Alpha errors

[Herne]

I've been trying to customise an infernus to make a Vercetti gang car.

 

I thought the big V on the roof was a nice touch.. reminicent of the Yakuza and Zaibatsu cars from GTA2.

I made a copy of all the faces on the roof and moved them up so they were directley above the origional roof. Using the rumpo as my example I applied a material with a standard alpha glow transparancey in zmodeller. I imported my tga texture (with alpha) to the txd, added to img and ran the game.

 

Heres what I got...

 

As you can see the edge of the V is causing some problems. Looking at the edge of the V you can see straight through the car to the ground underneath it. The pixels that are acting up are, in the alpha, grey pixels (not black (0,0,0) or white (255,255,255))

 

I know I could just paint the V on the texture but I want it to depend on the secondary car colour. (Which is why it's red in that shot, like the stripes which also have a [sec] material)

 

Please someone help me! It's nearly 4am and I've been doing this since 10(pm, not am )

[xmen]

heyy buddy the san andreas is going over and you are still on vice city anyway export the image in png and tga first import png then click on alpha and import tga (first of all set alpha in properties)

hope it will work

[Herne]

I'm sorry, I don't follow you.

I'm using TXD workshop 4.0b and there is no way for me to "Click on alpha"

 

I have San An but I prefer Vice, it's got a nice atmosphere and a cool style. I even think the cars just look better. Something about the textures in San An. Like they relied more on reflections and whatnot. I would love to have San An functionality with VC style art. Nothing says I'm rich like climbing out of a private jet into the Miami.. uhh.. Vice city.. sun and jumping into a topless sports car to drive back to your mansion. Sigh.. o.t. but I had to say it.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

EDIT: Update. I tried importing both the texture and alpha seperately as bmps, no change.

Importing the tga as the alpha just imports the tga's alpha channel as the alpha AND the tga's texture as the texture. I'm not using any compression but I got the same thing with DXT3.

Edited April 16, 2006 by Herne

[xmen]

ok i understand your problem you use small image intead of normal

if your image is 64x64 make it to 128x 128

if 128x128 then make it to 256x256 pixels

 

i think it will work

[Herne]

I re-sized both the texture and the alpha to 256x256 (from 128x128) and all I got was an extra 200k on the txd's filesize

Are my images working? (if they were I wouldn't be able to see them, something to do with the server being on my lan)

 

More details then.. The faces with the V on are part of the object "extra1" (So the V won't always show up) It should behave like the writing on the side of the rumpo, only it dosn't because on the rumpo, you can't see straight through the vehicle around the edges of the text.

 

Thanks for your help! Hopefully I can get this to work, I need a nice gang car to match my new look gang.

 

Side note:

It seems "Extras" and alphas are poorly documented. I spent ages trying to get my extras to work while replaceing the sabre turbo.. but that dosn't have any standard extras (woops).. So.. it seems whichever car you replace MUST have extras. I'm replacing the hotrinb atm, which has tons of extras (for advertising) whereas I only have one. It remains to be seen if there is a limit on certain cars (e.g. The rumpo, as standard, only has two, could you add more than 2 extras to a rumpo replacement?)

 

[xmen]

yea you need to compress them ,then the size of image will reduce

[Herne]

I can compress them ok, but it makes no difference to the see-through problem.

[xmen]

make it in 3ds max

i think it may help

[Herne]

I really don't think it makes any difference and I don't have 3dsmax.

[DexX]

Xmen i understand your trying to help, but you really dont know what your talking about.

 

@ Herne, you did everything just fine the first time. Vice just has a half-assed way of dealing with alpha channels. For further proof, you need only to look @ other objects in the game that use alpha channels, like tree leaves, and you'll notice the same problem on them as well. increasing the texture resolution may help a bit, but you'll still have the problem. it'll just be slightly less noticeable.

 

If you really want that "V" shape on the car to use the seondary car colour, i'd suggest "cutting" it into the model, and then assigning the material for the secondary car colour, to the triangles that make your "V" shape.

[JernejL]

the effect is not caused by txd workshop, it is caused by alpha model texture settings in 3d model.

 

[Herne]

 

the effect is not caused by txd workshop, it is caused by alpha model texture settings in 3d model.

Would you like to expand on that? Like maybe telling me what settings are wrong? Pretty please?

 

Thanks for your help guys,I really want to get this working.

 

I thought about doing it with polys, but thats not so elegant.

Edited April 17, 2006 by Herne

[xmen]

sorry buddy if i help you wrong , i just trying because there is no one to help this friend

[Herne]

Using a 2-color (black & white) alpha, I still get the problem

Sorry about the poor quality, I boosted the brightness to show up the grass around the top of the V.

The V is part of 'extra1'. If you compare this with some of the pics below, You can see that extra1 also fills in a roof section.

It seems that that part is ok (something to do with the roof below it being part of the same object?)

 

Anyway.. please please please help!! My gang's image is really suffering. They have to drive sabre turbos while they wait for this.

 

 

But I put scissor doors in anyway...

[JernejL]

you cannot set the transparency right in any modeller since it would require reordering faces, what you should do is, to remodel the roof and add actual new faces to get the V logo done properly.

 

[Herne]

That just seems silly too me. I'm trying to use the same method that R* use for the text on the side of vans.

I was using the rumpo as a guide. I can't see what I'm doing wrong.

The actuall texture in the TXD has an alpha.

I think using polys to make a V shape is messy and restrictive.

 

Surely SOMEONE must know how to do this, after all, it's a technique R* themselves used. Maybe the right people don't check the texture & modelling forum. It's probably more Vehicle edting, but it's too late for that now.

[agent17]

I have the same problem in one of my building mods I made for vice, I would like to know aswell.