Newest Editor bug with custom tree models

[BigDatesNew]

Hello, let me preface this by saying the bug occurs on every map file I now open, from brand new ones dating back to years ago, with every version that WAS previously working over the years is now also broken.

There appears to be a bug in the current version of world editor, where trees with a custom model appear properly in World Editor, but in game only the shadow appears.

When opening an old map, it appears to work normally up until the point you save the map, even if there were 0 changes. However the mere act of saving even a very old map in the new version of the editor causes this bug to happen. It's happening to a couple other developer's maps (e.g. Fellowship by Emil) and I know it's not the model file because it was working for years, AND, because in testing on a BRAND new map, even copying a basic tree e.g. Cityscape summer tree wall, then changing the model to any base WC3 model with 1 variation, changing variations to 1 and setting lightweight to false, this bug still occurs.

I was wondering if anyone else has ran into this issue? and how they were able to get around it?

Currently my only thought is to replace all of our trees in game with a doodad that has the model instead - this seems to work around the bug.

Screenshot of the issue: Note that the trees you DO see are doodads using the exact same model as the trees, however the trees appear as shadows:

I've tried re-installing the editor, before contacting other editors and we're all having similar issues so I'm sure this must be widespread but has gone unnoticed

 

[Retera]

This is not a solution, but in case it helps:

My current understanding of the history of the known leaks is that a bunch of World Editor upgrades were in progress in 2020 when the old team was let go, and so the new people or persons who started releasing patch 1.33 and beyond in 2022 started from an incomplete branch of the Warcraft III: Reforged code for Patch 1.33. And because this incomplete branch included an incomplete "ranked ladder," management wanted these guys to push the new code out the door and release it without extensive review of other stuff that doesn't matter to management like World Editor features or obscure game mechanics.

My understanding is that people kept having tons of issues from the bugs that the old team probably created in 2020 but that those guys knowingly didn't publish (because that stuff wasn't finished) and then that the new people or person(s) published the bugs into production on August 17, 2022 without understanding the issues nor how to fix them. But it was enough of a problem that Activision Blizzard actually decided to fix at least one critical bug that their antics introduced in 2022 from their release of the incomplete works of the previous team. Although I have been losing enthusiasm to play the "official" client, my understanding is that they eventually fixed the aggressive caching bug that would break any file loaded from a map after a different map or configuration was played with a file of the same name. I believe this fix was a part of the Patch 1.35, from what I have read.

So, that means that other known bugs such as Naga Building Birth and other animated water systems failing to render, and other stuff, probably is still broken. But they did fix at least one bug that they pushed out on August 17th, 2022. Maybe there is hope they would fix another?

My current understanding is that since Patch 1.33, the Unit Data and Destructable Data and related systems in the Object Editor save in a new format. Someone asked me for help fixing their insane data issues and that was when I realized my third party tools could not help them, because that August 17th, 2022 update that Patched the Reforged so that all ingame 3D models were in a different format apparently also patched the World Editor so that Object Editor saves all data in a different format, too. This new format, which I understand declares itself at a technical level to be "version 3" is still something I have not fully studied. I'm only aware of its predecessor versions, like what we get from Frozen Throne object editor. In theory it's probably not extremely different, but one obvious difference was that it tries to split the object data of each class (unit, ability, etc) into 2 parts, where one part is for the visuals and one part is for the physical behavioral data. In theory, this split might cause that the visual data could be swapped out between the HD and SD modes or something, while the behavioral data would remain the same and not desync in the custom map. I can only imagine that idea, or something loosely similar to it, might have been the source of the problem.

Of course, to remain compatible with maps saved from older versions of Warcraft 3, the actual Reforged game client must be capable of loading object data in both the older Version 2 format, and also the newer Version 3 format. But the new World Editor Object Editor has no option that I know of for choosing to save to the older Version 2 format from before August 17th, 2022. In general, Blizzard does not tend to appear to support saving data in an older format from their editor.

My guess as a passerby, which may be uninformed at this point and may be incorrect -- and which I did not test yet (so this is just arm chair theoretics) -- is that maybe Patch 1.33 and beyond are corrupting the data you describe when they convert "version 2" object editor data into the "version 3" object editor data. Maybe the "version 3" data is not able to express the "lightweight model file" setting turn off.

If this is correct, there are likely 2 solutions I can think to suggest:

1. Use Patch 1.32.10 for your World Editor, because it was developed by the previous team
2. Try to aggressively notify Activision about the issue to get them to fix it, because chances are slim that they would fix it although as Patch 1.35 cache bug fix shows us, not impossible