A screenshot of the Gnomeregan Reclamation Facility (OctoWoW's own area 5211) with its NPCs
replaced by flat grey boxes, and the target frame filled — `M. C. Volterwhite`, 57, 4.13k — behind
an empty portrait. The boxes are `entities::attach`'s model-less debug cube, and the empty portrait
is the same cause: the display resolved to nothing to draw.
`new_creature_display` took a row only `if m.scale > 0.0`, where `scale` is
`CreatureModelData.ModelScale × CreatureDisplayInfo.CreatureModelScale`. That column does not scale
a spawned unit: the server folds it into `OBJECT_FIELD_SCALE_X`, which is why
`Creatures::model_scale` says in its own doc that the glue screens' pet is its only reader. So the
gate was testing a number nothing downstream consults, and a `0.0` in it meant "no model".
His chain's `CreatureDisplayInfo.dbc` (the effective copy, `patch-A.mpq` — patches sort ascending
by lowercase name, so A wins over 5) carries a contiguous custom block, **20256-20356, 100 rows,
every one a character model**: 27 HumanMale, 16 HumanFemale, 16 TrollMale, 12 GnomeMale, 10
NightElfFemale and the rest, all authored with that column left at `0.0`. One batch of custom NPCs,
one zone's worth of grey boxes. Stock 1.12 ships three of its own that way too (displays 16, 17 and
19: HumanThief, HUMLBlackSmith, HUMLMerchant), which is the proof the column was never a
visibility switch.
The gate is gone. The one shape left that earns a cube — a display id with no row in either DBC —
now says so once per id, as the GameObject leg already does, so the next zone full of cubes names
the ids instead of needing a screenshot. A test over the real chain pins the data: every zero-scale
row still names a real model, and the only row that answers `None` does so for want of a
`CreatureModelData` row (display 185, `ModelID = 0`), not for its scale.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01SgstFWtn1RxEJ5kVrpgYwn
gromandClaude Opus 5
df921cdb47