Alpha Glitch layering issue (Mesh Head) Please help

[Rene Capelo]

Hi everyone,

 

So im having a kinda major issue when it comes to the layering / alpha issues on my mesh heads. At the moment my heads are cut up into pieces to allow mix & match features however i will be switching this to faces with the next update so it wont matter.

Anyway, the issue im having has to deal with the Eyebrows, Eyeshadow & Eyelashes layers.  All of which need to work with alpha textures for applier creators to make their own features. There are multiple mesh heads on the market that do this without any issues from what i have seen, however mine are stuck with the alpha glitching/fighting issue. 

 

Example of glitch ( eyelashes have alpha glow around them, eyebrow is cutting off eyeshadow texture at the top) : https://gyazo.com/aa8f617fddc2b7b07647a13733fc0889

The current way i have it : https://gyazo.com/1cbca72e7cb6570023ffcc7f2d17fb58

* Green = Eyebrow Layer (cutout seperate mesh)

* Blue = Eyeshadow Layer (cutout seperate mesh)

* LightBlue = Eyelashes (seperate mesh)

Sometimes the eyeshadow simply wont show up at all due to the lashes being in front of them. 

 

So far i have tried combining the eyelash layers and eyeshadow layers with no fix. I have also tried seperate faces and having them all combined to no avail. I have also tried changing the eyelashes to Alpha Masking, however the clumpy look isnt really appealing to myself or my customers. I have tried putting the eyebrow layer on Alpha Masking and it doesnt help much when it comes to the eyeshadow glitching.

So im wondering if anyone has any ideas/suggestions as to how i should be layering my alpha layers so this doesnt happen. Any help would be greatly appreciated, ive tried over and over for a fix on this.

Thanks in advance for reading! <3

 

 

PS: I know this can be done Catwa lelutka and many other big mesh head creators have found the solution to this issue but unfortunately no one wants to help ;[

[arton Rotaru]

If anything can fix the alpha sorting glitch, it's by reordering the vertices. How to do that depends on your modeling app. A google search should give plenty of results though.

Like so.:
(It doesn't has to be 4 materials, this should work with a single material as well. But I guess these mesh heads have them as separate materials.)

 

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

Also... one additional thing to note here, I use the Catwa Daniel head, which does the lashes/brows/makeup/and such, as you've outlined here.  The thing is, if you keep all of them set to "Blend" mode, you will get the clash between brows/lashes/makeup, and when standing in front of alpha textures like windows etcetera.  The Catwa solution, as per their user manual, which works great; to set the eyelashes to "Mask" mode.  This may be a tweak you can employ here, also it has the benefit of making the lashes appear to be mesh like.  Another solution may be to use mesh lashes on your heads, instead of alphas. 

Even if you sort the alphas as Arton outlined wonderfully above, you will still get the issues of your lashes clashing with any other alpha textures you may stand in front of, they should really be an alpha Mask only, or actual mesh, since they poke out so much... like old-school SL hair, it can really detract from your beautiful creations.

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

lol, I didnt see you mentioned masking above in OP...

It's still important tho, you cannot control the environment avatars will be in , and there will be alphas, considering that blended lashes look far far worse than masked IMO.  There may be a way to optimize the blockyness potential, I dont know, isnt that a matter of your texture resolution?  Mesh eyelashes seem really interesting to me, ive been hunting for some good male mesh lashes myself. 

[Rene Capelo]

On 8/18/2017 at 0:41 PM, arton Rotaru said:

If anything can fix the alpha sorting glitch, it's by reordering the vertices. How to do that depends on your modeling app. A google search should give plenty of results though.

Like so.:
(It doesn't has to be 4 materials, this should work with a single material as well. But I guess these mesh heads have them as separate materials.)

 

 

 

Hi i have a few further questions if you do not mind! i have contacted you in world for a follow up, thank you so much.

[Chellynne Bailey]

On 8/18/2017 at 9:41 AM, arton Rotaru said:

If anything can fix the alpha sorting glitch, it's by reordering the vertices. How to do that depends on your modeling app. A google search should give plenty of results though.

Like so.:
(It doesn't has to be 4 materials, this should work with a single material as well. But I guess these mesh heads have them as separate materials.)

 

 

Hi! I work with a lot of mesh, and I've seen nothing to suggest vertex order matters, but what does matter is:

 a) Making sure EVERY overlapping face is part of the SAME prim.

and

b) Sake sure your skin layer is set to Alpha_mode_none.  

Failure to do either one of these two things will result in lots of glitches. Settings things to masking mode helps immensely too, but if you want to use blending mode you need to do these two things. Also, be aware, you can't control the surroundings, but I think people understand and accept that at this point. Just make sure the makeup isn't so far from the skin you have a massive halo effect when standing in front of a tree

As for the vertex trick.. I have seen some documentation suggesting it can be used to set an order if you have identical layers, ie, you didn't lift one slightly above the other. I have zero confirmation or testing to support or deny that though. Something to play with though!

[Chic Aeon]

I don't make mesh heads so I am just throwing this in here in case it matters. When you have alpha sorting issues with objects such as furniture  IF you have a double sided mesh you need to make one side "material A" and the opposite side "material B" in order to have smooth relations between the layers. I never change the alpha choices from the default (whatever that is LOL) and have no issues at all these days.  (In the past there were lots of nasty things going on but the upload is happier now) .

 

As suggested you can make these all part of one mesh with different materials. If there is an issue with single layer (like a plane) mesh you could make it double sided === if double sided is an issue you could make it single sided. Again, no experience with heads, just some possibilities. 

 

Good luck. 

[arton Rotaru]

16 hours ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

Hi! I work with a lot of mesh, and I've seen nothing to suggest vertex order matters, but what does matter is:

 a) Making sure EVERY overlapping face is part of the SAME prim.

and

b) Sake sure your skin layer is set to Alpha_mode_none.  

Actually I did some testing with the vertex ordering, (it is the same prim as well indeed, or the vertex reordering wouldn't work in the first place). I created a simple test texture for the example model I showed in the picture, and it work very well. There were zero sorting issues. However, I then applied a random alpha texture to it, and bam, alpha sorting glitch as bad as always.

So from what I can tell, there is no reliable way to eliminate alpha blend sorting issues. No matter of the vertex order, be it one prim, or what ever. It appears to me that it depends more on the textures applied than anything else. You can get lucky, and it works well with the textures applied, or it doesn't. I don't no why one texture worked, and the other did not? Maybe it has something to do with the colors itself, IDK?

That the skin layer has no alpha is a given indeed.

Edited September 5, 2017 by arton Rotaru

[Chellynne Bailey]

Well you need to not just make sure the skin layer has no alpha, but that the mesh is set to alpha_mode_none. Sl is weird with it's alpha_modes and you gotta make sure it's set >.>

[arton Rotaru]

So I did another quick test today, and it seems that the vertex re-ordering does work to avoid the sorting glitch, if the mesh has only a single material assigned.

That doesn't help with multi material meshes indeed, but it might help for some other use cases where a single material will do.

Edited September 22, 2017 by arton Rotaru