Character Tool Glitches (for FF)

[life_matrix]

I've gotten completely fed up with the Character Tool for the original Freedom Force. I find the character rendering so bad and so glitchy that it is almost unusable for me. The majority, (i.e., more than half) of meshes I've tried have limbs, hands, feet, torso, head, hair, weapons, and/or other extras that are disconnected, floating in space, or otherwise damaged. Recently, I've been trying to do some skinning and NifScoping. But that's very hard to do with a Character Tool that runs as poorly as this! It's intolerable!

I know this subject (glitchy Character Tool) has been brought up before. But I have to ask if there are any new solutions, suggestions, or ideas. I'll try almost anything at this point. I'd even be willing to convert my entire collection of meshes (over 1 Gig!) to FFvT3R if it would fix this.

I realise that most fans attribute the problems with nVidia video cards... and probably for good reason. Lord knows I've had lots of problems with nVidia cards over the years! (I used to like nVidia, mostly because they supported Linux drivers and absorbed 3Dfx/Voodoo. But not anymore!) However, my main PC (and the fastest) is a laptop with a built-in "GeForce 6800 Go" card. That rules out upgrading to an ATI card.

Some members have suggested downloading and installing older nVidia drivers, as there are sometimes problems with newer drivers. Well, I recently tried THREE different drivers, ranging in date from when my laptop was released to very new, and none of them fixed this problem.

In fact, I've tried running Character Tool on no less than FOUR different PCs, each with different nVidia graphics cards and various different versions of ForceWare. But the only PC I have that could run Character Tool without any glitches was my old Pentium II system with... get this... a T-N-T card! That card could run Character Tool OK and was barely fast enough to FF, but it was so old that many of the FX in EZ-FX did not show anything.

Interestingly, I noticed that meshes that did work or were mostly OK in Character Tool suddenly developed glitches whenever I Skoped anything on or off. This leads me to believe that the source of the problem is likely an inability of Character Tool to handle meshes that are either very different from Irrational meshes, or those which are poorly done (such as having lots of broken child node links). I know that my GeForce 6800 Go works OK because I don't have problems with other games or software (that I've tried). In fact, Character Tool 2 (for FFvT3R), NifScope, and Nif Viewer all seem to render character just fine. So what's a Freedom Force fan to do?

All I can think of is to convert all the meshes I have so they can run with Character Tool 2. But that's a real time consuming pain...

[Avalon]

I had this problem on a computer that had the Character Tool only installed, not the game. If you have the whole game installed, it should not have those glitches.
You should also install the updated character tool:
http://www.freedomfans.com/modforce/character.php
Just take the Ctool Update on that page and replace it with the Character Tool that was previously installed.

[daglob]

I had this problem when I got a new graphics card. The card will run FFv3R, but not FF1, and the situation with CTool is exactly the same. I'm still looking for a card that will let me run both...

[life_matrix]

I had this problem on a computer that had the Character Tool only installed, not the game. If you have the whole game installed, it should not have those glitches.

I did have the game and Character Tool installed. Further, I followed the install order given at the bottom of AFFFFFAQ or "Alex's Fantastically Fabulous Freedom Force FAQ". And that would be:

- Install FF
- Install Character Tool (good to have if you're skinning)
- Install FF Editor (needed if you're modding or manually installing FX or voice packs)
- Install FF patch v1.3 (needed to run if you have Windows XP SP2 or Vista)
- Install EZFX 5.1
- Install EZ Danger Room v2.0 (adds a watch mode and some MP maps)
- Install FFX Squared v 2.6 GOLD
- Install EZ Hero v2.6

And still, I have problems with Character Tool.

You should also install the updated character tool: http://www.freedomfans.com/modforce/character.php
Just take the Ctool Update on that page and replace it with the Character Tool that was previously installed.

Thanks! Now that's new information to me! For some reason, I never saw the link to the Character Tool patch.

So, I downloaded and installed the patch by copying the files from the ZIP to the Freedom Force directory. It had to overwrite the original "CharacterTool.exe" file, though. I tried out Character Tool and... It seemed to Work! I load a mesh and it no longer appears broken and polygon-murdered. Yippie!  :thumbup:

Except... I quickly found out that after the patch Character Tool now crashes all the time!  :banghead: DRAT! I can change skins on a mesh OK. And I can sometimes change meshes, particularly if I click on one of the recently loaded in the menu. But, usually, when I try to change to a different mesh it crashes. And when it does it crashes HARD! Immediately an error window pops up:

CharacterTool.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost.

For more information about this error,  click here.

So I click on the link for more info and get:

Error signature

AppName: charactertool.exe    AppVer: 0.0.0.0    ModName: ntdll.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.2180    Offset: 00011c29

To view technical information about the error report,  click here.

What follows on that click is a window full of technical stuff.

Error Report Contents

The following information about your process will be reported:

Exception Information
Code: 0xc0000005   Flags: 0x00000000
Record: 0x0000000000000000   Address: 0x000000007c911c29

System Information
Windows NT 5.1 Build: 2600
CPU Vendor Code: 756E6547 - 49656E69 - 6C65746E
CPU Version: 000006D8   CPU Feature Code: AFE9FBFF
CPU AMD Feature Code: 00B0E824

Module 1
CharacterTool.exe
Image Base: 0x00400000   Image Size: 0x00000000
Checksum: 0x00000000   Time Stamp: 0x3d3fb96a
Version Information... [snip]

The following files will be included in this error report:

I wanted to copy and paste the details, but those functions are disabled on the window and it wouldn't even let me select text. But it did state that the file "a73b_appcompat.txt" (located in my C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp folder) would be sent.

Anyway, I backed out of the windows and clicked on [Close]. The CT window disappeared.However, a "character.nif - Character Tool" process was still running in my Taskbar. I click on this process and it does not respond. I right click and select "Close" and then another window pops up:

End Program - character.nif - Character Tool

This program is not responding.

To return to Windows and check the status of the program, click Cancel.

If you choose to end the program immediately, you will lose any unsaved data. To end the program now, click End Now.

I clicked [End Now] and it finally shuts down.

I had this problem when I got a new graphics card. The card will run FFv3R, but not FF1, and the situation with CTool is exactly the same. I'm still looking for a card that will let me run both...

Strange. I can run both FFv3R and FF1 just fine on my machine. And yet, I still have all this trouble using Character Tool. Hmm...

Suspecting that I should have installed this CT patch immediately after installing CT (and before all the other FF stuff, like EZFX and FFX Squared), I decided to uninstall all the FF stuff I could without uninsalling FF itself. So I referred to Alex's AFFFFFAQ again and tried to reverse the install order by uninstalling stuff. With only FF remaining, I then installed CT, the CT Patch, and everything else. I tried to run CT again and... same thing. :( It still crashes. Perhaps I should have done a full uninstall and reinstall. But then, I'd hate to do all that if it still doesn't fix this.

BTW: From what I can tell, these are the primary files that Character Tool, without the patch, uses:

* CharacterTool.exe
* Sound.dll
* Standard.dll

And these are the files that the Character Tool patch installs:

* CharacterTool.exe
* Sound_e.dll
* Standard_e.dll

The latter two did not exist before. Out of curiosity (and since it was crashing all the time anyway), I tried swapping the "Sound" and "Standard" .dll files around with the newer "_e" versions by renaming them. That did not seem to change the behavior of CT noticably. I also tried switching the original Character.exe file back, combined with the newer Sound_e and Standard_e files (renamed to Sound.dll and Standard.ll), but that just gave the old behavior from before with the broken-looking meshes. So I gave up and changed the files back.

So, it seems my only real choices are to either a) try a fresh FF reinstall from scratch, b) run Character Tool on a different machine, c) use the updated CT to view only one mesh at a time and close it down before switching meshes, or d) use Character Tool 2 for skinning and convert any meshes that need it. I don't like any of these choices, but I guess I should try a) first and if that doesn't fix it I'll use a combination of c) and d). :(

[Outcast]

I think your problem may be that you are using Windows XP sp2. Character Tool for FF1 doesn't work that well with Windows XP sp2. I had the same problem when i switched from Windows XP sp1 to sp2. I had no choice but to choose your "C" and "D" option. But nowadays, I just choose the "D" option which is to just use the Character Tool 2. Which would just require nifconverting FF1 meshes. The only other option is for you to use Windows XP sp1.

[Avalon]

You might try changing the compatibility of the ctool.exe file. This worked for me on the ffedit for FF. I would change it to Win98 and it works fine now. Find the file ctool.exe in the Freedom Force folder. Right click and select properties. Click on the Compatibility tab.
If that doesn't work, you will have to do the complete uninstall. What I did was to move the important folders like the data folder and customs out of the FF folder so it doesn't get erased when you uninstall.

[life_matrix]

You might try changing the compatibility of the ctool.exe file. This worked for me on the ffedit for FF. I would change it to Win98 and it works fine now. Find the file ctool.exe in the Freedom Force folder. Right click and select properties. Click on the Compatibility tab.

Hey, thanks! That's some good advice. I haven't been using Win XP for very long, so I only vaguely recall reading about the compatibility mode.

After changing the compatibility of CharacterTool.exe to Win98/Me it seemed to work just fine! I could even change meshes without a hitch. The only slight annoyance is that after I'm done using CT and I try to close the program, then (and only then) an error message pops up. ("CharacterTool.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close...") After confirming the close button, it goes away quietly, so it's really no big deal.

BTW: I also tried the Windows 2000 compatibility mode, but that still occationally gave problems when changing the mesh. It's almost as bad as plain Win XP SP2. So the Win 98 mode seems about as perfect as it will get for me.

[Avalon]

Yes, I experimented with the 2000 option and got the same result. These is a patch for the XP Service Pack 2 but it caused my FF to crash.
http://www.fileplanet.com/110878/110000/fileinfo/Freedom-Force-v1.3-Patch
I also get that error message. Its more of an annoyance than anything.