Strange Graphical Bug

[CapitolTee]

I have been developing a map and while playtesting it we have been experiencing a strange graphical glitch ingame that makes it unplayable. This has never happened to me ingame, but it did to my friend in our first test game.

What could be causing this? How do i fix it?

The map relies heavily on placing terrain textures and pathability over the black texture, could this be causing it somehow?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[vuakudo]

Did your friend check the War3 settings? (Like the Light, textures to high, etc...)

 

[Warseeker]

The glitch occur to me aswell for certain maps, dunno the cause tho,. But certainly a problem with the War3 setting.

 

[CapitolTee]

We've both got every setting cranked to max, I tried turning the textures etc to low and it happened quicker in replays (but still not ingame for me)

 

[Dr Super Good]

Looks like either the environment lights are disabled (the model was changed with triggers, import or some other way) or other light sources are taking priority over the environment lights (too many lights).

WC3 is limited to 8 light sources per mesh. This limit comes from the fixed shader pipeline of OpenGL. Although D3D8 fixed shader might have a different light limit, it appears that it still has a limit. The game tries to intelligently select which 8 lights sources to use per mesh. However since the environment lights count as at least 1 light it is possible that other light sources could drown them out.

Judging by the screenshot, those custom models look like they are using lights. By having so many near each other the game probably forgets to select the stupidly bright environment light (it is like 1.4 total brightness), hence why everything appears so dark.

 

[CapitolTee]

Hmm. Is there any way to disable the lights on these other models? Most of those are standard warcraft 3 factories and markets, with the exception of the farms and the building in the top left. Would changing the light settings help this? Can i get it to always select the default brightness light?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Is there any way to disable the lights on these other models?

You could remove the light chunks from the model files.

Would changing the light settings help this?

No as the limit is hard coded and defined by the fixed shader pipelines used by WC3. Modern lighting systems such as used by StarCraft II have practically no limits to the number of lights in a scene.

Can i get it to always select the default brightness light?

No idea what algorithm WC3 uses to select which lights are used for a mesh. I would imagine it should always force the environment light however that may not be the case.