Transparent Textures?

[Justintime9]

Ok, I know I posted something like this previously, but I can't find the thread, and I still don't completely understand...
I've been trying to make transparent textures in photoshop, first by deleting the background of the picture, and keeping only the textured part (the background is checkered) and then saving it as a PNG file, but when I put it into Blender, it doesn't show up as transparent, the parts that're supposed to be transparent, are just white, and not transparent. I've also tried to make the texture itself, see through, by adjusting the opacity of the image, and saving it as a PNG, but it doesn't turn out transparent. I'm probably doing this entirely wrong, but I don't really know what else to do to get a transparent texture... anyone know a detail tutorial on doing this?

[andylegate]

There are tuts on texturing yes, but you have to go through different ones to find what you're talking about, like reading through Trylon's First Real Age tutorial.

Here it is in a nutshell though:

After creating the material for your object, you then pick your texture that is transparent. While in the texture window, you'll see some buttons: Use Alpha and another by the picture of your texture that says Alpha. Click on those so that they are on.

Now, After you've UV Mapped the texture to your object, while still in UV Face Select mode, click on the Edit Object button (the one that shows the vertex dots and lines). You should have a tab in the window that says "texture face"

In that tab you should see 3 buttons in a row that say: Opaque Add Alpha

Click on Alpha.


there you go, you're done. Keep in mind that the texture will not look transparent in Blender except when you select that object, but when you export it will look just fine.

[Justintime9]

Ok, that helps Immensely, but one question, you say that It doesn't appear transparent unless you select it... am I supposed to be able to see the texture ON the object? or only in rendering, and exporting? it shows it as transparent in the materials windows, is that what you meant? or am I supposed to see the texture mapped ON the object, just like as if it was UV mapped on there?

[andylegate]

I meant in the 3D window in Blender.

Let's say you have like a decal of like dirty hand prints on a window. Your texture for the hand print is all transparent except for the hand print, and you have a double sided plane for the window. When you apply it, and you have the window selected, it will look right. But when you go and select something else to work on, the window will look gray with the texture. This is normal. It will look okay when you export and then link in.

[Owehn]

That's assuming you're in "textured draw type" mode, right?

[Justintime9]

Ok, I think I get it thx

[Zander]

Ah. I think this is something I've been looking for since I read about the grass texture "having a bit of alpha" and wondered how I could get that with my own textures. Thanks!

(I will get back to Age Writing soon, honest...just got a bit disenchanted after Age Six failed.)

[andylegate]

Wait! Zander, making a decal for grass may not be the best way to go.

What I mean is making a mesh plane and then trying to put a transparent texture on it. You'll have several things to contend with if you do it that way: your ground may not be flat, your transparent texture may have to be really big so that the grass doesn't look blurred in game, etc.

Take a look at this pic. You've seen that area of green plants on the beach. Here's what it looks like in Blender:



What I did to make it was to select the mesh that is the beach, then went to edit mode. I selected the faces of the mesh where I wanted this green ground cover to go. Then hit Shift-D to duplicate those faces and hit Enter right away. Then you hit the P key to seperate the faces you just copied to their own seperate mesh, and hit Enter again. Now I had a duplicate mesh of that area, went to object mode and renamed it. I also hit the G key and then the Z key and typed in 0.02 to move the mesh ever so slightly up so that when I put in the new material and texture it would not do that texture flicker when in game.
Next, you go to the materials tab, and delete what is there (it's a copy of your original ground, if you keep it and mess with it, you'll find your original ground has changed! This is because this mesh you made is using the exact same material and textures as the original ground, so you have to give it something new). I then hit new on the materials tab and then gave it the green ground texture image as it's texture. Note that it's NOT transparent. Then I UV mapped it.
To make it blend in with the surrounding sand, do this:
Click on the edit button (not edit mode, but the little edit button). In the tab that shows the UV map info, there is a button for Vertex Color that says New. Click on it. Don't panic if your mesh just went black. Instead, go up and go to Vertex Paint mode.
You should now have a new tab that says Paint. Click on the color box and change the color to white if it's not already white. Then click on the little button that says Set VertCol. Now your mesh should go back to looking bright again with your grass texture.
Now click on the New button under Vertex Color to add a 2nd vertex color. When it adds the new one, click on the itty bitty button that looks like a cross and one that looks like a little pic. This chooses what vertex color layer you're working on. It should have give the color a name like Col.001. Change that to say "Alpha" and I do mean you need to change it to say EXACTLY THAT.
Now go back to the Paint tab and change the color to black.
Then in the 3D window, paint the edges of your grass mesh black. The more black something is, the more TRANSPARENT it will be in game.
Once your happy with it, exit vertex paint mode.

This makes things look a LOT more natural in your Age than trying to stick a transparent decal on something. You CAN do that, and I've used it where needed. But for terrain and ground stuff, it would be better for you to do things this way. IMO anyway. Hope this helped both you and Justin