Mask Cutoff Not Working for Mesh?

[Gusher Castaignede]

Am on  Windows 7 64bit and use CS6 Photoshop making 24bit png with semi translucent layer but once uploaded to SL it doesn't respond, no matter how high or low the mask cutoff is set.. the mask just goes transparent or either opaque...any ideas about this?



[arton Rotaru]

That's how alpha masking (alpha test) is intended to work. It's testing if the pixel should be discarded, or not. So each pixel is either fully opaque, or fully transparent. For semi transparency you will have to use alpha blending.

[Rolig Loon]

Continuation/duplicate of https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Building-and-Texturing-Forum/Mask-Cutoff-Not-Working/m-p/3021419

[arton Rotaru]

Ah, double post. :matte-motes-nerdy: This one should be deleted then anyway.

[Gusher Castaignede]

For prims worked fine but for mesh its messy...

[arton Rotaru]

The alpha sorting issue is basically the same for prims and mesh. Prims are just mesh as well.
Fortunately with mesh we have the ability to construct our objects in a way that the sorting glitch can be minimized, or avoided. It just doesn't work well in the way you wanted it to work.

IMO it's best to build and texture the non transparent parts as a single mesh, and the transparent part as another mesh. Which makes texturing easier, and more efficient regarding the use of the UV space. The texture with the alpha channel can be pretty small then, too

Also, when breaking off the alpha blending mesh part, the display weight will show much lower numbers. Because otherwise the alpha penalty would be applied for all the triangles in the entire mesh, regardless of the materials assigned.

[Gusher Castaignede]

To build and texture the non transparent parts as a single mesh seems best approach...