[General] Colour tints of units randomly changing in-editor and in-game

[JMitchy]

Hello all,

I'm having a downright bizarre issue with the Editor - basically, custom units are having their rgb colour tints changed without me doing anything, causing units in my map to look like they're glowing blue, red, purple etc.

This issue seems to occur randomly between saving/loading the editor as well as switching between different campaign maps. I'll try to get a video of it occurring at some point to help describe what I mean, but I've scoured the internet looking for other people having the same issue as me and have found absolutely nothing, I'm extremely confused to say the least.

Thanks!

Edit: got a video of it happening here for reference -

Edit 2: To make things even more confusing, when I'm sending the campaign file to other people to check on their end, they're getting different results to me (colours of different units on theirs are wrong but normal on mine). I'll also attach the campaign file for reference in case anyone wants to take a look.

 

[Retera]

As a curious passerby, and without checking on this myself, I have a guess about what we are seeing here.

You are trying to use the Reforged 2.0 thing where they shovel the SD graphics into the Reforge, and run AI upscale on all the files without checking them. So, this plan from Microsoft to impress you without human labor has some technical issues.

The Reforged bandits have a custom model for each guy. The Classic SD bandits have the same model for each guy, with different tint colors.

Now you are trying to use the Reforged client but with all the Classic SD graphics dumped into it to impress you and make you think a new product was created. However, there are two sets of unit color settings -- "Classic" and "Reforged". Which one are you using? I don't know because I didn't spend time with 2.0 yet, but I'm guessing whoever at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to dump the SD models into Reforged probably also doesn't know.

Unit Editor data is stored as a change against the existing data instead of storing all new values. So if the editor detects that your new value is identical to the existing value, then it will erase your new value because it is no longer a change from the default settings. That is to say -- if the only thing stored are changes, and your data matches the original, then your thing no longer needs to be stored.

I could be totally wrong about this but I think the Campaign Editor is not a focus of this company. So there are probably cases where it is loading the SD color information and other cases where it is loading the HD color information. So it loads the SD color information, changes the color of your guy to be tinted, then you change it back, then it detects that your guy is 255/255/255 uncolored which is the same as the Reforged graphics you are using then it eliminates your change from unit storage, then you repeat this going in a circle because your buddy at Microsoft dumped classic graphics into Reforged, without respect for the technical details of either source material, I'm guessing.

I think he probably won't fix it. Maybe if you make your campaign in the SD graphics mode but play it in the Reforged+classic models mode, then you would have a consistent editor without bugs since the older "classic" data will always tint the units, and then if you set to 255/255/255 this will always be seen as a change against the original data.

You could try to report this on the Bug Reports channel of the official Warcraft 3 forums and maybe they will see it and help you. I am an old, tired Warcraft 3 customs fan who was here on this site active in the 2014-2016 era before Reforged and when I didn't expect Reforged. I was going to be here regardless, so I have this kind of tired, perhaps negative viewpoint where I say sad things like claiming the guys at Microsoft will not fix it for you. But now is the time to act, and to hope. Maybe I am incorrect. Maybe there is a way that they can patch this program to make more sense to you, and to them, and to anybody else who uses it.

[Edit: All of the above was written without opening the world editor, while on a mobile. So I did not do research to write these ideas and am only sharing my experience as a veteran of the custom games. Someone else might reply here with better and more technically accurate descriptions of what is happening on patch 2.0 than what I have provided.]
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[JMitchy]

--snip--

Hey Retera! Thanks for your response, I think you might be onto something!

This is a project I've been working (verrry slowly) on since before OG reforged, I think I started around 2015-ish, so it's no surprise that I've been encountering weird issues like this tbf.
However, you pointing out the separate colour settings between Classic/Reforged models has made me realise something - I think all of the units I'm having issues with are based on Classic units that had colour-tinted models (Bandit/Giant Wolf, etc).
And thinking back, I think I originally started encountering issues like this around the time or shortly after Reforged dropped.
Definitely seems like the problem has become more prevalent recently though, and I'm still very surprised that I seem to be the only person across the entire internet who's reported an issue like this

At least now I should be able to do some sort of workaround, even if it's a pain - thanks for your insight!
And yeah, I might as well report this on the official forums on the off-chance it gets looked at, but I won't get my hopes up for anything there

Thanks again, your response is appreciated