OcRam - Passages plugin (for MV)

[Espilonarge]

I've just ran in to a major issue with V4 that prior versions did not seem to have.

At first I thought it was possibly just another plugin causing compatibility issues but upon testing it in a fresh project on its own, the issue was still very much prevalent.

To put it simply, the more a map uses "Cover Autotile Regions" (default ID 19), the more severe and unstable the performance hit becomes.

On a 256x256 test map the uses around 500+ Region 19 autotiles, the game was using an insane amount of system resources (in this test, it was using around 40-50% of an i5-4690K 4Core/4Thread 3.7GHz CPU and over 2.4-2.5 gigs of RAM) and crippling the game to less than 1FPS (which a GTX1070 should well-and-truly be capable of handling and maps that don't use any passage-based tiles don't seem to be affected so it's not a GPU issue outright). I then made a 100x100 test map with around the same number of Region 19 autotiles and while the performance did slightly improved (averaging around 5-10FPS and using around 1.5 gigs of RAM) it was still no where within an acceptable margin of playability.

To further test that something is wrong with V4, I used the backups of V3 and V3.03 I still have to do comparisons. On the same 256x256 test map, the FPS remained perfectly stable (160-165FPS) when using V3 and dipped slightly with V3.03 (90-100FPS). The 100x100 test map also had no issues with performance (both averaging 160-165FPS). Please note that my monitor supports 165Hz so this is why MV can show these values when bringing up the FPS meter.

As far as I'm concerned, while V4 is causing severe performance issues that make things unplayable, I will have to go back to using v3/v3.03 until this issue is properly resolved.

 

[ShadowDragon]

@BurningOrca did you try to remove the 16 on the 2nd level?
this can work because you are on the 1st level already and only need to draw the the bridge alone.

(I cant say it will work, but its a long shot

I need to test this thing while it can give more possibilities. Good work for the idea

 

[BurningOrca]

@ShadowDragon:
I supose you mean the 16s I've markes red in this screen shot.
Those 16 on layer 1 are here so I can walk under the bridge which would be on layer 2.
So basically layer 1 should be treated like layer 0, so I can walk under the auto tiles which build the bridge.
And the blue markes 17 is here so I am back at layer 1 once I leave this area.

As the bridge has those movement restrictions:

I can't normally walk under or onto it from the bottom/top without the 16s.
If I would remove those 16s and change the movement in the tileset to allow all direction I would walk onto the bridge.

 

[ShadowDragon]

@BurningOrca I did some test on my own and it also blocks the way you have.

The reason why is that most cliffs are on auto tile (shouldn't make any different)
but I dont have that while I did it with the tilesets for using B-E which works nicely.

That bridge is on A5, if you use the bridge on B-E and same as building cliffs, it works
much smoother, (in my way at least)

Other than that, I got no clue how it can work otherwise

 

[OcRam]

I've just ran in to a major issue with V4 that prior versions did not seem to have.

At first I thought it was possibly just another plugin causing compatibility issues but upon testing it in a fresh project on its own, the issue was still very much prevalent.

To put it simply, the more a map uses "Cover Autotile Regions" (default ID 19), the more severe and unstable the performance hit becomes.

On a 256x256 test map the uses around 500+ Region 19 autotiles, the game was using an insane amount of system resources (in this test, it was using around 40-50% of an i5-4690K 4Core/4Thread 3.7GHz CPU and over 2.4-2.5 gigs of RAM) and crippling the game to less than 1FPS (which a GTX1070 should well-and-truly be capable of handling and maps that don't use any passage-based tiles don't seem to be affected so it's not a GPU issue outright). I then made a 100x100 test map with around the same number of Region 19 autotiles and while the performance did slightly improved (averaging around 5-10FPS and using around 1.5 gigs of RAM) it was still no where within an acceptable margin of playability.

To further test that something is wrong with V4, I used the backups of V3 and V3.03 I still have to do comparisons. On the same 256x256 test map, the FPS remained perfectly stable (160-165FPS) when using V3 and dipped slightly with V3.03 (90-100FPS). The 100x100 test map also had no issues with performance (both averaging 160-165FPS). Please note that my monitor supports 165Hz so this is why MV can show these values when bringing up the FPS meter.

As far as I'm concerned, while V4 is causing severe performance issues that make things unplayable, I will have to go back to using v3/v3.03 until this issue is properly resolved.

Thank you for the report,

Just tested this on huge map and FPS was low indeed. It must be new feature with Z based on Y and I must optimize this routine somehow. I'll get back to this.

@BurningOrca and @ShadowDragon

How about placing events with <lower> comment and make events impassable. This should allow walking above them and disallow from walking off the cliff. (though you can't go to event tiles then maybe want to put some debris there to prevent invisible wall effect)

Spoiler: Events would go like this

 

[OcRam]

This is HUGE performance upgrade (especially in large maps!)

Latest version - (v4.01 released 2019/11/05):

• Doesn't render sprites that are off screen (culling)
• Tiles are FIXED (not sorted by Y cause they are static)
• Thanks to: @Espilonarge for reporting performance issue!

[EDIT: I am sorry for uploading bugged version of this plugin it actually doesn't cull anything because of one logical bug (note to myself: do not upload plugin updates when tired)... I will upload fixed version with in next 24h. Thank you for your patience!]

 

[OcRam]

Latest version - (v4.02 released 2019/11/07):

• HotFix for performance update (v4.01)

 

[Msoulwing]

I currently have 2 issues:

1. When using an event to change the tileset of a map, cover tiles retain their previous appearance.
2. Compatibility with Galv's Basic Event Shadows. Traveling across an overpass makes the shadows disappear.

 

[OcRam]

I currently have 2 issues:

1. When using an event to change the tileset of a map, cover tiles retain their previous appearance.
2. Compatibility with Galv's Basic Event Shadows. Traveling across an overpass makes the shadows disappear.

Thank you for the message,

I will fix these to next version of this plugin.

 

[jakeybreaky]

Hey so I'm having a weird issue at the moment, no idea wtf I did. It would probably be easier to just show you what's happening than to try to explain it (Plus I don't really have the technical knowledge, please forgive me I'm new to rpg maker and game dev in general) so I just recorded a video of what's going on:

 

[OcRam]

Hey so I'm having a weird issue at the moment, no idea wtf I did. It would probably be easier to just show you what's happening than to try to explain it (Plus I don't really have the technical knowledge, please forgive me I'm new to rpg maker and game dev in general) so I just recorded a video of what's going on:

Thank you for the message,

Can't repeat this issue. This is propably a confilict with other plugin.

Have you tried to repeat this in new project?

 

[jakeybreaky]

Thank you for the message,

Can't repeat this issue. This is propably a confilict with other plugin.

Have you tried to repeat this in new project?

I currently have no other plugins installed and as far as I can tell I'm not having the issue with any other projects.

 

[ShadowDragon]

@jakeybreaky it might be possible your project files are corrupt, try to copy the core plugins of a new project
into the current and see if that can fix it or transfer the maps and plugin and see that helps otherwise.

 

[jakeybreaky]

Hmmm still no luck. I might just have to recreate what I have from scratch, which is tedious and annoying but luckily I wasn't that far in development anyway so it shouldn't take that long if I just reference the old version lol. Gonna have to start making more backups too lol

 

[jakeybreaky]

Ok so I started over, but I'm still having the same issue so I have no idea wtf, so I'm probably just gonna have to find some sort of workaround to achieve the same effect in the meantime.

 

[OcRam]

Ok so I started over, but I'm still having the same issue so I have no idea wtf, so I'm probably just gonna have to find some sort of workaround to achieve the same effect in the meantime.

Hi,

Have you tried to put "Debug mode" to "on" and see what is written in console (F8) while play testing?

 

[jakeybreaky]

Hi,

Have you tried to put "Debug mode" to "on" and see what is written in console (F8) while play testing?

Ok so I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be looking for but the plugin not working seems to have some corilation with whether or not this line of code is getting highlighted:



Here's a video of what's happening in the debug menu:

Any ideas what this means? I honestly don't know the first thing about coding, but it seems like it only works the first time you enter a map and then stops working once you reenter again.

Also, again, sorry for all the trouble!

 

[ShadowDragon]

@jakeybreaky that part of the screenshot is kinda useless, you need the TAB "Console" which gives the info he needs.
but it is also kinda strange that you get this bug.

did you use the correct region (autotell Region nr 19) and 21 on top?
if its doesn't work the way you want, you can try the following (temperal solution in your case)

make a screenshot (best to use orangeMapshot) and cut out the 2 pieces of the wall,
and put it onto the B-E tileset and use Region 18 for it.

this help you avoid this bug for now if its in the code somewhere or not.
But its a temperal solution for this case. (Repeat in every map you encounter this issue during this time)

 

[jakeybreaky]

@jakeybreaky that part of the screenshot is kinda useless, you need the TAB "Console" which gives the info he needs.
but it is also kinda strange that you get this bug.

Ah, sorry, my bad lol! Does this help?

did you use the correct region (autotell Region nr 19) and 21 on top?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did all that correctly. Let me know if I made a mistake in that regard.

if its doesn't work the way you want, you can try the following (temperal solution in your case)

make a screenshot (best to use orangeMapshot) and cut out the 2 pieces of the wall,
and put it onto the B-E tileset and use Region 18 for it.

this help you avoid this bug for now if its in the code somewhere or not.
But its a temperal solution for this case. (Repeat in every map you encounter this issue during this time)

Yeah, I was probably gonna end up doing something like that if I couldn't find a fix for the bug, though I'd probably hold off on it until after I start doing custom tilesets cuz it seems like a waste to have to do it twice lol. In the mean time I'll just be working on other maps and see what happens. Seems like I always have the worst luck with having weird ass computer problems though lol.

 

[ShadowDragon]

@jakeybreaky , @OcRam I did some test on this version too and seems to work in the map you are starting.
as SOON as your trasnfer to another map and back, it somehow doesn't draw the tiles (same is also true for
autotile (19) and bridge parts (18).

@OcRam
did you made somewhere a mistake or type that get this bug somehow? Overwrite something that shouldn't
happen and without knowledge? (if you weren't tired when fixing the bug ^^)