Broken general models

[es157]

Hello there.

I've entered the bug-hunt phase of mod development. The bug in question is the famous silver surfer battle model. I was never good working with the battle_models.MODELDB file, but I thought I knew better. This thing is making me confused.

While my soldier models are all right, some of my generals are silver surfers. This is true even in cases when the model used for the general is the same as the model used for a soldier type. I don't know why this is so.

After further testing, I realised that the general model only appears as a silver surfer if he has certain unit types as his bodyguard. I even got two generals for the same faction taking part in the same battle, with one being a silver surfer and the other being normal, even though their models are the same. The difference was the bodyguard unit of each general.

Am I missing something obvious? I heard the silver surfer problem can have more than one cause.

[Gigantus]

Silver surfer - missing ownership faction texture entries in the model's modeldb entry, see the models in the armour_ug_models line as well as any entry in the officer lines, the latter are optional entries so may not be present.

[es157]

Silver surfer - missing ownership faction texture entries in the model's modeldb entry, see the models in the armour_ug_models line as well as any entry in the officer lines, the latter are optional entries so may not be present.

So there is nothing about bodyguard types affecting the model? I suspected, but lol what's happening then? Gotta investigate a bit further.

Also, the only mention to armour_ug_models is in EDU. Isn't it exclusive to soldiers (not generals)?

[Gigantus]

The general (and captain) model is in the descr_characters file, you will need to check if every faction in that file has an entry in the modeldb file, eg in that model's section:

type            named character

actions            moving_normal, moving_quickmarch, garrison, assault, attack, besiege, entrench, ambush, diplomacy, bribe, exchange, building_fort, building_watchtower
wage_base        200
starting_action_points    80

faction            venice
dictionary        15
strat_model        southern_general
battle_model    Northern_General
battle_equip    gladius, chainmail shirt helmet and rectangular shield

type            general

actions            moving_normal, moving_quickmarch, garrison, assault, attack, besiege, entrench, ambush, exchange
wage_base        0
starting_action_points    80

faction            venice
dictionary        15
strat_model        southern_captain
battle_model    Northern_Captain
battle_equip    gladius, chainmail shirt helmet and rectangular shield

The body guard of the general is defined in the EDU file.

[es157]

Boy, why am I so full of these weird issues that only happen to me? Idk

I have managed to solve it by adding an entry for merc (mercenary) models in modeldb. However, this has not helped me understand what was wrong in the first place. The unit in question isn't even mercenary.

[Gigantus]

The mercenary_unit attribute entry in EDU (required for the entry in modeldb to work) does nothing other then enable you to use one texture for all factions in the modeldb file via the 'merc' faction entry there - that way it doesn't matter which faction recruits a mercenary, the unit will always have a texture. In other words - you had a missing faction entry and have it now covered - it does however stop you from using individual faction textures, like red for england and blue for france.

Summary: there is nothing weird about this - you only need to understand how the texture allocation works.

EDU:
models in armour_ug_models line are the modeldb reference
models in officer line(s) are the modeldb reference
ownership line are the factions that need to be in the modeldb references

mercenary_unit attribute allows use of unified merc faction entries n the modeldb reference

descr_characters:
models in battle_model line are the modeldb reference
faction line is the factions that need to be in the modeldb reference
Note: there can be different battle models, hence you need to check the textures against modeldb one by one.

[es157]

The matter is, I actually had entries for the respective faction in place. They didn't work for whatever reason.

Since this file is extremely sensitive even to the smallest typos, I didn't assume the entries could contain any mistake, since they tend to result in crashes. Visually, they seemed all right as well.

But I take your word for it. And the merc entry has solved it.

[Gigantus]

Well, it might be a simple issue of the texture not being present in your mod or the entry having a minor typo, eg a wrong letter.