More Android Build Issues

If you've been waiting for the Android version of v0.30.0 you've probably noticed it still hasn't been released. As you might expect, that's because i haven't sorted out the Ren'py build issues I'm running into. I have been able to rule out a few potential fixes, and I've got a few things left to try.

I've tried a completely fresh install of Ren'py without any luck, but I have confirmed that it will build a test project without any issues. I have also been able to build v0.30.0 if I leave out the image library, meaning the problem must lie with packaging up all of the images. I thought it may have been a memory issue (The android building process is very RAM intensive), but I had no success when I allocated 27 GB to the process instead of the 16 GB I had successfully used for v0.29.

In terms of raw storage space required v0.30 is actually smaller than v0.29 was, despite having an extra ~8000 images for new faces. That's thanks to the new cropping technique, which cuts down on the amount of empty space and slightly reduces all of the file sizes. I think the problem may be related to the sheer number of files LR2 is making use of for all of the character image. The number of image files jumped 13% between v0.29 and v0.30. If it was a memory problem and the memory use was linear this should have been covered by my increase to 27 GB, but it wasn't.

My current leading theory is that I've stumbled upon an oversight in the android build code that stores the "number of files" as a two byte number. The largest number two bytes can represent is 65,536. Coincidentally this is a number that is higher than the number of images in v0.29, but lower than what is in v0.30. The android build may attempt to index all files and produces an error when it tries to record file #65537. I've tried a build that reduces the number of image files in the /character folder lower than the 2-byte limit but had the total number of game files higher than the 2-byte limit, which failed. I am now trying a build that cuts out four of the new faces to bring the total game file count to just under the suspected threshold (65,300, to be precise), I should know by tomorrow if my suspicion is correct.

If I am correct the android version will be released with all of the new content minus half of the new faces. During the next update cycle I will work on a system to assemble all of the clothing images into master atlas images (ie. one large image with all of the clothing images tiled inside of it), which should make sure we never run into this issue again. If I'm not correct, the trouble shooting will continue!

As a side note: if anyone is tinkering with LR2 v0.30.0 and manages to get it to build on android let me know how, I'm (obviously) very interested!