Hi everyone,

I've been working on a game project for over a year now and realized that my critters did not have a proper material index assigned. Essentially they were set to 0 in their FPE. In an attempt to resolve I have updated the FPE's so that the materialindex = 6 for flesh, blood. However when testing my game the changes were not reflected and the material index did not update for the entites.

So I then deleted the DBO files and tested again. No success. So I then removed ALL instances of those entities from the map. Saved and waited for the entity to disappear off the left entity panel in the UI. I then places the updated entities into the map and tested. No success.

What is really strange is by this point i created an entirely new map and put the updated entities in... and guess what? What the material index was updated and they were working as expect. Just not on my game map project.

So I figure maybe some information is somehow retrain somewhere. So I created a sub folder in the entity bank and copied my entity there with the updated FPE. Then placed THAT entity in the old map. NOPE no success the material index still will not update.

As a final attempt to resolve the issue i created a new FPE file with the updated information and renamed it completely different from the previous. That did not solve the problem.

Does anyone know what I can do to resolve this issue?

Man, that's strange. I have had what I call "cursed scripts" because
lua calling a variable which was obviously assigned a value as 'nil'.

I think (by testing) that some of this had to do with at points having
the objects assigned to the scripts as isimmobile = yes, vs no, and
weirdly enough that will change whether lua calls an error for variables.

Doesn't help out your predicament, I know, but just saying... strangeness.

Have you ligtmapped the level? It won't show any changes you make on am amity that has been ligtmapped until you light map again.

When you mention ‘critters’ are you meaning dynamic ischaracter=1 NPCs are not showing blood decals when hit? Is isviolent=1 in the fpe?

I’m not sure what you are meaning when saying materialindex is not being updated.

Cheers.

Yeah, noticing an issue with materialindex not being assigned correctly with static models as well.

I have a level started about 6 months ago, in which all entities should produce either metal or glass when shot at.
I have meticulously gone through each FPE to assure they are assigned either:
- materialindex=2 (metal) or
- materialindex=4 (glass).

But some of them are producing a puff of dust (genericsoft), so the engine is assigning them a materialindex=0.

Put them on a new map and they are being assigned the correct materialindex.

OldFlak....

Weird Teabone. I adjusted the fpe's for all the classics entities and did not experience this.

In between deleting the old entities, saving the map and replacing the entities, did you restart GG?

Maybe - even though the entities disappeared from the entity list in the editor - GG didn't clear some internal reference table, and rather than reloading from disk used what it already had in memory. . .

Hi guys the updated FPE's work PERFECTLY in a NEW blank map. But do not work on my existing map. Even if all instances of the entity are wiped out.



They have ischaracter=1 but materialindex was set to 0. No blood. But I've changed material index to 6 and there is blood but only when the entity is in a new map and not the existing map that had the previous entity version.

I've not lightmapped my map and restarting GG doesnt seem to change anything. Blood Effect is set to Yes. But still no blood (yet it does work in new maps).

I'd be tempted to delete them all again, then unpack the fpm and scour map.ent and map.ele for any sign of the deleted entities just to confirm they're all gone - 'coz it surely sounds like one or more components of the fpm are not being correctly updated.
We could do with having a support person you could send such a problem to for investigation.

Problem solved!

Sooo basically if you set the Player Start Maker to Blood Effects off, this doesnt just effect the player. But it also effects ALL characters and disables the materialindex 6 emission of decals.

This sounds like a bug to me as entities have their own Blood Effects toggle and the start marker should not be used as a master control for that. It should only control the blood on screen and screams for the player as it has described.

Something to be added to the manual, I think.