Leaf Transparency Issue

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by jman0war
on edit:

Well, I think it's something to do with the UV's.
I tried creating a box primitive and got vertex painting to work, so it's something up with my mesh.
thanks for putting up that tutorial.

You're welcome.

I often disable texture display in the material editor so I don't get interference from the texture in assessing how my vertex colors look. I also like to set the ambient light in the scene to pure white just to make it easier for me to see the vertex colors without having to toggle it on each mesh.

[jman0war]

Hi,
Ive been vertex painting now successfully so thanks for the tips.
Sometimes it requires putting more complexity (more verts) into a model to be successful.

Currently i'm struggling with a transparency issue.
I''ve modeled a primitve plane mesh that is supposed to be a door/portal.
I created my DDS file as a dxt5 with an Alpha Layer for the transparency.
However, it's not working for some reason.
The alpha (transparency) information isn't really being read at all.
Any help?
http://www.4shared.com/file/116140194/85...tal01.html

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by jman0war
Hi,
I've been vertex painting now successfully so thanks for the tips.
Sometimes it requires putting more complexity (more verts) into a model to be successful.

Currently i'm struggling with a transparency issue.
I''ve modeled a primitve plane mesh that is supposed to be a door/portal.
I created my DDS file as a dxt5 with an Alpha Layer for the transparency.
However, it's not working for some reason.
The alpha (transparency) information isn't really being read at all.
Any help?
http://www.4shared.com/file/116140194/85...tal01.html

I'm glad vertex colors are working for you

I checked out your files, and there are several problems.

1) There's a "8 NiStencilProperty" and "9 NiAlphaProperty" floating at the root level. Delete them.
2) Your visual model ("2 NiTriStrips") does not have a NiAlphaProperty. Add one in NifSkope by right-clicking on the NiTriStrips block and choose Node > Attach Property > NiAlphaProperty. Leave it at the default setting if your model won't have layered transparancy (yours don't), set it to 4845 if the model does. Plants are a good example of models that have a lot of transparant layers on top of each other.
3) Your texture is not a power of 2, so it's likely it won't display in-game. DDS textures in Oblivion has to have a width and height that is a part of the numerical series you get by multiplying 2 with itself over and over again. 512 and 1024 are powers of 2, 768 is not.
4) Your texture link, which is located in the NiSourceTexture block which is a child of the NiTexturingProperty block, is "C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\Textures\Isle of Balfiera\DT\DTportal01.dds". This may let the texture be displayed on your system, but it won't on systems that don't use that exact path. Texture paths should start with textures\ followed by whichever subfolders are used. In your case the link should be textures\Isle of Balfiera\DT\DTportal01.dds.
5) Your model doesn't have collision, therefore it shouldn't have a BSXFlags block. Just right-click on it and choose 'Block > Remove'.
6) The standard settings for ambient and diffuse colors are pure white (all textboxes set to 1 in Nifskope), while Glossiness should be set to 10 at default. Oblivion doesn't actually render ambient and diffuse but NifSkope does, so keeping the colors at pure white means it'll look the same in NifSkope as it does in Oblivion. A very low Glossiness setting tends to make surfaces look flat; I can't recall a Bethesda example I've seen where the setting was lower than 10.

The alpha channel of your texture looks like it will work quite well though.

Good luck!

[jman0war]

Thanks,
I haven't had a chance to try it yet but i just read this bit:

Your texture is not a power of 2, so it's likely it won't display in-game

This isn't true. I have a number of textures that are either 768 or 384 and theydisplay.
Infact, in the game this very mesh displays the texture, it's just the alpha that doesn't work.
I know what you mean, that the NiAlphaProperty is floating around at the root level.

Wow, i didn't know that about the texture path!
I'm going to have to re-export all my meshes now

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by jman0war
Thanks,
I haven't had a chance to try it yet but I just read this bit:

Your texture is not a power of 2, so it's likely it won't display in-game

This isn't true. I have a number of textures that are either 768 or 384 and theydisplay.
Infact, in the game this very mesh displays the texture, it's just the alpha that doesn't work.
I know what you mean, that the NiAlphaProperty is floating around at the root level.

Wow, I didn't know that about the texture path!
I'm going to have to re-export all my meshes now

I've never seen an Oblivion texture that isn't a power of 2, and there must be a good reason for that. Personally I believe it's important for the mipmap system to work properly and/or efficiently.

To me it would seem easier to change the links in NifSkope, but if you prefer re-exporting then that's your choice. There might be tools available on the scene, intended for retexturing Oblivion models, that can batch-change texture links. I don't know of any myself though.

[nick_op]

Originally posted by Razorwing
I've never seen an Oblivion texture that isn't a power of 2, and there must be a good reason for that. Personally I believe it's important for the mipmap system to work properly and/or efficiently.

The reason that textures are done as a power of 2 is for purposes of hardware acceleration done by the video card. The video card doesn't have to 'think' about textures that are a power of two, it can just render them straight away.

Any texture that isn't a power of 2 has to be resized as they are rendered, so a texture that is 768x768 will either be shrunk to 512x512, or blown up to 1024x1024 (which would cause blurriness).

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by nick_op

Originally posted by Razorwing
I've never seen an Oblivion texture that isn't a power of 2, and there must be a good reason for that. Personally I believe it's important for the mipmap system to work properly and/or efficiently.

The reason that textures are done as a power of 2 is for purposes of hardware acceleration done by the video card. The video card doesn't have to 'think' about textures that are a power of two, it can just render them straight away.

Any texture that isn't a power of 2 has to be resized as they are rendered, so a texture that is 768x768 will either be shrunk to 512x512, or blown up to 1024x1024 (which would cause blurriness).

That's interesting to know, thanks for explaining it nick_op

[jman0war]

What about textures that aren't square?
1024x512 for example.

[jman0war]

Originally posted by Razorwing
6) The standard settings for ambient and diffuse colors are pure white (all textboxes set to 1 in Nifskope), while Glossiness should be set to 10 at default. Oblivion doesn't actually render ambient and diffuse but NifSkope does, so keeping the colors at pure white means it'll look the same in NifSkope as it does in Oblivion. A very low Glossiness setting tends to make surfaces look flat; I can't recall a Bethesda example I've seen where the setting was lower than 10.

May i inquire why you mention that?
I do not change any Glossiness settings and am therefore going with whatever is defaulted. Bar the exception of a particular shiny metal material i wanted.
Do you suggest i put the glossiness up?
Here's an example of what i'm working on. It's primarily a dark dungeon.
http://photos4.pix.ie/F3/E5/F3E50F735697...40-800.jpg

[nick_op]

Originally posted by jman0war
What about textures that aren't square?
1024x512 for example.

That's fine, as both dimensions are a power of 2.