I'm attempting to create a snow fence using a small number of polys and transparency in lieu of lots of polys. I'm using a tga with alpha channel as the texture with the visual result shown below. The same visual appears in MSTS.

It looks like the transparent areas of the rectangular polys containing the fence braces are masking the poly containing the fence texture (which also contains transparency). Any idea of how to make this work?

Deanville

Have you tried different transparency values for the textures? I'd try using transparency 0 for the poly in the front and a value of 2 for the other polys more in the background.

Thanks for the info,  that's how it is set up for the image in my first post. I've had good results in the past and the current results are not what I expected.

Deanville

Another suggestion: Maybe you could adjust the polys in the background to those in the foreground and make indented rectangles, half trapezoids. As they are triangulated anyway it will not make a difference with frame-rates.

If it looks the same in 3D Canvas and MSTS then odds are it is the texture that is the cause-it just might be flakey. It is hard to say for sure though. You could try applying this to a cube and see what the result is. If the cube looks ok with it applied then the texure is probably OK. One thought... did you use the -trans option when converting the texture to ace format?

Richard

Haynes44,

I did a similar trick, aligned the front edge of the brace to the edge of a rectangular poly and rotated the poly (the brace poly no longer protrudes from the fence face). But... see below.

Richard,

I'll try the cube test & yes I did use -trans on conversion to ace.

Here's what I'm seeing now. The front of the fence is t=1, the back t=3, and the sides of the braces are t=2. The braces are clones, note that in the "back" views there is masking from one direction but not another. Also, the fence front seems to be masking the braces as well.

I'm pretty new at this so suggestions/advice/corrections are welcome!

I had a thought: If it is happening in both 3D Canvas and MSTS then it could be a driver issue.

Richard

A possibility for sure. Would you be willing to take a look at the model with 3DCanvas on your machine? I have another site that can check the MSTS version. Let me know if I have the "t" values set correctly (settings noted in  my previous reply) or what they should be. Thanks in advance!

Deanville

Sure. Go ahead and send it to: richard@amabilis.com

Richard

Hi,

OK. I had a look at it and figured it out. I have it working properly in MSTS. The key was that "Translucency" needed to be set to 0 since the object has transparent sections, not translucent sections. Once I did that it started working. I used the UpdateMaterial function to change it. The visual anomaly still occurs in 3D Canvas and I don't think that is something that I can fix. But I guess the important part is that it looks OK in MSTS.

An interesting thing about this is that I think I understand why they need to differentiate between translucency and transparency. Part of it is for performance reasons, but the main reason is to avoid the problems I see in 3D Canvas. The reason this happens is that translucent objects need to be sorted and rendered last, but when there are multiple layers of translucent objects there is no way to sort them to ensure that the order is correct. That is why even in Train Simulator you get these areas of where you can see through parts you should (though it doesn't happen that often).

Richard

Ok, this post leads me to a similar question. I have made a caboose and was having no luck whatsoever. With the latest version of 3dCP, everything works well when I use translucency value 0 for everything, but there seems to be some issue with the order the walls are applied.

I can save and reopen the model and everything is fine, but the moment I "compact" the object that makes up the caboose body (interior and exterior walls) everything seems to reset and You get that see thru effect, where you can see into the caboose window from outside, but don't see the interior wall any longer.

So my question is, what happens when I "compact" that changes the way transparencies appear?

Mike

BTW, Deanville, I had to reapply the textures several times to get this to work.  Then I would make some type of change like add some texture somewhere else, and it wouldn't work again.  So what I'm saying is apply a small piece using the "paintbucket - fill" tool to all the objects, then go back using the "face selection" tool to apply your cropped textures. That is the only way I got my interior walls to show.

One other thing I did, which seemed to help, I have no idea why, was to "optimize object geometry"  Beware that this will remove all textures, as it somethimes removes some points. So do it early in your work.

Mike

Mike,

I'm going to need the model to figure this out. (richard@amabilis.com). One that has problems after a "compact".

Also, I am not sure if you are saying this is a problem in 3D Canvas or with MSTS.

Richard

Mike,

Everything seems fine on my system with that model. What version of 3D Canvas are you doing the "compact" in? If it is earlier than 5.0.4 then that might be the problem.

Also, is the problem in 3D Canvas, MSTS or both?

Richard

I'm using version 5.0, I'm fairly certain.  I checked by selecting "help" from top menu and "about 3dCanvas" from the drop-down.  I'll update tonite.

Thanks again for such a superior product, and even better support.  I have to admit I tried TrainSim Modeler and I didn't even finish the tutorials, as I realized 3dCP is better, at least for my tastes.  I remember when you stated Train-Sim people probably wouldn't be too big a part of your business.  I hope that it has turned out otherwise because you deserve every dollar you get for the software.  I assume it has turned out differently, to some extent, or you wouldn't continue to make it more and more compatible.  I haven't checked out the forum in a while and was surprised to see the "wizard"  I can't wait to try it out!  I have to say, I get more enjoyment out of modeling than running the Sim.

Thanks again
Mike

Richard,
Updated to latest version (ver.4,  not the .5 beta) seems to work perfectly now!
Amazing work, as usual.  Thanks again.