Problem with Alpha of Hair and Semi Transparent Clothes

[FairreLilette]

Hi,

There is a problem with the alpha in the hair when it sits near a semi-transparent clothing item.

It makes the hair look weird for one and then it exposes the body it seems when the alpha in the hair is near a semi-transparent clothing item.

Is there any help for this glitch in the works or perhaps that bake on mesh will fix?

I goofed again today and bought a semi-transparent dress and a new hair, and then after purchase my boob is exposed because the dress is semi-transparent only.  It's the hair doing it, I gather because it has an alpha or semi-transparent in parts too.

I had forgotten about this and didn't even notice when I was trying on the demos and bought the items.  Urgh!  

Why I didn't see it until I bought the items...I don't know.  Tired eyes from doing too much stuff lately, I guess.

Edited November 3, 2018 by FairreLilette

[Alyona Su]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

Hi,

There is a problem with the alpha in the hair when it sits near a semi-transparent clothing item.

It makes the hair look weird for one and then it exposes the body it seems when the alpha in the hair is near a semi-transparent clothing item.

Is there any help for this glitch in the works or perhaps that bake on mesh will fix?

I goofed again today and bought a semi-transparent dress and a new hair, and then after purchase my boob is exposed because the dress is semi-transparent only.  It's the hair doing it, I gather because it has an alpha or semi-transparent in parts too.

I had forgotten about this and didn't even notice when I was trying on the demos and bought the items.  Urgh!  

Why I didn't see it until I bought the items...I don't know.  Tired eyes from doing too much stuff lately, I guess.

This is the hair creator's fault. Find new hair. Quality hair will not do this so it's always best to try demos, including in front of windows or other transparent objects. The alpha issue you describe is most common with older mesh hair creations.

[Skell Dagger]

If the hair is modifiable then you can try to edit the alpha mask (quick video guide here). This works best on straight hair, and doesn't always look fantastic, but it's a decent enough workaround if you can manage it. Also, if the hair has a 'materials' option then that will usually get rid of the issue, but only if you have Advanced Lighting enabled in your graphics preferences. Anyone who doesn't have AL enabled will, unfortunately, still see the unintentional nip-slip.

Other than that, the 'alpha glitch' is a Second Life bug that we can't really do much else about.

[MoiraKathleen]

If either the hair or the dress can be copied and modified, you may be able to change one from alpha blending to alpha masked (with an acceptable masking value) without losing too much of the look of the item.

I have been able to do this with some hair.  After making a copy to keep as a backup (in case something goes wrong), I've then gone into edit mode and to the Texture tab.  Often I will choose "Select Face" from the upper section of the edit window, then click on an area of the hair.  If the "Alpha mode" shows "Alpha blending", you can change that drop-down value to "Alpha masking" and then enter a value in the new "Mask cutoff" field that appears.  I usually start with a mask cutoff value around 75 or 100, though sometimes I have gone as high as 150 or 175.  I repeat that for each face (if multiple faces) that have "Alpha blending".  Then I exit edit mode and take a look to see if the hair still looks OK - if not I either tinker around trying different mask cutoff values, or a revert it all back to "Alpha blending".  This works for some styles, not all, but it's still worth a try. 

[Nalates Urriah]

You'll see the problem in this video...

The video and article are about lowering ACI. But, the blending feature used is what needs to change to correct what you are seeing.

For more on ACI TAG: ACI

[TheMadAlice03]

On 11/3/2018 at 7:12 PM, Alyona Su said:

This is the hair creator's fault. Find new hair. Quality hair will not do this so it's always best to try demos, including in front of windows or other transparent objects. The alpha issue you describe is most common with older mesh hair creations.

Oh my God, thank you! I thought it's my viewer or something. I have this issue with certain hairs, when they hit the clothing, it becomes transparent.

Same when I sit near my window, the outline of the hair makes parts of it look transparent. Ugh!

[AyelaNewLife]

7 hours ago, TheMadAlice03 said:

Oh my God, thank you! I thought it's my viewer or something. I have this issue with certain hairs, when they hit the clothing, it becomes transparent.

Same when I sit near my window, the outline of the hair makes parts of it look transparent. Ugh!

Yep, that's pretty much unavoidable, and will also occur when you're in front of leaves or the ocean. Here's an example of a month-old hair from one of the "big names":

I've learned to live with it, and if I'm wearing semi-transparent clothing then I just pick an appropriate hairstyle that doesn't have hair dangling in front of it. I wouldn't really blame the hair creator for this, there's no way around this issue other than restricting themselves to waxworks hairstyles with no loose strands, which isn't a great solution either.

If you wear tattoo or "underwear" applier layers, you'll notice the same effect with the alpha layers that surround your body. Same deal; avoid overlap with high transparency objects and you'll be fine. Even then, most cases are only noticeable in photos, and are fine for "everyday SL".

Edited November 10, 2018 by AyelaNewLife

[Marianne Little]

On 11/3/2018 at 9:23 PM, Nalates Urriah said:

You'll see the problem in this video...

The video and article are about lowering ACI. But, the blending feature used is what needs to change to correct what you are seeing.

For more on ACI TAG: ACI

I had no idea that you could put scripts in No Modify objects. That the system allows it.

This goes against all I learned in SL. Good to know, but... as you say yourself, the hair appearance is then coarse when you look at it close. That is the reason creators use alpha blending instead of alpha masking, of course. Fine strands and wisps of hair loose the delicate look in alpha masking.

I have experimented on changing alpha in modify hairs, and tried various levels of cutoff. It is tricky. A few hairs can look almost as good with alpha masking. But it takes time and patience to go through hairs and edit them, to find some hairs that look acceptable in alpha masking.

For now, it is easier to change to another hairstyle that don't hang over the clothes. I can't wait until we get BoM. At least we can wear skin tight clothes on the torso with BoM, and avoid the alpha sorting issues. Lingerie with lace is a typical example.

[Blush Bravin]

I often change parts of hair from alpha blending to alpha masking. I do NOT do it as a whole, however, as that does tend to make the hair less attractive. Instead, using select face, I will only do the hair strands that cause the most problems. So those that nearly always cause parts of my hairline on my baby hairs hairbase to disappear and those strands that hang down and cause issues with clothing that has transparency. This is also the main reason I almost never buy hair that doesn't have modify perms. 

BoM will be a great help for things like hairbases and eyelashes, but it won't help with our fitted mesh clothing. So learning how to turn on alpha masking for offending hair strands is still something we're going to need to do.

[Alyona Su]

14 hours ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Yep, that's pretty much unavoidable, and will also occur when you're in front of leaves or the ocean. Here's an example of a month-old hair from one of the "big names":

 

This is a simple limitation of the system. I believe what the OP is referring to are those hairs where the *entire hair* goes transparent and you are literally bald when in front of a window. I ran into this from a particular creator just a few weeks ago myself.

[AyelaNewLife]

45 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

This is a simple limitation of the system. I believe what the OP is referring to are those hairs where the *entire hair* goes transparent and you are literally bald when in front of a window. I ran into this from a particular creator just a few weeks ago myself.

Oh fair enough, I've never run into that, probably because I've not really tried too many older mesh hairs  I made that screenshot because my original example was NSFW, from a hair that had a much larger "alpha footprint" than necessary, thus exposing a friend (wearing a semi-transparent top) from the collarbone down to one boob, but that's about the worst I've personally run into. Learned something new today

Edited November 11, 2018 by AyelaNewLife

[Rhonda Huntress]

3 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

hair that had a much larger "alpha footprint" than necessary, thus exposing a friend (wearing a semi-transparent top) from the collarbone down to one boob, but that's about the worst I've personally run into. Learned something new today

Me too!  I learned I can use my hair to perv other people!  Woot!  Thanks, Ayela.

 

 

 

 

((just kidding!))

[Blush Bravin]

On 11/3/2018 at 11:10 AM, FairreLilette said:

It makes the hair look weird for one and then it exposes the body it seems when the alpha in the hair is near a semi-transparent clothing item.

 

On 11/3/2018 at 11:10 AM, FairreLilette said:

my boob is exposed because the dress is semi-transparent only.  It's the hair doing it, I gather because it has an alpha or semi-transparent in parts too.

 

49 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

I believe what the OP is referring to are those hairs where the *entire hair* goes transparent and you are literally bald when in front of a window.

Reading the OPs comments carefully, it doesn't seem that she's saying the hair disappears at all, but that her clothing under the hair is disappearing just as Ayela demonstrated in her pics.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

20 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I had no idea that you could put scripts in No Modify objects. That the system allows it.

It isn't all no-mod things this trick works with... only some.

[Marianne Little]

17 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

It isn't all no-mod things this trick works with... only some.

I unpacked a very nice console table yesterday, after I read that. From a pay to join group.... I paid it because the gifts looked so pretty. And it wasn't mod, so I could not shrink it. But it let me put in a resizer script, problem solved. One piece of furniture saved because of this, so it was very useful to know.

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

23 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I had no idea that you could put scripts in No Modify objects. That the system allows it.

 

You can't drop anything into the contents of a no modify object if the object container is no modify.
Remember that the permissions shown in inventory are the folded permissions, which takes into account the object container permissions plus the permissions of object contents.
An object that is modify but contains a no modify script will show as no modify in your inventory, but you will be able to modify that object.

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

 

You can't drop anything into the contents of a no modify object if the object container is no modify.
Remember that the permissions shown in inventory are the folded permissions, which takes into account the object container permissions plus the permissions of object contents.
An object that is modify but contains a no modify script will show as no modify in your inventory, but you will be able to modify that object.

I edit stuff all the time, and know about no mod scripts. I should get up the colored or white boxes no matter. I am sure they didn't show up yesterday. But today they do? Could be many reasons. Maybe I had selected something alpha from another piece. Or I was tired from rezzing so much. Shows that mishaps happens, not matter how old and experienced I think I am. I still select and delete houses, ground elements and everything I should not delete... because I unlocked them to tint or texture, forget to lock it again and then oops. I never seem to foolproof myself there. ?