen1 scenes:

Save folder: Images/RefGen (under your current content directory)
Type: Flexible format (.flx)
Output filename format: Name0001.xxx

Front scene name prefix: RefGen_front
Right scene name prefix: RefGen_right
Back scene name prefix: RefGen_back
Left scene name prefix: RefGen_left
Up scene name prefix: RefGen_up
Down scene name prefix: RefGen_down

Bugs that affect also other scripts are detailed in generic issues

NewProject issues

No known bugs. This is not the same thing as "NO bugs". Emphasis is on word "known".

Scenes issues

This is now fixed. The current version resets AutoConfirm back to "0".

The old FIX was: In Layout/Commands/Command input, Type "AutoConfirm" (without "").
Set the value to 0 in the next requester. Also, running i.e. one of the Overcaster scripts will set Auto Confirm off.

2. Most Overcaster issues also apply to Scenes. 

Bugs that affect also other scripts are detailed in generic issues

Fakemetric Camera issues

1. The textures in the rendered output look really mushy

This is caused by the camera being REALLY far from the object. LW's texture filtering / antialiasing kicks in and blends all the pixels together. There's two solutions:

A)  Don't use texture antialiasing or pixel blending
B)  Use less extreme perspective setting.

2. The polygons in the object look like they overlap. There's friggin nasty errors in the render.

This too is caused by the camera being REALLY far from the object. LW runs out of decimals, and sees the polygons being at the same distance from the camera:

A)  Move the polygons wider apart
B)  Use less extreme perspective setting.

No other known bugs. This is not the same thing as "NO bugs". Emphasis is on word "known".

Freebie issues

1.  More often than not, one item in array is misaligned. Dunno why - will look into it later ;-)

2. The new "Children" and "Siblings" methods  in randomize are not tested...

ModPak 1.0 known issues

CityGen issues