It's been a long day...
With the latest version a whole new set of bugs have cropped up, in an attempt to get a bug-fix version ready another new set of bugs has cropped up. Several of which I can't explain or fix (or even find a workaround). Today as a sort of personnal exorcism I'll list those bugs here...
- Collision on bridges - Bridges have separate meshes for the collision. Guess what, they don't work. Ha. They're simple meshes, with the right properties assigned to them and everything. But they won't export. After you have exported an Age you have this log file in your Uru/dat folder that tells you everything (agename.log), and sure enough the collision meshes for the bridges do not get exported. Also once the export process is over the meshes disappear in Blender (yes you read that right). If I save close and reopen they're back. So there is definitely something wrong with those meshes. I will redo them and that should fix it, but I'd really love to know what went wrong so it doesn't happen again.
- Footstep regions - The shells have footstep regions, but they won't work. I'm not sure why yet, as this isn't my priority, but I have couple ideas so that may not be much of a problem. What is a problem is that Shells have been distributed with those non-working regions. But I assumed most people would want to change them anyway, right?.. Right?
- Missing Shells lights fixtures - Shells are supposed to have light fixtures, on each side of the entrance and on the side walls (as can be seen on this screenshot). They are not visible in the released version because of a naming mistake: I had them named exactly the same as the actual lights. I had noticed it but fixing it at this moment would have required too much time. This has been fixed now.
- Bridges stairs - I kept the best one for the end; this one deserves an oscar or something. The bridges are made of several separate meshes (stairs, lamps, railings, underside etc) for no apparent reason when I export the Age the 'stairs' mesh is moved around by several feet. In Blender the stairs are in place, perfectly connected to the rest of the bridge, but in Uru they look like this. Not only is that bug strange in itself but it wasn't there in the previous version and I haven't touched the bridges at all since! As a test I took a bridge, exported to a new test Age and sure enough the same happens.. Yet another bug I need to file under 'WhatTheHell'... Those are my favorite bugs. Really.
As a side note, I'll be going on vacation tomorrow for the rest of the week. It was a planned thing I just didn't write about it earlier. I will be out of contact from everyone and from my work on the Age for a couple days, and I feel that can be a good thing. I hope. That should give me some much needed distance about many things, and I'm sure that'll give me tons of ideas on how to solve my bugs. And if it doesn't, I'm sure I'll get tons of ideas for shells and courtyards and other things in the Age. Even if I don't have a computer there I'll surely find some paper and a pen or two.
I should try to find a proper conclusion for this today's entry but I just can't. So I guess I'll just be happy to go to sleep; until next week.
See you there.
