Fault Tracing by Sluggs (25/09/05)

Having problems tracing a particular fault? This is how i located a
"LINKID_RELATION" error in "The Good Samaritan" I thought this was a
good idea worth sharing...

Providing you save often, and have your previous saves at hand, this
tutorial should help you. If you don't have any previous backups of
your mission(s), then this tutorial is of no use to you and you will
have to find the fault the hard way, which will be like finding a
needle in a Haystack! (Sorry!)

One by one, load your previous saves until you find the last save
without the fault. Write the mission number down so you know which is
the good one. Take a note of the next save, the one with the fault,
also.

We will compare the two missions - The easy way!

For this, you will require a paint program. Set Dromed's filter to
show objects only. "Solo" the "Top" window and zoom in as close as you
can, getting as many objects inside the window as possible, then in
the console, type: screen_dump This will take a snapshot of the entire
editor window, (Saves to your main Thief folder) Do the same process
for both the good and the bad mission. (The less said about the ugly
one, the better!) *Sorry!*

Once you have all the snapshots required, load the good mission's
snapshot into a paint program, enlarge the canvas so you can fit the
bad mission's snapshot into the same window and load that one. Copy
and paste it into the window with the enlarged canvas, placing it
below the good mission's snapshot. Once you have that done, decrease
the amount of colours to 256, this should make black, index 0,
transparent. If it does not, you will have to set the black Dromed
background to index 0 using the colour replacer tool, or your
program's equivalent. Save the picture again.

Got the idea yet?

Click on the "Selection" tool and drag a box around the bad mission's
snapshot, copy it, then paste onto the picture as "Transparent
Selection" You can now drag it around over the good mission's snapshot
and compare the two! Good eh?