More Transparency Problems

Ian,
You never quite gave me a straight answer when I asked you this on the trainsimfiles site: andnbsp;do you normally use the andnbsp;-trans option with makeace? andnbsp;(I think) I found I had to, but your tutorial does not include this part of the command. andnbsp;Presumably, even when you just re-skin things, you need to do makeace again. andnbsp;Variations here might give rise to variations in effect, and variations between graphic boards. andnbsp;My own problem (with an ATI Xpert 98 board, I now realise) and using Photoshop 5 for your tutorial is that the outer layer of transparency seems to work but the wheels beneath it are not transparent.

I should say in fairness that the answer you did give was to visit this site, which has proved to be good advice.

I’m beginning to think this is not a 3DC problem, but can’t pin it down yet.

Several people are having trouble with things I produce that have transparency on them that does not show as transparent. Mostly, these people have ATI graphics cards (but not all). Some wagons created by other people work OK on their systems (and my wagons are OK for most people).
One possible factor is that I use Paint Shop Pro v7 to create my texture files, where some that seem to work were done with Adobe Photoshop.

Any ideas anyone?

[img:2fsv4c0p]http://www.trainsimfiles.net/images/albums/9/scrgrb3.jpg[/img:2fsv4c0p]
<!– m –><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trainsimfiles.net/images/albums/9/scrgrb3.jpg">http://www.trainsimfiles.net/images/alb … crgrb3.jpg</a><!– m –>

Actually, i don’t think it is a 3DC problem. andnbsp;I had a few people write me when i repainted the DEFAULT Superliners and say the transparencies didn’t work! andnbsp;I did nothing with the models, just the textures, and some of them i didn’t really do much at all to the Alpha channel (ie it was still pretty much default on a few). andnbsp;I use an older version of Adobe Photoshop for all my Alpha editing, so it probably is not an issue with Paint Shop either. andnbsp;Transparencies, so far, have worked superbly well for me in 3DC.

Transparency/Translucency is a problem for older video cards. Not just with MSTS.

What you have shown could be a 3DC issue though. It is hard to say for sure. There will be a new version soon that has changes to transparency/translucency. It may help.

Richard

Looking again at the screenshot I realised that the chassis of the wagon on the right was one of my tga files, created using PSPv7, so the only difference between the two wagons is that the one on the left was created using 3DC Pro and the one on the right was done in 3D Max.