Strange Behaviour in DarkRadiant: Certain Map Objects Untethered from Vertex Origin

[Jnon]

I have a strange situation in DarkRadiant where several map objects (mainly func_static and atdm: entities) have become untethered from their vertex origins.  The objects themselves have all clustered around the center point of the map (0, 0, 0) but their vertex origin is still in its original spot. When I look at the entity properties window (screenshot included), the origin property still shows the correct position, but for some reason the entire distance between the proper origin position and the current position of the object is treated as the entire object.

This has wreaked havoc on my map (and I foolishly did not keep an emergency backup) so I'll have to reposition them manually unless I can figure out how to undo this. To make matters worse, it happened suddenly while I was saving some other changes and I didn't notice until later, and now I can't simply Ctrl+Z undo it.

I still have the origin data in the object properties, but I'm not sure why this happened, or how to revert it. Has this ever happened to anyone, and how badly screwed am I?

[Jnon]

Followup to this: I tried the following fix..

1) copy origin data to notepad

2) manually move the vertex point back into the center of the object

3) paste the origin data back into properties

Unfortunately, rather than moving the entire entity back into position, it only moves the vertex origin back to the original position but the object stays where it is.

If I move the object around with the mouse in orthographic view it moves (and changes origin property) normally. Only copy/pasting refuses to work. I can only think I might have done something in DarkRadiant I wasn't aware or, some settings hotkey or wrong button on the interface to cause this decoupling.l

[Jnon]

Upon further testing, this seems to have only happened to objects/entities that were Grouped. I've noted that mass selecting all the objects clustered around 0 0 0 also selects multiple grouped objects in the map proper that (for some reason) have not moved positions.

Again, I'm at a loss to understand why or how this happened.

EDIT: I've identified the pattern... this appears to only have happened to worldspawn brushes that were converted into other entities (both func_static and atdm: entities). Entities or func_static objects that were spawned as such are not affected, only worldspawn converted into these entities.

EDIT 2: I tried making a worldspawn brush, converting it to func_static, and then moving it. Mouse movement of the entity in orthographic view functions normally. Changing the origin property causes the vertex point to move, but the actual func_static entity to stay in place. Is this normal behavior? I've never experienced this before, but I also generally don't move entities around with the origin property much.

Edited November 23, 2025 by Jnon

[JackFarmer]

Can you upload your project folder? I then could have a look (but cannot guarantee a solution for your problem).

 

[Jnon]

I've uploaded a zip of the project folder here: https://files.catbox.moe/kw8b2f.zip

I'd appreciate any help or even just insight on how this could have happened, thank you.

[JackFarmer]

1 hour ago, Jnon said:

EDIT 2: I tried making a worldspawn brush, converting it to func_static, and then moving it. Mouse movement of the entity in orthographic view functions normally. Changing the origin property causes the vertex point to move, but the actual func_static entity to stay in place. Is this normal behavior? I've never experienced this before, but I also generally don't move entities around with the origin property much.

Yes, this is normal behavior. I use it here and there to give custom made doors the correct origin to make it rotate from an edge but from the center.  

Let met get this straight:

1. You converted several brushes into entities and after that these new entities moved away from their original location to where you described above?
2. Where are those blue lines coming from? They showed up only after you converted the brushes? 

 

[Jnon]

2 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

1. You converted several brushes into entities and after that these new entities moved away from their original location to where you described above?
2. Where are those blue lines coming from? They showed up only after you converted the brushes?

1. Yes, although there is a large gap of time between turning them into entities and moving. I don't know exactly when this happened, but it was sometime today. Most of the objects now clustered around 0,0,0 have been in their correct position for weeks, or even months before this happened.

2. The blue lines in the screenshot are from other entities that have target relationships with the moved objects. In some cases it's triggers, in other cases it's entities that target moved entities. Since the distance between the moved entity and the vertex origin are all treated as a singular entity, the blue relationship line seems to stretch to a halfway point between the actual entity and the vertex point. I've noticed that selecting rotate also makes the rotation point center on this halfway point.

At this point, I still have the correct position of all moved entities. I would like (if possible) to move them back to their correct positions, just right now it seems the only way to do this is to manually note the origin data, then move the vertex point manually to match the entity, then move the entity back to the correct position and adjust it. Given there are many, many objects there, I was wondering if there was a better option (but I'm starting to think not).

[JackFarmer]

I am afraid I have no clue what's going on here and I have never seen this behavior before. 

Maybe someone else has an idea.

@Bikerdude: did you ever had something like that before?

[Frost_Salamander]

This happened to me during building of Lieutenant 4.  I didn't realise the brushes clustered around 0,0,0, but I remember roughly where they ended up and I just went back and looked at the map in DR and it was indeed that position.

Like you, I don't know what caused it and I had to revert to an earlier version of the map and lost a bit of work.  Not too much because the map is in Github and I commit/push frequently.

I didn't raise a bug report because there was no way to reproduce it.  Can you think of anything you were doing at the time it happened? We should raise one anyways I think because it appears it wasn't a one-off occurrence.

[Jnon]

20 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

Can you think of anything you were doing at the time it happened?

Immediately before noticing it, I was messing with a trigger_once -> trigger_relay -> target_setkeyval sequence to change vocal sets on some conversation AI. Immediately before that, I was testing triggering a script to activate cameras for a cutscene. I can't think of anything out of the ordinary I did aside from those two things, so something about one of those might be responsible.

[datiswous]

On 11/23/2025 at 6:14 AM, Jnon said:

Upon further testing, this seems to have only happened to objects/entities that were Grouped. I've noted that mass selecting all the objects clustered around 0 0 0 also selects multiple grouped objects in the map proper that (for some reason) have not moved positions.

(Could be related?)

I just read that a group can have multiple clustered groups inside of it. So it might be that you ungroup a group, then you think you move a single thing, actually you might still move a group, or even multiple groups inside it.

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=The_Parts_and_Whole:_DR_Groups

personally if working with groups, I would go into group edit mode (not documented in the wiki) and edit there.

 

Edit: probably not related.

Edited November 24, 2025 by datiswous
I added the info about "Selection focus" to the relevant wiki pages

[Jnon]

6 hours ago, datiswous said:

So it might be that you ungroup a group, then you think you move a single thing, actually you might still move a group, or even multiple groups inside it.

It's not outside the realm of possibility, but after picking through the damage and repairing everything, I saw that my first guess was wrong.. it wasn't grouped objects, just specifically brushes that were turned into entities (func_static and otherwise). In some cases, converted brushes that were part of groups got moved to 0,0,0 but func_static models and worldspawn brushes stayed in place, forcing me to ungroup them, move the parts back into place, and then re-group them (or in some cases just delete the whole mess and rebuild from scratch).

I'm curious though, @Frost_Salamander were you doing anything similar to what I stated above when your incident happened? Thinking back, during my script testing I initially made a mistake and put my .script file in the wrong folder, causing TDM console to give me an error about a non-existent function.

The only reason I think this is significant is because I've since moved the .script into the correct folder and script calls work normally now, and I haven't seem the same entity relocation glitch occur since then. I'm thinking of putting together some kind of test map and seeing what I can do to try and reproduce it.

[datiswous]

8 hours ago, Jnon said:

In some cases, converted brushes that were part of groups got moved to 0,0,0 but func_static models and worldspawn brushes stayed in place, forcing me to ungroup them, move the parts back into place, and then re-group them

By using "Selection focus", you don't need to ungroup groups to be able to edit them.

Just a general tip. Not directly related. I just added a bit of info to the wiki about this functionality.

Edited November 25, 2025 by datiswous

[Frost_Salamander]

17 hours ago, Jnon said:

I'm curious though, @Frost_Salamander were you doing anything similar to what I stated above when your incident happened?

I honestly don't remember what I was doing, and I think I noticed the problem a good bit after it happened because I was working in a different section of the map when I noticed it.

I thought maybe it could be something to do with exporting as model, because you can choose 0,0,0 origin for it.  But that's kind of difficult to do by accident and then not notice it until later.

[Bikerdude]

On 11/23/2025 at 6:54 AM, JackFarmer said:

@Bikerdude: did you ever had something like that before?

I'm a windows user, so don't really see this type of map corruption all that aften.

[Frost_Salamander]

6 hours ago, Bikerdude said:

I'm a windows user, so don't really see this type of map corruption all that aften.

I use Windows.  Did someone say it was a Linux issue?

[JackFarmer]

23 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

I use Windows.  Did someone say it was a Linux issue?

Our man Biker is currently very stressed because he is diving into the Linux world...with lots of confusion negatively impacting his perception of other topics!  

 

[Jnon]

On 11/27/2025 at 3:46 AM, Frost_Salamander said:

Did someone say it was a Linux issue?

I am using Linux, but it would appear this is a multi-platform issue anyway...