- Fix Stormwind barracks floor: interior WMO groups named "facade" were
incorrectly marked as LOD shells and hidden when close. Add !isIndoor
guard to all LOD detection conditions so interior groups always render.
- Fix water exit stair clipping: anchor lastGroundZ to current position
on swim exit, set grounded=true for full step-up budget, add upward
velocity boost to clear stair lip geometry.
- Re-enable NPC humanoid equipment geosets (kEnableNpcHumanoidOverrides)
so guards render with proper armor instead of underwear.
- Keep instance portal GameObjects animated (spinning/glowing) instead
of freezing all GO animations indiscriminately.
- Fix equipment disappearing after instance round-trip by resetting
dirty tracking on world reload.
- Fix multi-doodad-set loading: load both set 0 (global) and placement-
specific doodad set, with dedup to avoid double-loading.
- Clear placedWmoIds in softReset/unloadAll to prevent stale dedup.
- Apply MODF rotation to instance WMOs, snap player to WMO floor.
- Re-enable rebuildSpatialIndex in setInstanceTransform.
- Store precomputeFloorCache results in precomputed grid.
- Add F8 debug key for WMO floor diagnostics at player position.
- Expand mapIdToName with all Classic/TBC/WotLK instance map IDs.
Low-vertex groups (<100 verts) were incorrectly marked as distance-only
LOD shells in small WMOs like Stockades. Now only applies this heuristic
to large WMOs (50+ groups) where it's needed for city exterior shells.
- NPC hair/skin textures now use per-instance overrides instead of shared
model-level textures, so each NPC shows its own hair color/style
- Hair/skin DBC lookup runs for every NPC instance (including cached models)
rather than only on first load
- Fix keyframe binary search to use float comparison matching original
linear scan semantics
- Replace O(n) linear keyframe search with O(log n) binary search in both
M2 and Character renderers (runs thousands of times per frame)
- Smoke particle removal: swap-and-pop instead of O(n²) vector erase
- Character render backface cull: eliminate sqrt via squared comparison
- Quaternion validation: use length² instead of sqrt-based length check
Use cached model flags (isValid, isSmoke, isInvisibleTrap, isGroundDetail,
disableAnimation, boundRadius) on M2Instance instead of models.find() in
the hot culling paths. Also complete cached flag initialization in
createInstanceWithMatrix().
- Glow sprites now use dedicated vertex buffer (glowVB_) separate from
M2 particle buffer to prevent data race when renderM2Particles()
overwrites glow data mid-flight
- Move fadeAlpha from shared material UBO to per-draw push constants,
eliminating cross-instance alpha race on non-double-buffered UBOs
- Smooth adaptive render distance transitions to prevent pop-in/out
at instance count thresholds (1000/2000)
- Distance-tiered character bone throttling: near (<30u) every frame,
mid (30-60u) every 3rd, far (60-120u) every 6th frame
- Skip weapon instance animation updates (transforms set by parent bones)
- Split M2 instances into fast-path index lists (animated, particle-only,
particle-all, smoke) to avoid iterating all 46K instances per frame
- Cache model flags (hasAnimation, disableAnimation, isSmoke, etc.) on
M2Instance struct to eliminate per-frame hash lookups
- Replace full rebuildSpatialIndex on position/transform updates with
incremental grid cell remove+add, preventing 8.5ms/frame rebuild cost
- Advance animTime for all instances (texture UV animation) but only
compute bones and particles for the ~3K that need it
M2_UPDATE: 10.7ms → 2.0ms, FPS: 35 → 55-59
The single sceneColorImage races between frames with MAX_FRAMES_IN_FLIGHT=2:
frame N-1's water shader reads it while frame N's captureSceneHistory writes
it via vkCmdCopyImage. Pipeline barriers only sync within a single command
buffer, not across submissions on the same queue.
This caused VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST after ~700 frames on any map with water.
Disable the capture entirely for now — water renders without refraction.
TODO: allocate per-frame scene history images to eliminate the race.
The previous commit changed std::move to copy for terrain/mesh data to fix
the empty-cache bug. But copying ~8 MB per tile × 81 tiles caused a 60s
streaming timeout.
The tile cache was already broken before — putCachedTile stored a shared_ptr
to the same PendingTile whose data was moved out, so cached tiles always had
empty meshes. Remove the putCachedTile call entirely; tiles re-parse from
ADT files (asset manager file cache hit) when they re-enter streaming range.
The softReset cache clear from the previous commit remains as safety for
map transitions.
Three fixes:
1. Water captureSceneHistory gated on hasSurfaces() — the image layout
transitions (PRESENT_SRC→TRANSFER_SRC→PRESENT_SRC) were running every
frame even on WMO-only maps with no water, causing VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST.
2. Tile cache invalidation: softReset() now clears tileCache_ since cache
keys are (x,y) without map name — prevents stale cross-map cache hits.
3. Copy terrain/mesh into TerrainTile instead of std::move — the moved-from
PendingTile was cached with empty data, so subsequent map loads returned
tiles with 0 valid chunks from cache.
Also adds diagnostic skip env vars (WOWEE_SKIP_TERRAIN, WOWEE_SKIP_SKY,
WOWEE_SKIP_PREPASSES) and a 0-chunk warning in loadTerrain.
Add null checks for vertex/index buffers, pipelines, and zero-count
draws in WMO render path. The shadow pass already had buffer validation
but the main render() was missing it, which could cause GPU crashes
on WMO-only maps like Stockades (26 groups).
After VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST, beginFrame returns VK_NULL_HANDLE but
renderWorld() and renderHUD() were still called, passing the null
handle to vkCmdBindPipeline which triggered a validation abort.
Root cause: LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD path did not set areaTriggerCheckTimer_ or
areaTriggerSuppressFirst_, so the Stockades exit portal (AT 503) fired
immediately on login, teleporting the player back to Stormwind and crashing
the GPU during the unexpected map transition.
Fixes:
- Set 5s area trigger cooldown + suppress-first in handleLoginVerifyWorld
(same as SMSG_NEW_WORLD handler already did for teleports)
- Add deviceLost_ flag to VkContext so beginFrame returns immediately once
VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST is detected, preventing infinite retry loops
- Track device lost from both fence wait and queue submit paths
- Extract initializeRenderers() from loadTestTerrain() so WMO-only maps
(dungeons/raids) initialize renderers directly without a dummy ADT path
- Defer setState(IN_GAME) until after processing any pending deferred world
entry, preventing brief IN_GAME flicker on the wrong map
- Remove verbose area trigger debug logging (every-second position spam)
Reset descriptor pools in CharacterRenderer/M2Renderer/WMORenderer on map
change to prevent VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST from pool exhaustion. Defer re-entrant
SMSG_NEW_WORLD during active world load to avoid recursive cleanup crashes.
Gate swim bubbles on swimming state, skip redundant shadow pipeline re-init,
add WOWEE_SKIP_* env vars for render isolation debugging.
- Fix WDT chunk magic constants to big-endian ASCII (matching ADTLoader)
- Add minimum effective size for box area triggers (90 units, like sphere 45-unit radius)
- Add areaTriggerSuppressFirst_ flag to prevent portal ping-pong on map transfer
- Add WMORenderer::clearAll() to clear models/textures on map change (prevents GPU crash)
- Increase WMO texture cache default to 8GB
- Fix setMapName called after loadTestTerrain so WMO renderer exists
- Save/restore player position around CMSG_AREATRIGGER to prevent bad DB persistence
- Fix shutdown hang: skip vmaDestroyAllocator (walked thousands of allocations),
replace unsafe pthread_timedjoin_np with plain join + early-exit checks in workers
- Bank window: full icon rendering, click-and-hold pickup (0.10s), drag-drop for
all bank slots including bank bag equip slots, same-slot drop detection
- Loading screen: process one tile per frame for live progress updates
- Camera reset: trust server position in online mode to avoid spawning under WMOs
- Fix PLAYER_BYTES/PLAYER_BYTES_2 field indices, preserve purchasedBankBagSlots
across inventory rebuilds, fix bank slot purchase result codes
Water strafe used opposite sign convention from land movement.
Land: strafeLeft += right, strafeRight -= right.
Water was: strafeLeft -= right, strafeRight += right.
Now matches land.
Coastal areas like Booty Bay had gaps in ocean water where MH2O
data didn't cover harbor chunks (only 34/256 chunks had ocean
entries). For sea-level ocean surfaces (type=2, height~0), the
mask is now initialized to fully visible instead of empty, letting
depth testing against terrain handle land occlusion naturally.
unloadAll() now uses a 500ms deadline with pthread_timedjoin_np to
avoid blocking indefinitely when worker threads are mid-prepareTile
(reading MPQ archives / parsing ADT files). Threads that don't finish
within the deadline are detached so the app can exit promptly.
unloadAll() joins worker threads which blocks if they're mid-tile
(prepareTile can take seconds for heavy ADTs). Replace with softReset()
which clears tile data, queues, and water surfaces without stopping
worker threads — workers find empty queues and idle naturally.
- Add VK_DESCRIPTOR_POOL_CREATE_FREE_DESCRIPTOR_SET_BIT to water material
descriptor pool so individual sets can be freed when tiles are unloaded
- Free descriptor sets in destroyWaterMesh() instead of leaking them
- Add terrain manager unloadAll() during logout to properly clear stale
tiles, water surfaces, and queues between sessions
- Add diagnostic logging for water surface loading, material allocation
failures, and render skip reasons to investigate missing water
Camera collision with WMO walls and M2 doodads caused erratic zoom
and pull-through at doorway transitions. Terrain-only camera floor
clamping is retained.
- Add build.ps1/bat, rebuild.ps1/bat, debug_texture.ps1/bat (Windows equivalents
of existing bash scripts, using directory junctions for Data link)
- Fix asset extractor: StormLib is not thread-safe even with separate handles per
thread. Serialize all MPQ reads behind a mutex while keeping CRC computation and
disk writes parallel. Previously caused 99.8% extraction failures with >1 thread.
- Add SFileHasFile() check during enumeration to skip listfile-only entries
- Add diagnostic logging for extraction failures (first 5 per thread + summary)
- Use std::filesystem::temp_directory_path() instead of hardcoded /tmp/ in
character_renderer.cpp debug dumps
- Update debug_texture.sh to use $TMPDIR fallback and glob for actual dump filenames
Recreate Vulkan swapchain in LoadingScreen::render() when the dirty flag
is set, so resizing the window during world loading no longer renders
into a stale swapchain with mismatched framebuffers.
- Windows: SetThreadAffinityMask to pin main thread to core 0 and
exclude workers from core 0
- macOS: thread_policy_set with THREAD_AFFINITY_POLICY tags to hint
scheduler separation (tag 1 for main, tag 2 for workers)
Water deduplication: merge per-chunk water surfaces into per-tile surfaces
to reduce Vulkan descriptor set usage from ~8900 to ~100-200. Uses hybrid
approach — groups with ≤4 chunks stay per-chunk (preserving shore detail),
larger groups merge into 128×128 tile-wide surfaces.
Re-add incremental tile finalization state machine (reverted in 9b90ab0)
to spread GPU uploads across frames and prevent city stuttering.
Pin main thread to CPU core 0 and exclude worker threads from core 0
to reduce scheduling jitter on the render/game loop.
StormLib's bundled libtomcrypt uses x86 inline assembly (bswapl/movl)
gated by __MINGW32__, which is defined on CLANGARM64 too. Pass
-DLTC_NO_BSWAP to force portable C byte-swap fallback.
The incremental advanceFinalization state machine broke water rendering
in ways that couldn't be resolved. Reverted to the original monolithic
finalizeTile approach. The other performance optimizations (bone SSBO
pre-allocation, WMO distance culling, M2 adaptive distance tiers)
are kept.
Phase-splitting across frames caused water surfaces to not render
correctly. Changed processReadyTiles to run all phases for each tile
before moving to the next, with time budget checked between tiles.
Replace monolithic finalizeTile() with a phased state machine that spreads
GPU upload work across multiple frames (TERRAIN→M2→WMO→WATER→AMBIENT→DONE).
Each advanceFinalization() call does one bounded unit of work within the
per-frame time budget, eliminating 50-300ms frame hitches when entering cities.
Additional performance improvements:
- Pre-allocate bone SSBOs at M2 instance creation instead of lazily during
first render frame, preventing hitches when many skinned characters appear
- Enable WMO distance culling (800 units) with active-group exemption so
the player's current floor/neighbors are never culled
- Add 4-tier adaptive M2 render distance (250/400/600/1000 based on count)
- Remove dead PendingM2Upload queue code superseded by incremental system
Fix tile re-enqueueing bug: keep tiles in pendingTiles until committed to
loadedTiles (not when moved to finalizingTiles_) so streamTiles() doesn't
re-enqueue tiles mid-finalization. Also handle unloadTile() for tiles in
the finalizingTiles_ deque to prevent orphaned water/M2/WMO resources.
- Fix StormLib package name: libstormlib-dev → libstorm-dev (correct
Ubuntu package name) across all CI workflows and extract_assets.sh
- Build StormLib from source on Windows CI (no MSYS2 package exists),
ensuring asset_extract.exe is included in release archives
- Update extract_assets.sh/.ps1 to prefer pre-built asset_extract
binary next to the script (release archives) before trying build dir
- Move ADTTerrain allocations from stack to heap in prepareTile() to
fix stack overflow on macOS (worker threads default to 512 KB stack,
two ADTTerrain structs ≈ 560 KB exceeded that)
When M2Renderer's descriptor pool was exhausted, batch.materialSet
would be VK_NULL_HANDLE and the bind was skipped, but the draw call
still executed using the previously bound descriptor set from
CharacterRenderer — causing game objects to render with the player's
skin/armor textures. Skip the entire batch instead.
Character was facing stage-left (yaw 180) instead of toward camera;
corrected default yaw to 90. Added MSAA support to VkRenderTarget with
automatic resolve attachment, and enabled 4x MSAA for the character
preview off-screen pass.
Remove freeze-while-moving and idle smoothing logic from shadow
center computation. Texel snapping already prevents shimmer, so
the shadow projection can track the player directly each frame.
Remove isInterior restriction from WMO shadow sampling so city
buildings (flagged as interior groups) correctly receive shadows.
Apply shadow to interior-lit surfaces. Enable shadows by default
and persist the setting across sessions.
Zoom speed now scales with distance for fine control near the character.
Default max zoom out reduced from 50 to 33 units. New "Extended Camera
Zoom" toggle in Gameplay settings restores the full 50-unit range.
- Tighten celestial glow falloff and edge fade to eliminate visible quad boundary
- Add opacity support to minimap display shader, synced with UI opacity setting
- Fix audio double/triple-scaling by removing redundant master volume multiplications
- Rename "Original Soundtrack" toggle to "Enable WoWee Music"
- Add About tab with developer info and GitHub link
Alpha blending caused faint quad edges to be visible against the sky
gradient. Additive blending correctly adds glow light without the
outline artifact. Edge fade starts earlier and discard threshold raised.
Ripples were cleared every frame the player wasn't swimming, which
destroyed foot splash particles the same frame they were spawned.
Now particles expire naturally via their lifetime.
- Replace dark edge RGB on alpha-tested foliage with mip-4 average color
proportional to alpha (low alpha = low trust in original RGB)
- Raise foliage alpha cutoff to 0.4 and remove dither band for cleaner edges
- Disable depth test on insect particles so they don't vanish behind foliage
- Exempt dragonflies/butterflies/moths from foliage animation freeze
