Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering

Problem:
Seemingly random parts of stone structures, fully supported from the sides, fully aligned, with green color structural integrity, randomly pop like popcorn when logging into game or moving into an area (rendering).

Note: this is NOT a claim about "build strength / proper alignment" so please refrain from some basic comment about the number of connections to ground, checking colors, etc..

Assumption:
Game progressively increases structural integrity during log in/rendering, starting with red for all blocks, and quickly checking for support, and ticking the color towards blue until it reaches some structural limit based on material, height, and number of connections ground (or destroying that object after 1 tick if no supporting connection has rendered yet).

Hypothesis:
If you have a stone "block A" supported from the side by a stone "block B", with no support directly below "block A", and you approach "block A" from outside of rending distance from the opposite side of the support "block B" until "block A" will render but "block B" has not rendered yet, then "block A" will pop like popcorn.

Further, I hypothesize that this phenomena can happen at speed, as rendering rate is limited by the server, network provider, and console.

Community Questions
1. Do you agree that integrity can be effected by object rendering?

2. Do you think this is why some pieces of your builds seem to randomly pop?

3. Do you have a different understanding of how this happens?

Most importantly,
4. What can we do to stop it from happening (aside from adding structures directly below each popcorn object)?

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

Nobbler 0 comments 0 likes

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vinyblaster replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 3:04:43 pm PST

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:
Originally posted by fusioncut:
I have had celebrations for finally getting the top of my building to stay up, gone afk, come back and sit down for awhile to decide what to add next... an hour after I finished... one falls... then another... right back to where it started before I "fixed" my support issue... Just takes one... very frustrating... heh

To be fair, there are a lot of support calculations that need to be done for a larger build, and the calculation seems to be rate-limited, too. The larger the build, the more pieces it has to check; even "small-ish" builds can take several seconds before the engine figures out that a particular roof piece (for example) isn't actually supported, and collapses it.

It's theoretically possible that some of these much-delayed collapses are simply due to having to check literally thousands of connected pieces before determining that "this particular piece" isn't supported well enough.

That being said, chunk boundaries are also an obvious potential culprit. I hope we get to the bottom of it soon.

I dont know, at the end of the day a build is just a graph. Especially with the very simplistic stability mechanic. Graph algorithms are pretty optimized at this point. Even thousands of pieces should be a piece of cake to calculate distance to foundation.

12:13 am, March 12, 2023

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Originally posted by vinyblaster:
I dont know, at the end of the day a build is just a graph. Especially with the very simplistic stability mechanic. Graph algorithms are pretty optimized at this point. Even thousands of pieces should be a piece of cake to calculate distance to foundation.

No one has said the programmers are doing it the smart, optimized way. As I said, the evidence points to them doing a "nearest neighbors" calculation for each and every block, perhaps not even checking "path to ground" for a given block, but instead calculating based on every block in the build, for every block in the build.

To test this, go make a simple house, then add 45 degree beams off the roofline until it collapses. Notice that it takes several seconds for the system to decide that last beam needs to fall off.

12:13 am, March 12, 2023

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Originally posted by vinyblaster:
Even thousands of pieces should be a piece of cake to calculate distance to foundation.

Maybe if the process was only done once, but it's being checked every second or so. If your system has a hiccup during a loading process of anything, such as when moving between chunks, things could temporarily stop working correctly.

12:13 am, March 12, 2023

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Originally posted by umop-apisdn:
Originally posted by vinyblaster:
I dont know, at the end of the day a build is just a graph. Especially with the very simplistic stability mechanic. Graph algorithms are pretty optimized at this point. Even thousands of pieces should be a piece of cake to calculate distance to foundation.

No one has said the programmers are doing it the smart, optimized way. As I said, the evidence points to them doing a "nearest neighbors" calculation for each and every block, perhaps not even checking "path to ground" for a given block, but instead calculating based on every block in the build, for every block in the build.

To test this, go make a simple house, then add 45 degree beams off the roofline until it collapses. Notice that it takes several seconds for the system to decide that last beam needs to fall off.

Oh you're right I can totally buy that they botched their implementation.

I believe that the delay before things collapse is a grace period for you to try to fix it real quick. The delay is always the same regardless of hardware.

12:13 am, March 12, 2023

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Originally posted by vinyblaster:
I believe that the delay before things collapse is a grace period for you to try to fix it real quick. The delay is always the same regardless of hardware.

A fair point, but I believe the delay is less a "grace period", and more a "waiting for the next 'tick' to perform the calculations, in an effort to optimize."

12:13 am, March 12, 2023

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Originally posted by Zep Tepi:
Are they really random pieces or are they the same ones every time?

That border explanation above sounds about right.

Same ones but not in a predictable pattern. Sometimes it triggers, other times not. There is too broad of an occurrence rate to detect any noticeable pattern. Hence, Random-seeming.

My guess is that there is more than 1 variable acting, which create the popcorn effect only under certain outputs.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:
I have this torch and sign that just breaks. I would go on an adventure and come back, or just log into the game and I would find the materials (copper, wood and coal) just there on the floor. The torch and the sign, placed next to each other, just decided to self destruct while I was away.

Interesting. Thanks for the datum!

Now that you mention it, I did find an item stand with a piece of bread broken in another part of my build once. I rebuilt it, replaced the bread on the table, and it has not popcorned since (hope i didn't just jinx it! haha)

Here are a few screenshots to consider:

I show 3 blocks that popcorn on my current build.
Popcorn Block 1 & 2 are "Stone Block 1 x 2" pieces, and the Popcorn Block 3 is "Stone Arch".
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945669227
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945669012

You can see that 1 & 2 are not above the boundary, but block 3 is.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945668820

If it was the boundary, then why are blocks 1 & 2 popcorning and not the blocks above, or next to the boundary?

I have the exact mini-tower built on the other side of the gate, just a little further from the boundary, but also not over the boundary, and the blocks in the same position do not popcorn.

Thoughts?

12:13 am, March 12, 2023

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Zep Tepi replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 10:20:06 am PST

Are they really random pieces or are they the same ones every time?

There is a rare bug that causes this, that I've only seen once in my various playthroughs. I had one stake wall shack on the edge between a black forest and a swamp, and one specific wall would always be broken when I returned to it. The rest of the building was completely fine. That one piece was supported properly, but no matter how many times I put it back, it always broke.

That border explanation above sounds about right.

9:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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Originally posted by Nobbler:
Originally posted by jonnin:
its from a lack of support and it just takes a while for the game to compute that its not good enough. Adding support below it is the only fix. Often you just need wood iron or iron embedded in the stone to shore it up, invisible and easy to do.

Incorrect. It has support. This is the kind of comment that I designated as try to avoid. Thanks anyway, amigo. I can sit and watch this same block for an eternity, to no change or effect.

However, moving away from it, to the point it despawns, then back towards it? Or - logging out and back in? Sometimes, but not every time, causes the popcorn.

and every time this has happened to me, changes to the support has fixed it. Ive had to do this a good dozen times by now, since I build a lot.

what I believe is happening is that they DO have a bug, and that when you leave and come back it {recreates, recomputes?} the structure and its integrity, and somehow that is done {wrong, out of order, slight roundoff error, other??} so that it is either popping when it should not (most likely!) because of the computational / order/whatever error or (very unlikely) it should have popped to begin with, but didn't.
But I assure you, it is entirely tied to structural support, and it can be fixed, with a great deal of trial and error.

9:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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Originally posted by fusioncut:
I have had celebrations for finally getting the top of my building to stay up, gone afk, come back and sit down for awhile to decide what to add next... an hour after I finished... one falls... then another... right back to where it started before I "fixed" my support issue... Just takes one... very frustrating... heh

To be fair, there are a lot of support calculations that need to be done for a larger build, and the calculation seems to be rate-limited, too. The larger the build, the more pieces it has to check; even "small-ish" builds can take several seconds before the engine figures out that a particular roof piece (for example) isn't actually supported, and collapses it.

It's theoretically possible that some of these much-delayed collapses are simply due to having to check literally thousands of connected pieces before determining that "this particular piece" isn't supported well enough.

That being said, chunk boundaries are also an obvious potential culprit. I hope we get to the bottom of it soon.

9:13 pm, March 11, 2023

0 comments 0 likes

John replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 5:01:25 am PST

Often happens when your structure in on a chunk border, i've had 2 structures just having pieces fall off for no reason, always on that clear visible line.

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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jonnin replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 7:23:20 am PST

its from a lack of support and it just takes a while for the game to compute that its not good enough. Adding support below it is the only fix. Often you just need wood iron or iron embedded in the stone to shore it up, invisible and easy to do.

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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fusioncut replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 7:37:31 am PST

I have had celebrations for finally getting the top of my building to stay up, gone afk, come back and sit down for awhile to decide what to add next... an hour after I finished... one falls... then another... right back to where it started before I "fixed" my support issue... Just takes one... very frustrating... heh

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

0 comments 0 likes

Originally posted by jonnin:
its from a lack of support and it just takes a while for the game to compute that its not good enough. Adding support below it is the only fix. Often you just need wood iron or iron embedded in the stone to shore it up, invisible and easy to do.

Incorrect. It has support. This is the kind of comment that I designated as try to avoid. Thanks anyway, amigo. I can sit and watch this same block for an eternity, to no change or effect.

However, moving away from it, to the point it despawns, then back towards it? Or - logging out and back in? Sometimes, but not every time, causes the popcorn.

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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Faceplant8 replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 9:27:22 am PST

I have some very large structures, and I have a tendency of pushing the limits of structure integrity. So far that, in one of my larger stone buildings I wanted a flat roof made of stone flooring over the main hall and, no matter what I did, I could not get the last piece in the center to stay. I finally built a fire under it and called it a chimney! :-)

All that to say that I have never, even with fully side-supported stone with no supports blocks that are in the deep red, seen anything just pop like that under any circumstance. I think the last time I had a building piece spontaneously fail was way back with my first large wood structure when I tried to build the roof too high. The center roof pieces failed due to (presumably) weathering after a time.

I've built these structures on local worlds and multiplayer servers, so I don't know what might be different between our configurations that might cause it. I suppose chunk boundaries could have an affect. I suppose I might have avoided those conditions. I'll have to poke around and see if that might be the case.

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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vinyblaster replied to Stone structures: random pieces popcorn crumble when rendering March 11, 2023 @ 9:55:56 am PST

Oh my god finally someone mentions this! I thought I was going crazy. What I've seen in my current run is not exactly what is described but does sound freakishly similar.

I have this base, kind of built up yeah but not crazy either (~3000 instances or something) and once in a while, totally randomly, I have this torch and sign that just breaks. I would go on an adventure and come back, or just log into the game and I would find the materials (copper, wood and coal) just there on the floor. The torch and the sign, placed next to each other, just decided to self destruct while I was away.

It's always these 2 objects. This has *nothing* to do with structure integrity (other than a bug of course) since this happens on my 2nd floor and my house has 3 floors.

6:13 pm, March 11, 2023

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