Once again, I am going to be showing off some different bugs that can arise from the models within video games. And, once again, there are .gifs in this blog, so viewer discretion is advised.
Though models are one of the most important aspects of a video game, sometimes glitches regarding their placement and/or physics can arise. In fact, those types of glitches tend to be some of the most common within video games.
There are many reasons that this is the case. One reason is that, occasionally, it is hard for the engine to make the calculations necessary for specific models. This can lead to the models being offset — slanted slightly — or spawned in at the wrong location.
“Spawning in” means to have something — usually a model — brought into the game. This usually means bringing it out of its storage state, but sometimes a model can be spawned in through code only.
For example, a small model, such as a crab, tends to spawn in directly through code rather than through bringing it out of its storage state. This helps save on resources.
Take this .gif above. In this clip, a crab is spawned in the air when I jump off the cliff, which causes it to fall to the ground.
It should go without saying, but the crab shouldn’t have spawned in at that height, or in the air. The engine got confused and the chosen z-axis (the height) got pushed towards the player’s height.
As with most of these bugs, I have no idea why the engine did this, but it was interesting seeing a crab fall from the sky when I wasn’t expecting it.
In the screenshot above, the NPC (Non Playable Character), is offset. What that means is that the orientation for the model was skewed, and the engine didn’t do anything to fix the problem.
Normally, the engine is also in charge of making sure all the models are facing the right orientation, and can automatically fix any problems that occur. But sometimes, a bug occurs that prevents that fix from happening.
In this .gif, the same model offset glitch occurred. As with the last screenshot, the engine failed to fix the problem, leading to the model of the NPC leaning to one side.
The reason that this glitch happened in both cases is because of certain enemies spawning in. In this game, some enemies spawn in by rising out of the ground. As it happened, the enemies spawned in underneath the NPCs, skewing them in the process.
Normally, the game engine wouldn’t have the enemies spawn in underneath NPCs like this, but it happened twice, so the code preventing that from occurring seems to be prone to failure.
Lastly, in the .gif above, one of the models for a Pokemon is spawned in at the wrong height. This leads it to fall from the cave ceiling.
The reason this occurred is because of the engine failing to find a valid spawning location for the model. This led it to spawn it in the air instead.
However, even though both model offset and bad model placement are fairly common, they don’t tend to be game breaking. Most of the time, they just bring about funny and interesting sights, but otherwise don’t change the game play at all.
