Read-only folders

[Enzo]

Hey!

So I wanted to create some things with Hammer but I noticed that all my folders were read-only. After some hours of research, I still don't know how to remove this read-only thing, nothing seems to work. It seems like it happened when I started to use Destinations, but I don't know if It's related or not.

Does anyone here have/had the same problem, and does someone actually found a fix?

Thanks.

[Rectus]

Make sure you create a new addon in the initial menu. All the default ones are read only.

[Enzo]

Thanks a lot.

[fido_one]

Hey all,

This has popped up for me even though I created a new-addon. Everything I try and save says 'read-only'. Trying to create a new material (sky) and can't save it anywhere... Any idea how to tackle this other than the new addon?

[Rectus]

Do you have write permissions in your Destinations folder? Maybe Windows is blocking them if you have it installed under Program Files.

[fido_one]

Rectus,

Thanks for the prompt reply. Hammer keeps on changing it back to 'read only' - I've changed it on every OS level and directory I could.

It's not letting me attribute a material to a sky-box for example. No biggie at the moment, but I'm stumped as to the next step.

I have it installed on a non-OS drive. Weird and frustrating, if I get any further I'll update the thread. Maybe this has to do with the other errors I've been geting (though I don't think so...)

[Rectus]

In that case it's probably not a Windows thing. Does it do that if you make a new empty add-on?

[fido_one]

I'll try with materials - I seem to be fine with meshes that import materials, so I think I can bring them in that way.

That being said, saving meshes has always been weird in Hammer for me - if I try to save to the default folder, it says I can't, I have to go one directory up to 'content' which makes no sense. Don't want to reset Hammer until I get a preview of this project done. At the finish line for the preview but it's a pretty high jenga block that I don't want to topple until the preview is sorted.

Thanks again for the prompt response, it means a lot.

[Cargo Cult]

New meshes should go in a subfolder of 'models' something like 'content/your_addon_name/models/your_model_name/your_model_name.vmdl'. The folder under 'models' requirement is an artefact of Destinations using tools intended for large game projects, potentially containing thousands of different models.

Material sources for your model should end up in 'content/your_addon_name/materials/models/your_model_name/' - adding new materials can go in subfolders of 'materials/models' if they're intended for going on models, or new folders in 'materials' describing their general use on Hammer-created geometry ('water', 'walls', 'floors' or whatever).

Compiled content (i.e. processed for the game engine to use directly) goes in 'game/your_addon_name/...' - you shouldn't have to touch stuff in there beyond a few text files for script and soundscape related purposes.

Not sure if this will help you with the problem you've been having - the 'have to go one directory up' comment made me wonder precisely what was happening!

[fido_one]

Thanks,

I wasn't intending on publishing this project when I first started, so it's traversed a ton of different iterations and I think it's just full of bad file references. I didn't nail down the workflow until about 1/2 way through the process. Again though, I'm so close to a preview that I'm going to wait until I publish that to oust the few bugs I have: all the paintings are blurry in the exhibit as I can't get my own UVs to retexture in RC (got a ticket in with them, but I'm almost positive it's Modo). Once the preview is up, I'm going to do a spring cleaning and reinstall a lot of things.

I am trying to put new meshes in "content/your_addon_name/models/your_model_name/your_model_name.vmdl". It autosaves on import to there, but when I tweak it or just want to name it differently, I have to navigate to "content/your_addon_name/models/your_model_name.vmdl"... I haven't put a ton of time into it as I've found a [cruddy] workaround, but things are definately 'off' in this particular workflow.

Don't have to answer this question as I'm 99.9% sure that the answer is 'doesn't matter': I've got Steam games/tools/software installed on 3 drives. I'm doing the Destinations Tools from a non-OS SSD drive.

[Cargo Cult]

Deleting and/or renaming source assets in 'content' can really confuse things if you don't also delete the associated compiled content from 'game' - the engine will see the old compiled content with missing sources...

A really dramatic way of clearing stuff up is to exit all tools, then delete 'game/your_addon_name/models' and 'game/your_addon_name/materials' before restarting the tools. Open your map - it'll take ages, since it has to recompile necessary assets from sources - but after that things should be nice and tidy again.

(Creating a new addon and working from that may be a better solution.)