Battle Crash with new unit

[Gigantus]

I am having a rather frustrating crash with a new unit. The unit shows up nicely in custom battle, the camera goes around nicely - but the moment I start positioning the unit and move the camera left or right the game crashes. Any ideas what might be causing this?

The modelDB entry:

14 amazoneschwert 
1 1 
64 unit_models/_Units/models/aventuria/amazone/amazoneoff_lod0.mesh 6400 
1 
4 merc 
78 unit_models/_Units/models/aventuria/amazone/textures/amazoneoff_figure.texture 
83 unit_models/_Units/models/aventuria/amazone/textures/amazoneoff_figure_norm.texture 
31 unit_sprites/amazone_sprite.spr 
1 
4 merc 
71 unit_models/_Units/attachmentsets/aventuria/amazone_attachments.texture 
76 unit_models/_Units/attachmentsets/aventuria/amazone_attachments_norm.texture  0  
1 
4 None 
14 MTW2_Swordsman 0  
2 
18 MTW2_Sword_Primary 
14 fs_test_shield 0 
16 -0.090000004 0 0 -0.34999999 0.80000001 0.60000002

The EDU entry

type             amazone
dictionary       amazone
category         infantry
class            light
voice_type       General
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          amazoneschwert, 50, 0, 0.8
attributes       sea_faring, very_hardy, hide_improved_forest, mercenary_unit
move_speed_mod   1.1
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2, 2, 6, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         9, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, slashing, sword, 0, 1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  1, 8, 2, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        0
stat_ground      1, 0, 5, -5
stat_mental      24, impetuous, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 1000, 200, 100, 100, 1000, 1, 300
armour_ug_levels 1
armour_ug_models amazoneschwert
ownership        all
info_pic_dir     merc
card_pic_dir     mercs
recruit_priority_offset    15

And finally a picture


The girls appear a bit sunken into the ground, but I guess that's easy to adjust.

[alleycat]

I wasted a week recently on a unit with similar types of behavior. In my case, after many hours of trial and error I determined that my texture to dds converturer or base photoshop file was causing some sort of problem that was beyond logic. I downloaded a fresh converter and flattened my texture and dragged it onto a new image file that had been freshly converted to dds from a working texture. I don't know which one fixed it. Also I've seen similar behavior in models having a stray unconnected vertex floating around. I'm sure you probably thought of these things but thought I'd share my experiences with weird unit errors.. Both are easy to test for.Try swapping in unrelated working textures to see if it works, then try swapping in a random working model with your textures. Obviously change the working model and textures to the names you've coded.

[Gigantus]

That's worth a shot as I didn't have any 'original' texture files and converted straight from DDS wit the python konverter. Guess I might as well just rename the texture folders and go for the 'silver look'.

Edit: Silly me, that crashed. Onto using other (renamed) vanilla textures.
Edit2: That crashed, too.
Edit 3: Opened and saved the existing DDS with GIMP, using BC3\DXT5 format. Converted with Python Converter. Took longer this time to crash - until melee was joined for about 10 secs. Will check for those stray vertexes.
Edit4: Nothing found

[Eothese]

Nice!

I can only suggest that you try with a differrent sprites line in the battlemodels file.
Or check that the model is not too high poly by maybe reducing the amount of models in the unit.
Other than that, is the captain new and untested?
Or is there a chance that the model has been cross converted, meaning that both GOAT and GOM have been used in the merging or converting process, not sure I have any more straws to clutch at...

[alleycat]

Oh I've lost some time on that captain one, good idea.
"Took longer this time to crash - until melee was joined for about 10 secs. "I've had this one Very recently, in my case it was model related and left unsolved. I was making a dunland pikeman with chain up to the nose. I wanted to class it up and made a chain vail that was a simple but shapely plane, to get the head to fit i chopped off half of it to get it the right way. I figured out the error by deleting pieces till the model loaded. I located the problem was either the head I chopped in half or the vail I made, but was out of patience to figure it out. messy and time consuming. Maybe try a stripped down version of the model for fun, if you're still having any.

[Gigantus]

I think it might be the model's high poly count - the mesh file is 513KB, about double of a regular model mesh.

Thing is, it worked well enough to make a movie with it. Unfortunately the files used for the movies are lost. All I have are DDS and MS3D files, no EDU or modelDB.

[alleycat]

:you should have started this thread with that picture. I personally start having issues with half of what you have there. I'll be happy to take a look at it if you want some fresh eyes on it. God knows you've indirectly helped me a hundred times with your posts on here so its the least I can do.

[Gigantus]

Be my guest and knock yourself out, it's appreciated.

[Eothese]

Yep, I'd say high poly count, there is a show model statistics on the tools tab with which you can compare it to a vanilla model. You can prove the theory easily enough, by setting the model as a factions captain, if you get no crash using the model as a captain you know this is your problem...

[alleycat]

i have a working silver surfer ..will get it to you thursday

[alleycat]

Gigantus, have pm'd you link to working model. you'll see some new info from me plugging into tatw to try out, Your textures are 100% okay but sent you some smaller ones anyways. Everything is okay. I only changed 2 things that might have made it work

1.changed weapon assignment to right hand
2. changed this
type amazone
dictionary amazone
category infantry
class light
voice_type General
banner faction main_infantry
banner holy crusade
soldier amazoneschwert, 50, 0, 0.8
to
type amazone
dictionary amazone
category infantry
class light
voice_type General
banner faction main_infantry
banner holy crusade
soldier Elf_Sword, 16, 0, 0.8


anyways my files are all in there. eveything looks silky smooth now, whatever the problem was.

[Gigantus]

I see if I can find the model changes to see what went wrong. Thanks for your effort, will come back on this.

Edit:

I am not sure what you did to stop the crash (texture or mesh?), but it works now! I had to re-allocate the attachment groups to the right texture and use the old attachment texture, but now it works. Thanks a lot.



I just have to figure out which comment to use so that the girls get their feet out of the ground - the horizontal line goes through the hip joints as it should be. Curious enough the 2H_sword animation causes a crash, this is the 2H_axe one I am using.

[alleycat]

Honestly I don't know what I did either. Converting it to ms3d and back again was about it. Your textures all worked fine for me. I'm afraid my experience with feet in the ground is limited to custom skeletons, maybe just make her a little shorter?, anyways glad I could help.

[warlord_wrug]

I didn't know it was possible to make models duel wield. So I could make a unit with a axe and sword in each hand & maybe edit the animations to make the unit use both weapons?

[Gigantus]

It still uses the regular sword\shield animation - but it looks pretty much like dual wielding.