Hello all,
I'm having a little trouble getting the textures succesfully exported in my sw3d file. I create a texture in photoshop, create an alpha channel then save as tga...choosing 32bit (also tried with 24 and 16), then assigned the texture to an object in 3dc. However, when I look at the exported sw3d in Director the models that have the textures applied are invisible. Anyone have any ideas?

Also, in 3dcanvas, when I try and clear a tga texture the object I apply a new texture on goes semi transparent...then when I try to export it says an object has a non tga texture applied. What is the correct methos for clearing a texture on a model?

Last but not least...when you export an animation, is it exported as a keyframe animation? At the moment I cant see if its playing, hehe, as I foolishly animated on of the textured parts of my model..which of course is invisible.

Thanks for any tips.

Cheers
Dale Drechsler
dale@dalesmatrix.com

It sounds like your Targa texture doesn't have an alpha channel. That's usually the cause of an object with a targa texture looking translucent. A helpful tool handling translucency layers with targa textures is the "targa tool" (TGA tool?). It's free, but I don't remember where you get it.

To "clear" a texture you need to clear not only the texture itself, but the translucency map also (3D Canvas automatically selects both when you select a TGA texture). I usually click on the red reset "X" on the material palette to clear all attributes.

When an object is exported it is exported as a key-frame animation. Note that the w3d format only supports a selection of 3D Canvas' animation functions. You can export object movement and skeletal animation, but animated operations do not export since w3d doesn't support them.

Richard

Ok, I'm narrowing this down at least.

If I use the TGA as both the primary AND secondary texture, it works as you would expect, in that I get the correct circular transaprency correlating to my alpha channel in the tga. However if I only set the primary texture, everything goes 50% transparent, which coincedentily is what the tr setting for the secondary texture is defaulting to when there is no texture assigned to it. changing the tr for the secondary when no file is assigned doesnt seem to be changing anything.

Is this perhaps a bug? or more a case of RTFM dale hehe. I havent exported to shockwave as yet with this test, but I recall something about not being able to use secondary textures so am thinking I'll still be in trouble.

Any suggestions Richard?
Thanks

Dale

When you say "ALL goes about 50% transparent" do you mean in 3D Canvas? If so, 3D Canvas is not reading your TGA translucency layer for some reason. You could send me your texture and I could have a look at it for you (submissions@amabilis.com)

Richard

I'll fire through the tga, to clarify, the model goes 50% transparent in 3dcanvas if I apply the tga texture without having anything assigned to the secondary texture. If I have the tga texture assigned to both primary and secondary textures it seems to work.

anyway, firing throug hthe tga now.
Cheers,
Dale

Got the targa and it works fine on my computer. It sounds like an issue with your G400 driver. An update may help (or perhaps not). But knowing that it works if you apply it to both the primary and secondary textures is a pretty good work-around (though not ideal obviously).

Note that the w3d format only supports one material per object.

BTW, the shockwave FAQ is here: http://www.amabilisplus.com/3DCanvasDocumentation/shockwave3d.htm

Richard