About Alpha Maps on Meshes

[Memo Opaque]

Hello, i am back with a new question. When you use alpha maps on two or more object close to each other, one's face dominates others and you see only one of them. There is a solution for this ?

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

   This is called The Dreaded Alpha Sorting Bug. It occurs when two or more alpha BLENDED textures are overlain, or superimposed. It's been around forever and will likely remain. One fix, which is actually more of a workaround, is to set one (or more) of those alpha textures to use alpha masking instead of blending. The results, of course, are not as satisfactory, but it works.

[Memo Opaque]

I saw some glass objects in another glass object in SL. Is there another way to make transparent faces like glasses ? Or you think they are made as you explained above ?

[Chic Aeon]

6 minutes ago, Memo Opaque said:

I saw some glass objects in another glass object in SL. Is there another way to make transparent faces like glasses ? Or you think they are made as you explained above ?

The inside and the outside of the glass needs to be different materials. 

There was another issue a year ago or so called "phong". If you look that up in the archives you will find info on a very long thread. Basically you ended up with lots of triangles in the texture (where you mesh was triangulated). I haven't seen that in awhile so It I think THAT is fixed. 

So try making the inside of your glass one material and the outside another. I am pretty sure that will more or less solve your issue. You WILL have alpha sorting and other issues within SL no matter what, but that fixes the main one within YOUR object.  This is the reason that you don't stand in front of glass windows when taking a photo :D.  

 

[Memo Opaque]

@Chic Aeon I will give it a try, thank you very much

 

[Memo Opaque]

Only way to use different materials on faces is to duplicate the mesh and flip normals ? Is there any other way for  it ? Because duplicating it increases the amount of vertices which is not so desired

[Pamela Galli]

No, you select different groups of faces and assign different materials to the different groups. As Chic explained.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Pamela Galli

[Memo Opaque]

Yes, but let's say i have a plane. When i click on the face, it choses the face from both sides in Blender. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Memo Opaque

[Pamela Galli]

It doesn't for me. There is a setting that you need to change. 

This is another pretty basic skill I am surprised you are able to make such advanced content without having learned: 

I suggest a beginners tutorial that will introduce you to these kinds of basic skills.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Pamela Galli

[Memo Opaque]

it is weird because i saw some other asking same question on other forums, too...like this one https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6905/how-to-set-different-colors-to-each-side-of-plane. Just wondered if there is another way than duplicating or backfacing node(which is still one material so no idea if it would work in SL)

Edited June 19, 2017 by Memo Opaque

[Memo Opaque]

2 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

It doesn't for me. There is a setting that you need to change. 

This is another pretty basic skill I am surprised you are able to make such advanced content without having learned: 

I suggest a beginners tutorial that will introduce you to these kinds of basic skills.

Why do you have this harsh approach always ? Yes, i watched lots of tutorials and also all of Chic's tutorials and came to some point. Until i asked it, i hadn't needed to use different material on the sides of an object without dept like a plane. i searched lots of forums and they mostly say "one face can only have one material". I saw some people, who are not beginner, asking it too. So came here if people knows some way different for it. If you are gonna have this attitude, feel free not to answer my questions. 

[Pamela Galli]

You have said you have been working in 3ds a long time, you just need help with Blender now But somehow you have missed some pretty basic skills common to both blender and 3ds, like how to select a face and not select the faces behind it.

It is not mean to suggest you watch some basic skills tutorials, especially those specific to SL. That's just the most efficient way to learn these things. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Pamela Galli

[Memo Opaque]

I didn't ask how to select one face and not faces behind it(i know how to click on "Limit selection to visible" button basicly). If you checked the link i posted above (https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6905/how-to-set-different-colors-to-each-side-of-plane), you would understand what i was asking.

[Chic Aeon]

You haven't shown us any screenshots of your Blender scene so we can only guess.  IF you made your object with just one face, you either need to build a corresponding face to it OR use the solidify modifier to make a two sided face.  Blender shows the face as solid unless you turn on BACKFACE CULLING which I did mention in one of the first tutorials but didn't explain WHY I told you to do that :D.

 

The top photo shows an empty cylinder WITH backface culling turned on.

The second shows that same cylinder after adding a solidify modifier.  Backface culling is still on. 

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Chic Aeon

[Memo Opaque]

@Chic Aeon Yessss that is what i asked. Ok, i made a bulb and half wine bottle as one face (no depth). So i will put that edison bulb inside half bottle and make some decor. I gave it some thickness with that solidify tool and it creased the vertices ah many as not desired. i will put 4 of these bulb and bottle. That is why i am trying to keep vertices low as possible as i can. Before i use solidify, i searched around and what i could use as alternative. What i could find were duplicating the object and flipping normals or backfacing with geometry node(which is still not 2 different matterial on the both side of the face. So i am not sure if it would work.) So i just wondered if anyone knew some way to use both side the face with different materials without creating more faces. But seems like, there is no option for it. Thank you.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Memo Opaque

[Pamela Galli]

1 hour ago, Memo Opaque said:

I didn't ask how to select one face and not faces behind it(i know how to click on "Limit selection to visible" button basicly). If you checked the link i posted above (https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6905/how-to-set-different-colors-to-each-side-of-plane), you would understand what i was asking.

As Chic says, we could only guess what you meant -- the link did not help. 

It did not occur to me that you did not know that all faces have only one side, since I assumed 3ds was the same. Evidently not.

Chic correctly guessed it, she is good at that kind of thing. 

 

[Chic Aeon]

41 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Chic correctly guessed it, she is good at that kind of thing. 

I have ESP  

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Memo Opaque said:

@Chic Aeon Yessss that is what i asked. Ok, i made a bulb and half wine bottle as one face (no depth). (https://prnt.sc/flnced) So i will put that edison bulb inside half bottle and make some decor. I gave it some thickness with that solidify tool and it creased the vertices ah many as not desired. i will put 4 of these bulb and bottle. That is why i am trying to keep vertices low as possible as i can. Before i use solidify, i searched around and what i could use as alternative. What i could find were duplicating the object and flipping normals or backfacing with geometry node(which is still not 2 different matterial on the both side of the face. So i am not sure if it would work.) So i just wondered if anyone knew some way to use both side the face with different materials without creating more faces. But seems like, there is no option for it. Thank you.

OK. That looks good and you are smarter ----

But of course there is a BUT coming. I am pretty sure that you will still have alpha issues IF you try and make the bulbs transparent too.  Still good to keep going and learn I think. 

But to your other question. No matter "how" you make that inside face you will need to DIVIDE it into at least two materials == mapped separately.  So typically you would map it so that the outside of the bottle including the bottom was all one material and the inside surfaces another. You "might" need a third material for an edge (like on a wine glass).

 

I looked long and hard for an example blender file but while they MUST be in my file manager somewhere I cannot find them. So here is an example of a texture and a glass from inworld and hopefully you can figure out something from that.  you can see that the transparent part of the glass is divided into three parts. The stem in this case is solid. 

Hope that helps. 

PS. From your screenshot of work in progress I am thinking you will need to get rid of some edgeloops or have issues with LOD and or land impact.  Think SIMPLISTICALLY. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Chic Aeon

[Memo Opaque]

@Chic Aeon Yes, i lowered its vertices to less than its half  and i got what you mean from that baked texture. Thank you very much for such detailed explanation.