Trouble-shooting s3o units

This page assumes you have a working knowledge of Spring unit creation, and will address some common pitfalls in creating s30 units.

Invisible Unit

Problem: Unit spawns projectiles, engine flare, and other fx, as well as functioning correctly, but the model is invisible at any view distance.

Check:

• That your s3o has both a radius and height set in upspring.

Disappearing Unit

Problem: Unit operates correctly, including being visible at low zoom levels, but disappears at higher zoom levels, often leaving a small grey blob. Example:

Check:

• The reduction to grey blob is done by the LOD (Level Of Detail) process in spring. For 3do units, this nicely scales down a full 3d unit to a sprite as you scale out. For s3o, this doesn't work as nicely. There are two things you can do:
  • 1: Make sure your unit has a radius that reflect the model size accurately. The view distance at which LOD kicks in is proportional to unit radius.
  • 2: Make sure your LOD setting in Spring is high enough to actually display the unit correctly.

Messed up unit texture

Problem: Unit looks normal in Upspring but in the game the textures is messed up.

Solution: in Upspring, open this menu: Texture Mapping -> Show UV mapping -> Edit -> Flip UV

This will make the model look strange in Upspring but ingame it will actually look normal.

Unit orientation is wrong

Problem: Unit drives sidewards or backwards.

Solution: In Upspring rotate your model like this:

Spawning the unit crashes the engine

Problem: If the unit is spawned, Spring crashes. It works fine with a different .s3o file.

Solution: Check if the .s3o has a texture assigned to it and if that texture exists. Upspring usually deletes texture assigment on loading a .s3o, so you have to reassign the texture every time you edit the model.