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Alpha transparency for DirectX
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They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Alpha transparency for DirectX // Game Development
Post by clintonman // Aug 6, 2008, 5:30pm
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clintonman
Total Posts: 304
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I was playing around with Virtual Earth and discovered how to get transparency with the directX export using directX(direct3d?) material. The trick is that the color shader texture has to be 32 bit with the alpha in the extra 8 bits. When exporting from truespace I got alpha when exporting tga, dds and bmp files. The png file exported seemed to loose the alpha information and comes out as a 24 bit file. The exporter ignores the alpha shader which is where I was trying to get the alpha before. |
Post by jamesmc // Aug 6, 2008, 6:25pm
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Yeah, for some reason, there has been an on going feud between Microsoft and PNG format in 32 bit.
Glad you solved which formats to use, will be very helpful in future development. :) |
Post by Eagle // Aug 7, 2008, 4:11am
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Eagle
Total Posts: 221
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this is really good to know! Thanks Clintonman~
Always~
Vickie ;) |
Post by TomG // Aug 7, 2008, 5:01am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Interesting! I thought transparency wasn't possible in Virtual Earth, going to be checking this out for sure!
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by TomG // Oct 24, 2008, 6:39am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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I can't get this to work repeatably, got it once by accident but never been able to get it back again! Can you share settings, either screen grabs or saved scenes (or a combo of both, to show what settings were used on VE export etc)?
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by Délé // Oct 24, 2008, 11:49am
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Thanks for the info Clinton. It works good for me. :) Attached is a simple DX shader that allows you to see the alpha in tS when using a color map with an alpha channel.
I didn't include a normal map input in the shader because they seem to be useless in VE. I think VE would need to support specular for the normal maps to actually work. Without specular highlights to accentuate the bumps, the normal maps just make the object darker. It doesn't give the illusion of bump like it's supposed to.
I've also been playing around with baking AO into the color maps with 3d Coat. VE lighting is very flat and can wash out objects. So far, the AO baking seems to make a big improvement. Still have to test it more though. The only limitation with baking AO is that you need a single color map. You can't use multiple materials. That might mean using a larger map instead of a few smaller tiled ones. Still, it looks like it might work good in some scenarios. :) |
Post by clintonman // Oct 25, 2008, 6:44am
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clintonman
Total Posts: 304
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I can't get this to work repeatably, got it once by accident but never been able to get it back again! Can you share settings, either screen grabs or saved scenes (or a combo of both, to show what settings were used on VE export etc)?
Thanks!
Tom
I can't add anything to what I already said, except that I was trying to get trees into VE and they didn't look good. From certain angles it looked ok. From other angles the transparency didn't work and it looked aweful. My guess is that VE may have trouble with intersecting planes which is what I was using for the trees. |
Post by clintonman // Oct 30, 2008, 6:51am
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clintonman
Total Posts: 304
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I just finished a test and intersecting planes wasn't the problem. It looks like transparency is single sided in virtual earth. You can see both sides of a face color but only one side transparent.
Also note no transparent shadows limitation. |
Post by TomG // Oct 30, 2008, 7:55am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Its more complex than that - I had two cubes in an X formation, all faces painted with the same transparent texture. I can see through Cube A, and then through Cube B just fine. But looking through Cube B, I just see the background and see nothing of Cube A as if it was not there. Note that I could see through both sides of both cubes, just that looking through one cube showed the other (and the background through that), and looking through another cube just showed the background or (perhaps tellingly) any non-transparent object in the scene.
I wonder if there is a sort order of some sort that determines transparency?
Tom |
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