Hello!
I'm having trouble getting around the vertex declaration error in TSRW. I tried removing the normal map and normal uv selectors from the mesh material tabs, but the normal map still shows up on the car, causing the UV mapping to scale out of proportion in game. By accident I did manage to fix the problem with most of the car by adding more mesh groups, but the issue still affects the mesh group for the lights. Though this only occurs when the car is parked not when the car is being driven.





Another problem that I can't get rid of is a weird shadow on the roof of the car. It's most visible at noon and I have no idea what causes it. It's something that always happens with custom meshes regardless of what car I clone.

Could you attach the .wrk and/or the .package to a reply?
Then we will be able to take a look and see if anything stands out as causing the issues

Sure! Here's the .wrk and .package

I waited a little to see if any more experienced object makers would poke their head in, but it looks like we're flying blind

I'm not overly familiar with the specific error and normals-UV scaling, unfortunately.
What I do know is that weird shadows are often from leftover references to EA resources, caused by TSRW's cloning as well as some methods of replacing meshes. If you start with a clone of an object made in S3OC instead, there tend to be less of these issues.

What I can also see from the package is that the MLOD/MODL are still referencing the EA normal map. If you make a new clone, it should include a unique normal map in the package instead of linking to the EA one. Then you could try either replacing it with an image of the correct size, make it blank, or remove references to it. I'm not sure which of those is most viable, as the threads on this issue are quite old.

If the issues remain just let me know and I'll look it into again and see if my own mesh importing methods have a different result.

Thanks for checking it out! I went back and re-cloned with S3OC, however the weird shadow was still showing up. As it turns out the issue was coming from the shadow meshes so I generated shadow meshes from the car and now the weird shadows are gone.

I did try what you suggested with including a unique normal map, however despite that the lights are still referencing the old normal map for some reason.

Another thing that I tried was replacing the lights mesh group by duplicating the body mesh group, reimporting the wso and then changing the lights back to the FullBright shader. That did remove the normal map and fix the uv mapping, unfortunately the lights stay in their 'on' state permanently.


I wonder if I can remove the normal map from the lights using S3PE? Otherwise I did make a version of this car cloned from the Fast Lane muscle car (the very first pic) which fixes the issue, so that might be the way to go.

If you can find the resource key for the old normal map in S3PE (when an MLOD/MODL is selected, in the list of resources near the top of the preview there will be a '0x00B2D882' key that doesnt match any of IDs for _IMG in the package) you can open the package in S3OC and use Tools > Replace ResourceKey to either exchange it with the ID of your new normal map or leave it set to the IDs with all zeroes to remove it. That might just cause a different kind of visual error, but that's how you can go about testing it.

If there's a car that works properly from the start that does sound much better though Good luck!

I gave that a try, but although it removed the old normal map from the lights, it didn't fix the UV mapping though. It was worth a try though.

So far the Fast Lane muscle car is working out great. All I have left to do is make LOD models and fix the seating positions and the driver's hands and feet. Thanks for the help!

I had not replied, as I do not do cars, but having seen your fix, can say that I have noticed Dailycard, who does do cars and motorcycles, often uses Fast Lane as donor. Perhaps there is something odd about base game cars?

Basically yeah. Since TSRW and Milkshape can't handle TS3's normal maps, that's where problems arise with the base game cars. They're also apparently way more difficult to change the wheelbase on compared to Fast Lane cars so yeah it makes sense to use Fast Lane cars to avoid problems.

I'm still baffled how other creators got around the normal map issue when making EA remeshes, seemingly without having to clone a Fast Lane car. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I currently have 3 versions of TSRW, but use only 2 of them. 2.0.86 is my fallback when the newer version does not allow blacked out textures to be replaced. I have never had issues replacing EA garment normal maps, but did see that the set up for cars is different. I never use Milkshape. As most objects do not have bones, only a rig, on rare occasion that I work on an object, I export from TSRW as object, and open in Blender. I work mostly with 2.80, but find some larger polycount meshes crash it on export, but 2.93 seems to handle those. Basically, have your favorite version to work with, but test drive other versions, and newest is not always best. )))