Why Mak hates M2TW modding

[makanyane]

Previous title: Shadows (or lack thereof)

We've had the 'disappearing shadows on strat-map buildings' issue for a while - I'm reasonably sure it's caused by the faction_variants of the settlement models (models_strat/residences/faction_variants) - am now finally getting round to testing to try and find out if it's the number of variants / the size of models/textures or some combination of those plus other stuff on the campaign map.

In our case the last listed culture (Ireland) is the one that always loses shadows.

Test 1: I tried using the smallest .cas I could find (port walls) as the variant model replacing 7 city/castle levels for 30 factions. The shadows problem didn't show up but the mod did gain a 100% each time crash and hang on exiting the campaign! Tried again with fewer factions and still had crash on exit - thought it might be something to do with the port model so went on to try village...

Test 2: Used the vanilla ne village model (18kb) copied and re-named to replace 7 settlement levels for 12 factions - Ireland's shadows have disappeared and I still have that crash and hang on exit
Reverted our strat trees and textures to vanilla and removed all resources from descr_strat - still no shadows + crash on exit.
Reverted our character models so everyone is using vanilla ones and everyone is using denmark ambassador.tga
Result: looks like a dogs breakfast - still no shadows on Ireland settlements - still crashes and hangs with
"Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit." - but that one did actually close instead of hanging...

Think we can safely say it is a problem with number of faction_variants!

Test 3: As an afterthought - removed some copies of within the residences folder - in case it's a number cached and not number used issue...
Nope

Test 4: One faction only - 7 replacement settlement levels (still using the vanilla village .cas) - shadows are back - no crash on exit
Four factions - 7 replacement settlement levels (note I'm not checking if these actually all appear on the map, a lot probably don't) - all still OK
Seven factions x 7 = still OK
Ten factions x 7 = shadows are OK but back to crash and hang on exit


I think I now need to also cross check with our descr_strat and see if this is related to variants that are actually getting used, because France actually has a large castle etc...

Test 5: removed 2 old copies of IWTE.exe from the residences folder! Turned off campaign shadows in options
10 factions with 7 replacement variants each still crashes on exit (obviously no shadows!)

Test 6: changed a couple of descr_strat entries so none of my variant factions are using largest castle. Didn't remove models. Still do have shadows - but still crash on exit.
Removed the large_castle .cas (which was still re-named village file) from the 10 variant folders. Campaign exits without problem!! So the crash problem seems to exist if you have the variants there, even if they've not actually been used on the map.

Rechecked that one as it seemed a bit odd - with large_castle model in the 10 folders got crash back - removed smallest castle so we're back to 10x6 models total in the variant folders = OK again

Added another faction with same models so 11x6 - crash and hang on exit is back.

Removed a few not in use .cas's and odd files from the main residences folder. Still crash on exit with 66 variant models. Removed 2 random ones to give 64 total - exits OK
Added one back - 65 total (in variants folders) - exited OK
rechecked with 66 - crashed again.

Called one of the 66 .cas files Fred.cas (e.g. not listed in cultures) - 65 valid names + fred = exited OK

Added one more faction folder with 1 valid named .cas so we have 66 valid named files + fred in diferent no of folders = crash on exit

Called one of the files _copy - so we're back to 65 valid named files = exited OK

[makanyane]

Part Two:
back to the shadows - (realised I lied earlier Wales is actually our last named culture now)


Stuck the vanilla ME fortress model (60kb) in instead of the village to replace 6 settlement levels per faction for 11 factions - shadows gone for Wales, Ireland and France - last three cultures - crash on exit too because 66

Retried with the 18kb variants now I've remembered to look at Wales etc. so with 65 18kb cas's the Welsh have lost shadows.

Back to 65 x the 60kb .cas ;
Wales Ireland and France missing shadows - no crash.

The 60kb .cas uses 3 textures. Hacked the model with IWTE to merge it to 1 texture. Tried 65x them (now 55kb due to removal of texture)
Wales Ireland and France still missing shadows - no crash.

Removed 5x .cas's from Aztecs and 3 from Barons Alliance, who don't actually have those settlements at start.
France have shadows back

Removed another 4 not used on start of map from Byzantium and 5 from another faction - all unused at start.
Wales and Ireland still missing shadows

Now also tried reducing the size of the main folder residences by copying the 18kb village file instead.
That gets Ireland's shadows back but not Wales

Removed 3 unused variants from Egypt.
Poor Wales! No shadows

Removed 3 unused from Fitzgerald.
Some Welsh settlements now have shadows but not all. Cricieth doesn't but Caernarvon does! Which gives me a swing point to try adding adjusting other stuff to see if anything else is related.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Adding bits back:
PKH character models back = no change
Added resources back to descr_strat = no change
PKH ground-types and original descr_strat back = no change
PKH trees back = no change - Cricieth and the larger Welsh settlements still missing shadows.

Added back the larger standard residences. = Wales has lost all it's settlement shadows - France and Ireland are OK

----------------------------------------------------------------
Reducing again
deleted Ireland (faction)'s folder with variants = still no welsh shadows
deleted hre (6 cas's) = we're back to half of Wales
minus 3 from france's folder = bit more still partial
minus last 3 france & 3 fitzgerald = welsh settlements have shadows - ports don't for anyone... only just realised that seems to be the last sign!

minus 6 cas's for England = England / Scotland have port shadows back
minus 3 for Egypt = welsh still don't have port shadows.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This Just triggering point =
I've got 10 faction variant models in (the 55kb copy of the ME Fortress) and our main residences (non-variant) models back, out of them only 4 are larger than vanilla - max size is one at 158kb - most are <50kb, most get re-used for the different cultures, but that probably doesn't help...

[makanyane]

Have changed the title of this thread to record other frustrations with M2 - todays wtf is the shadow doing issue = bridges:

strat map revolves the bridge model to 0,90,180,270 degrees to suit river direction - quite why they decided 0 and 180 degrees needed to be different I don't know, but they didn't think it was important enough to also rotate the shadow... so if you have a non-symmetrical bridge you get the shadow (including an outline of its unrevolved version)







also if you don't call the group the correct thing (bridge_a in the bridge_dirt.cas) all you get is the shadow