Overlapping semi-transparent textures with alpha blending

[Lydia Alberti]

I usually don't have problems applying semi-transparent textures with alpha blending but suddenly in my new project, it's not working. I have a mesh that has loads of feathers on top of one another and I applied the texture to it. But when I did, it looked like u can see through the textures where the mesh is overlapping. Does any one have idea how to fix this. I tried alpha masking but it doesn't have the results i want - where the small gaps in the features are it has a horrible clipping effect. So I preferably want to keep it in alpha blending mode.

Here are some screenshots:

https://gyazo.com/c17a01af8bb8b2357562ae1c88d0ec39
https://gyazo.com/5ed35ced0194c7f9dfc5ca07af877873

Here I'm using alpha masking at 20% and u can see its not the result I want, the ends of the feathers aren't very delicate and light - whereas alpha blending achieves that:

https://gyazo.com/3fc19c14f8194cb89798b5b1f6d04743

[Wulfie Reanimator]

This is, in fact, normal. It's the reality of alpha-blending, at least in SL. The reasons are technical and the solution is to either ditch alpha blending and make better textures with the hard edges in mind, or only use alpha blending on the edges of the mesh where it matters. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Lydia Alberti]

20 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

This is, in fact, normal. It's the reality of alpha-blending, at least in SL. The reasons are technical and the solution is to either ditch alpha blending and make better textures with the hard edges in mind, or only use alpha blending on the edges of the mesh where it matters. 

Thank you, this is the confirmation I needed to avoid this - I tried to look for solutions or work arounds like ordering how it's rendered or the material index (had no idea if I did them even remotely correct) but they didn't work.

To get the feathers looking the best that I can without having to model the fine detail (want to keep it as efficient as possible) I'm going to stick with the alpha masking method. It provides the most decent result and one that I'm happy to go with.

Thanks