Posted by Data in Cortex Command - February 10th, 2014

I have some good news for veteran players of Cortex Command: the infamous Scene Gib Bug has finally been thoroughly eradicated! For those not in the know, it was a very hard-to-reproduce critical issue where your actors (including your brain!) would sometimes inexplicably explode in a shower of blood as they walked across the wrapping ‘seam’ of scene. A poor game experience, to say the least.

So, I am glad to report that my long suspicion was finally confirmed that the bug originated in the decade-old locomotion physics algorithms. Long story short, they were not fully taking into account the wrapping of some spatial delta calculation between absolute coordinates in the scene. This would only be relevant when the character headed across that otherwise seamless-looking wrap line, with his limbs on the ‘other side’, pulling his body forward on the first side, causing huge impulse forces due to the misinterpreted mathematical distance.

After having unsuccessfully tried to track it down for a very long time now (it was tough to even reproduce reliably – often the nature of physics simulations), I can with relief and pride say that it has been verified to be a resolved matter. It took the renewed efforts and fresh eyes of two very dedicated and talented members of the official Cortex Command team here at Data Realms, Weegee and Abdul, to both produce the special tools necessary to find, and then to fix, the issue once its general whereabouts were nailed down.

So, a BIG HUZZAH to them! Here’s a test scene/script that has been running for many hours, sending actors crawling across that former line of random death:

seamgibtest

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5 Responses to “Scene Seam Gib Bug BUSTED”

  1. haloman - # February 11th, 2014 at 2:47 am

    yes sooooooooooo ggggggooooooooooooooddddddddddd thx bro

  2. Mackerel - # February 11th, 2014 at 8:46 pm

    Very good news.

  3. Cybernetic - # February 13th, 2014 at 5:58 pm

    Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!!!!!
    Know how it feels to finally solve a nemesis bug, sometimes it seems like it will never be solved (as a developer) thanks!

  4. NowvaB - # February 16th, 2014 at 4:51 am

    I am so happy right now! 🙂
    I just wanna bake you guys a cake! dealing with that bug since the demo!

  5. yarow12 - # February 18th, 2014 at 4:00 am

    It’s nice to see the game still being developed.
    Thanks for the fix to a problem that I may have been (un)fortunate enough to miss.