Weird bug…

Today I was trying to finalize the Mac version so I could send it to the UI artist, and I found a really weird bug…

So, sometimes the ship landing looks like this:

So, first guess: shader… But this only happens on the Mac build, it works fine on the Linux and Windows build… Still, might be the shader, so I played around it… This is where things got freaky: sometimes I’d add a comment to the shader and it would work, others it would stay the same. Some times I’d change some code (skip a rendering pass or something), and it would work, others it would stay the same…

After a couple of hours, I still wasn’t clear on exactly what was causing the problem, except for the fact that it only happens to that particular object. The only difference between this object and the remaining ones is that this one has an additional texture to be used as emissive (which is what actually is displayed).

After a bit more tests, I arrive to another weird conclusion: the problem is timing dependent. If I fly from the Skydancer to the planet as soon as the save game loads, the ship displays properly and will display properly until I fly up and down again… If I wait some seconds in the Skydancer before flying down, it will display wrong…

I’m not exactly sure on what that means (can’t figure out a relation between time and the shader), but it’s another piece of the puzzle… Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to figure it out!

Now listening to “Hydra” by “Within Temptation”

Link of the Day: Whooooooo, Deadpool!