Trouble-shooting s3o units
This page assumes you have a working knowledge of Spring unit creation, and will address some common pitfalls in creating s30 units.
Invisible Unit
Problem: Unit spawns projectiles, engine flare, and other fx, as well as functioning correctly, but the model is invisible at any view distance.
Check:
- That your s3o has both a radius and height set in upspring.
Not even emited effects are visible
Make sure the model offset is centered and above ground in upspring.
Disappearing Unit
Problem:
Unit operates correctly, including being visible at low zoom levels, but disappears at higher zoom levels, often leaving a small grey blob. Example:
Check:
- The reduction to grey blob is done by the LOD (Level Of Detail) process in spring. For 3do units, this nicely scales down a full 3d unit to a sprite as you scale out. For s3o, this doesn't work as nicely. There are two things you can do:
- 1: Make sure your unit has a radius that reflect the model size accurately. The view distance at which LOD kicks in is proportional to unit radius.
- 2: Make sure your LOD setting in Spring is high enough to actually display the unit correctly.
Messed up unit texture
Problem: Unit looks normal in Upspring but in the game the textures is messed up.
Solution: in Upspring, open this menu: Texture Mapping -> Show UV mapping -> Edit -> Flip UV
This will make the model look strange in Upspring but ingame it will actually look normal.
Unit orientation is wrong
Problem: Unit drives sidewards or backwards.
Solution:
In Upspring rotate your model like this:
Model is all white
Problem: The unit is all white.
Solution: Check if the .s3o has a texture assigned to it and if that texture exists. Upspring usually deletes texture assigment on loading a .s3o, so you have to reassign the texture every time you edit the model.
Model is all black
Problem: The unit is all black. Turning off shadows fixes it.
Solution: Normals on model are wrong. Invert the normals in Upspring
Model is all blue or another solid color
Problem: The unit is completly covered in team color.
Solution: No alpha channel on texture, add one.
Edges supposed to be rounded/smooth are angular
Problem: On cylinders, spheres, cones etc. hard edges are visible.
Solution: Try the advice from this thread: round edges on models
Spawning the unit crashes the engine (pre 85.0)
Problem: If the unit is spawned, Spring crashes. It works fine with a different .s3o file.
Solution: Check if the .s3o has a texture assigned to it and if that texture exists. Upspring usually deletes texture assigment on loading a .s3o, so you have to reassign the texture every time you edit the model.
