When things go wrong
1 HELP! What do I do?
Here is a short list of troubleshooting procedures you can try:
Many functions within AOI produce logging output, either to display status or to log errors. You can collect and view this output in one of two ways:
enable the LogPlugin
If you don't already have the LogPlugin installed, you can install it, either automatically using the Scripts and Plugin Manager (in the AOI tools menu); or manually by downloading the most recent LogPlugin_xxx.jar file from the AOI plugins repository and copying this without extracting it into the Plugins folder in your Art Of Illusion installation folder.
start AOI from a command shell
If you start AOI from a command shell, then the logging output is printed directly into the shell window. On most platforms, you can then copy and paste the output into a file, or (better) redirect the output to a file.
Exactly how you do this varies by platform. Basically you open a command window or shell, and enter a command of the form:
java -Xmx256m -jar path-to-aoi/ArtOfIllusion.jar
On Windows, the command shell is called CMD.EXE, on MacOSX you can run ??, and on linux you can run any of xterm, konsole, or sh.
The simplest errors to locate in the logs are exceptions. These are 'thrown' whenever an unexpected error condition is encountered within AOI. A good example would be an OutOfMemoryException which tells you that what you were trying to do did not fit into the memory available to Java on your machine. (See below for more details on common exceptions.)
The logs may not help you much, particularly if you are new to AOI, Java, and/or 3D modelling. However, armed with your log output, you are well-equiped to ask someone more experienced, using the forums or chat resources available (see the Further Help page for details).
AOI can be extended using plugins. Many of these are started when AOI itself starts up (basically while the splash screen is being displayed).
If AOI fails to start after installing or upgrading a plugin, then you can try
uninstalling it.
You can run the AOI scripts and plugins manager stand-alone, without having to start AOI. Use a command like:
java -jar path-to-aoi/Plugins/SPManager.jar. You can then select "manage", select the plugn, and click "Delete this plugin". Note that SPManager has to find where AOI keeps its plugins, and this is sometimes difficult. If SPManager shows no plugins, then execute the command from inside the ArtOfIllusion directory.
You can also manually move the plugin file(s) out of the Plugins folder (changing a file's name does not disable it).
**BEWARE: a number of 'standard' AOI features are shipped as plugins. Deleting or removing the these files (eg, by deleting all plugin files) will result in a very limited AOI installation.
Well, a few things actually.
Art Of Illusion is a powerful piece of software, and with that power comes complexity, and sadly, the potential for things to break - or at least, not work as expected.
Here is a list of the more common sources of problems: