Pamela Galli Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 A customer asked how she could get rid of the alpha bug when looking through windows. I explained how to use Alpha Masking (in the Texture tab of Edit) but she said that had no effect. (I mask all my houses when I update them.)Now, with or without Alpha Masking, I rarely notice the alpha bug when using Singularity, which I assume it is because of some settings in the Advanced menu. However, my customer has Firestorm, which has different settings -- does anyone know of some setting in Firestorm that would lessen the alpha bug? thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nova Convair Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 All viewers have the alpha bug. No exceptions. The alpha mask mode has no alpha bug but it's not that easy. - If you use it on a face the whole object will go into the LI system. Either it is already in or it happens not much or your LI explode and it will be returned - there is a range of possibilities. - You need to select a face to use it. I dont think all residents know how to do that. - It is an 1 bit alpha mode so it is not useable for windows. It will look like there is no glass in the window. The mode is good for fences or every other thing that dowes not need a gradient in the alpha channel. - Some textures trigger the alpha bug although they have no transparency. Thats because they were uploaded in a 32 bit image format with an (unused) alpha channel. Upload again in a 24 bit format or as jpg or use the alpha mask mode on them. - The alpha bug is only visible if there are 2 or more transparent textures in the line of sight. Depending on the angle the renderer does not know which one is in front. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted January 31, 2015 Author Share Posted January 31, 2015 Thank you Nova What I am looking for is something like what used to be called Fast Alpha in the Advanced Menu (of Phoenix I think). That worked pretty well even tho it could cause some artifacts. Thtat sort of setting may have been removed since Alpha Masking in the Texture tab was introduced, but I dont know how to account for the fact that even in my houses without alpha masking, I dont notice the alpha bug on Singularity. For example (and I do not know much about Advanced Settings) in Singularity under rendering I have checked: Automatic Alpha Masks (non deferred) Automatic Alpha Masks (deferred) I do not have this one checked: Aggressive Alpha Masking I dont know what any of these do, just that they have to do with Alpha Masking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coby Foden Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Pamela Galli wrote: For example (and I do not know much about Advanced Settings) in Singularity under rendering I have checked: Automatic Alpha Masks (non deferred) Automatic Alpha Masks (deferred) Firestorm (4.6.9) has those settings too, in menu: • Develop, Rendering, Automatic Alpha Masks (non deferred) • Develop, Rendering, Automatic Alpha Masks (deferred) It appears that they are both on by default. (To turn on "Develop" menu: Ctrl-Alt-Q) PS. In Firestorm those settings are also available in: Preferences, Graphics, Rendering Alpha Mask Rendering: • Render alpha masks when "Advanced Lighting Model" is not enabled • Render alpha masks when "Advanced Lighting Model" is enabled What these settings do is: "When ticked this makes the alpha masks (see-thru bits) render correctly when ALM is not enabled." and "When ticked this makes the alpha masks (see-thru bits) render correctly when ALM is enabled." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 Thanks Coby -- at this point my best guess is that there is no viewer setting the equivalent of the old Fast Alpha, but then I dont know why I rarely see the alpha bug and my customer does. And I still dont know why Alpha Masking would not be effective for her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theresa Tennyson Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Pamela Galli wrote: Thanks Coby -- at this point my best guess is that there is no viewer setting the equivalent of the old Fast Alpha, but then I dont know why I rarely see the alpha bug and my customer does. And I still dont know why Alpha Masking would not be effective for her. If the customer wears mesh hair and you don't that would make a big difference in their perception. With the way most mesh hair is made it will have an alpha sorting issue in front of transparent textures fairly often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TundraFire Nightfire Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Is that was causes this odd area of missing water above my dog's hip, a Firestorm bug? I only get this with the Firestorm viewer and not the SL viewer. I use a full body alpha mask under my quad dog avatar. On some surfaces I have squares of semi transparent material under the feet, too. With my regular human avatar, mesh hair has an outlne when viewed with water in the background. I'm not sure if any of this is related to the Firestorm bug though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theresa Tennyson Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 TundraFire Nightfire wrote: Is that was causes this odd area of missing water above my dog's hip, a Firestorm bug? I only get this with the Firestorm viewer and not the SL viewer. I use a full body alpha mask under my quad dog avatar. On some surfaces I have squares of semi transparent material under the feet, too. With my regular human avatar, mesh hair has an outlne when viewed with water in the background. I'm not sure if any of this is related to the Firestorm bug though. Mesh hair will glitch like that against water if you have "advanced lighting" off, and the issue with your dog is probably similar. It won't happen with "advanced lighting" on. The SL viewer defaults to advanced lighting being on with many more setups than Firestorm does - you can turn it on or off manually with either viewer though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TundraFire Nightfire Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Turing on "Advanced Lighting" worked to get rid of that annoying spot for my dog avatar Definitely not the Firestorm bug. Thank you for the answer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenbro Utu Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Pamela Galli wrote: A customer asked how she could get rid of the alpha bug when looking through windows. I explained how to use Alpha Masking (in the Texture tab of Edit) but she said that had no effect. (I mask all my houses when I update them.) Now, with or without Alpha Masking, I rarely notice the alpha bug when using Singularity, which I assume it is because of some settings in the Advanced menu. However, my customer has Firestorm, which has different settings -- does anyone know of some setting in Firestorm that would lessen the alpha bug? thanks! In the Developer Menu, under Rendering, Object-object occlusion. This can help with alpha's fighting each other over priority, if that is the bug you are talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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