about Crash, zero-sized 3d-objects, index and shadows in Dat-files

Hebe Vollmaus · 11-19-23, 04:04 PM

Hi there,
for some reason i would like to stop modding and try to play again a Campaign from 1939 on to the end in 1945.
But my game does not allow this!

In the middle of 1942 i stumbled over a Ship that crashes the game to desktop. Modding may be an endless-loop. LOL
I created a Training-Mission with that ship only to be shure the reason is this ship. Whenever i hit the target with my heavy-shells the game crashed. So with the help of "Silent 3ditor" (S3D) looked into its Dat-file. Found a bunch of zero-sized 3D-objects. Filled these 3Ds with something real. And the game nolonger crashes.
Really annoying, since the zero-sized 3D-objects allone should not be the problem, as there are some other files around which use these things for good. For example for fake-funnels or rudders.
I expanded mySH3-TooL to detect these Zero3Ds. On the way i found five Dat-files which S3D cannot open. Three of them had bad index-lenght. So added this to detect also indexes to my tool. What can i say... Almost all Dat-files in my SH3-install had bad indexes. Checked the original unmodified SH3 files - all are ok, and there are no zero-sized 3D-objects. As my game-install runs otherwise good, these indexes seems to be useless to the game.
For the long story short, i deleted all indexes i can find. Also allmost all Shadows (SHD, DynamicShadowCast, DynamicShadow), and useless (unfinished/forgotten) zero-sized 3D-object. The game looks the same, as it does not use DynamicShadows anyway.
SH3\data is a little more then 4GB. Saves little less then 60MB. Maybe not worth doing so. But now i have 3800 unused 3D-objects less.

Greetings.

11-19-23, 04:04 PM	#1
Hebe Vollmaus Lieutenant Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Germany Posts: 250 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 1	about Crash, zero-sized 3d-objects, index and shadows in Dat-files Hi there, for some reason i would like to stop modding and try to play again a Campaign from 1939 on to the end in 1945. But my game does not allow this! In the middle of 1942 i stumbled over a Ship that crashes the game to desktop. Modding may be an endless-loop. LOL I created a Training-Mission with that ship only to be shure the reason is this ship. Whenever i hit the target with my heavy-shells the game crashed. So with the help of "Silent 3ditor" (S3D) looked into its Dat-file. Found a bunch of zero-sized 3D-objects. Filled these 3Ds with something real. And the game nolonger crashes. Really annoying, since the zero-sized 3D-objects allone should not be the problem, as there are some other files around which use these things for good. For example for fake-funnels or rudders. I expanded mySH3-TooL to detect these Zero3Ds. On the way i found five Dat-files which S3D cannot open. Three of them had bad index-lenght. So added this to detect also indexes to my tool. What can i say... Almost all Dat-files in my SH3-install had bad indexes. Checked the original unmodified SH3 files - all are ok, and there are no zero-sized 3D-objects. As my game-install runs otherwise good, these indexes seems to be useless to the game. For the long story short, i deleted all indexes i can find. Also allmost all Shadows (SHD, DynamicShadowCast, DynamicShadow), and useless (unfinished/forgotten) zero-sized 3D-object. The game looks the same, as it does not use DynamicShadows anyway. SH3\data is a little more then 4GB. Saves little less then 60MB. Maybe not worth doing so. But now i have 3800 unused 3D-objects less. Greetings.