8.2 b1600: import of 3DO object can corrupt model

This is a manifestation of a general problem: unused groups / shapes may not be fully erased.

For example, let’s have a simple hierarchy of, say 3 objects, each one at a different level of hierarchy, and another object A1 alone in its own group.
Select the hierarchy of 3 objects (with ‘a’ key) and move it into the group of object A1.
The groups of the hierarchy are deleted from the hierarchy window but they are not actually erased as seen by ‘scene details’ plugin.

Create a simple scene with a hierarchy.

Import a 3DO object (one shape).

Move the 3DO object under the main group of the original scene.
Remove the group of the imported shape (the group is empty at that time).

Execute ‘scene details’.
The group of the imported shape is still listed in the scene details whereas it’s not visible anymore in the scene.

This doesn’t seem to produce bad behaviour of the model but if you keep importing and doing the above actions on the same model, you keep the deleted empty groups of each import.

I encountered a case where an imported shape was deleted but the shape was still in the model which made some troubles when I wanted to export to RS/RW2: 2 objects had the same name, a previously deleted shape, invisible in the scene and in the hierarchy window was imported with a color texture (so not textured as far as RS is concerned. Error messages at export time made me look further) and a visible one which was properly textured (a new version of the deleted shape).
I’m doing this import for the shadow shape.

If the invisible group cases are easy to reproduce, the invisible shape case is not.
Hopefully, I could get rid of the invisible shape moving shapes around and it seems (to be confirmed) that my model is now OK.

I’m sending an example of scene with the invisible shape (it’s named ‘shadow_engine’).

I figured this one out, and it’s pretty ugly. I’ll have to do some re-writing of the scripting interface. Hopefully it won’t end up being huge.

I have this resolved. It was ugly in a way, but relatively straight forward to fix.