Model URI path corruption: extra character in path (e.g. "body" → "bodyy", "granite" → "grranite")

[zhowe-designs]

Bug: When the engine resolves model URIs (for both map-loaded entities and code-spawned entities), it sometimes duplicates a character in the path, so the model file is not found.

Observed corruptions:

• dino_body_hytopia_green → dino_bodyy_hytopia_green (extra y)
• granite → grranite (extra r)
• .optimized → .opptimized (extra p)

Example error:

Entity.constructor(): Model models/dino_test/.optimized/dino_bodyy_hytopia_green/dino_body_hytopia_green.glb does not exist!

Expected: The path should be used as provided (e.g. models/dino_test/.optimized/dino_body_hytopia_green/dino_body_hytopia_green.glb).

Environment: hytopia package 0.14.48 (or your version from package.json), Node, Windows. Occurs in both world.loadMap() (map entities) and new Entity({ modelUri: "..." }).spawn().

Impact: Custom models with certain path segments (e.g. containing "body", "granite", ".optimized") fail to load. Workaround is to avoid the .optimized path and use root-level model paths, but those may not render for map entities.

[iamarkdev]

This seems bizarre and I haven't noticed it before - do you have a snippet of code for reproducing this? Or are you saying just on server start when your optimizer runs it's creating corrupted directory paths?

[zhowe-designs]

Thanks for looking into it.

The corruption happens when the server uses model URIs for entities (either from our code or from the map). We’re not sure if it’s strictly “on server start when the optimizer runs” or whenever those paths are processed—we just see the wrong paths (e.g. body → bodyy, head → headd, granite → grranite, .optimized → .opptimized) and then models fail to load.

Here’s a snippet:

Constants / model URIs we passed (that got corrupted):

const DINO_HEADS = [ 'models/dino/T REX DINO HEAD.glb', 'models/dino/LONG DINO HEAD.glb',];const BODY_URI = 'models/dino/dino body.glb';

Button entity (also used a dino model path):
const button = new Entity({ name: 'GeneratorButton', modelUri: 'models/dino/dino tail - blue.glb', modelScale: 0.3, rigidBodyOptions: { type: RigidBodyType.FIXED },});button.spawn(world, { x: 0.5, y: 1.5, z: 0.5 });

Dino body + head spawn (where we saw path corruption):
const body = new Entity({ name: 'DinoBody', modelUri: BODY_URI, // 'models/dino/dino body.glb' modelScale: 1, rigidBodyOptions: { type: RigidBodyType.FIXED },});body.spawn(world, bodyPos);const headUri = DINO_HEADS[Math.floor(Math.random() * DINO_HEADS.length)]; // T REX or LONG headconst head = new Entity({ name: 'DinoHead', modelUri: headUri, modelScale: 1, rigidBodyOptions: { type: RigidBodyType.FIXED },});head.spawn(world, bodyPos);head.setParent(body, undefined, HEAD_SOCKET_OFFSET, HEAD_SOCKET_ROTATION);

So the exact URIs we passed were:
models/dino/dino body.glb
models/dino/T REX DINO HEAD.glb
models/dino/LONG DINO HEAD.glb
models/dino/dino tail - blue.glb

The engine was turning these into corrupted paths like dino_bodyy_..., dino_headd_..., etc. You can add a short note in the issue that this is from git commit 3ab0151 in the Dino Builder repo if that helps.

After spawning, the path we see (in logs or on the client) is corrupted with duplicated characters. Happy to add more detail or try a different repro if that would help.

The path corruption shows up when spawning entities that use modelUri (e.g. models/.../.optimized/... or paths with words like body, head, granite). It’s the paths sent to or used by the client/server that get corrupted, not necessarily “the optimizer creating bad directories on disk.” So it could be at server start when maps/entities are loaded, or whenever an entity is spawned with a modelUri that hits the buggy path logic.