View entity not displaying in level (C-Script)

Hello everyone,

I contacted support regarding this issue yesterday, but didn't think to include a test level to show what is wrong. So, I've attached a test level here and am checking with the rest of you to confirm that I'm not doing something wrong.

I have defined a simple view entity, and set it to a very high layer. The problem is, the view entity no longer displays over the level itself.

Download this test file and unzip keeping the folder structure to see what I mean: www.upforums.com/testlevel.rar .

The level displays a lantern model for 3 seconds (with no level loaded), then loads a simple one-room level. When the level loads, the model disappears. But this shouldn't be the case, as, in previous versions of GameStudio, the model would remain visible over the level.

Any ideas what is wrong? I realize that most people have switched over to Lite-C, but my project has been in development for a number of years, and I have tens of thousands of lines of code, so switching over isn't going to be an option for me...especially since the project is nearing completion.

Thank in advance for your time and help, everyone!

This should not be dependent on lite-C or C-Script. We'll look into that.

Thanks, jcl!

Ok, the reason was that your model had transparent normalmaps. Normalmaps are not supposed to be transparent. For fixing this, please open the skin settings and change the normal maps from 32 bit to 24 bit.

This will also be fixed in the engine in a future version - we'll allow transparent normal maps then. Sometimes the height info is put into the alpha channel, so it could make sense.

They are transparent because I'm using the alpha map as a spec map for the shader.

Thanks for pinpointing the bug, jcl.

Is there any possible way of coming up with a quick fix for this before the next engine version? A publishing company is interested in testing a beta of my game, but they need the demo by the end of the week, and the game won't work properly without this feature, and I'd rather not send them a version without specularity.

There are shaders around here, which support specularity. These shaders don't use the alpha channel of the normalmap for the specularity but a third skin.

To find such a shader use the forum search or maybe look into the AUM's.

Dark_Samurai