Rigged Mesh, transparent texture issues.

[Iain Pinelli]

Hello Folks!

I've encountered an issue with rigged mesh avatars, where transparent textures commonly used with hair in 3D models the transparent texture for parts such as the hair ends causes what appear to be some sort of texture-layering issues. However i have noticed some SL mesh creators making clothing and hair using this same method without issue.

EXAMPLES:

http://i.imgur.com/hmqEg.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3tGny.jpg

The alternative is I could just make a complete mesh hair and a non-transparent texture and reform the hair so the hair creates the 'ends' and 'curls' but this would waste ALOT of polygons which for SL avatars as most people know is already a big issue.

[valerie Inshan]

I don't have an answer to your question, but I would suggest you increase your chances to get one by posting this in the Mesh forum too. :smileywink:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/bd-p/Mesh

[Nyll Bergbahn]

But will we buy all mesh hair. I won't as its flexibility is limited. I've tried mixed mesh and flexible prim hair and that seems to work ok.

Interesting thread here http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/flexible-hair-tails-on-mesh-Is-it-possible/td-p/1162733

[Nalates Urriah]

What I see happening in the images is from the single side polygons that SL renders.

In 3D modeling prrograms you can see both sides of a polygon. So, in the modeling programs things look good. 

You can see how SL renders things by making a cube (no hole) and making one side clear. Look through the clear side and none of the other sides are visible. The back side of those polygons is not rendered.

Several 3D modeling programs get confused... well they all do... when you are editing and creating polygons. They often set the normal, that determines the outside face, or rendered face, of a polygon, to the wrong side. Several programs decide the normal based on the creation/section order of vertices, clockwise or counter-clockwise.

This is a common enough problem that most modeling programs have a Recalulate or Flip Normals features.

Mesh hair has to take this one sided polygon thing into account when it is made.

In Blender there is a panel within the 3D Window on the right side (press N) with a section named Mesh Display. You must be in Edit Mode for it to show. Within it is a subsection titled Normals. You can select either Face or Vertex. I prefer Face. Once enabled Blender will show a small line starting at the face and extending 'out.' If the line extends 'in,' select the face and Flip the normal. In the controls within the 3D Window on the left (press T) is a section named Mesh Tools. Within that section is a subsection labeled Normals. The controls to Recalculate or Flip Direction can be used to change the direction of the normal.

[Strawberry Lionheart]

That's the well-known z-buffer issue in the gaming industries. :catembarrassed:

 

If you are in 3dsmax all you need is to setup the z-sort in the layers.

For blender it's best you resort the vertex(vertices) numbers from low to high (lower layers should have fewer numbers). That's how most game read the layers by vertex number. So say.. you have 3 semi-transparent layers close to each other and the camera doesn't know which one should be on top when it comes to render and it simply render from the smallest numbers to the largest. so if your top layer is 1-4 and 2nd layer is 5-8 and bottom layer is 9-12. you will definitely get an alpha blending bug with the z-buffer rendering in SL. so what you should do is, have your top layer's vertices sort to 9-12, 2nd layer 5-8 and bottom layer 1-4. This way when z-buffer render the mesh it will load the bottom mesh 1st then cover it with the 2nd layer and then the top layer thus eliminates the bug shown in the picture you post.:catvery-happy:

 

Hope that helps! :catembarrassed: