SL ALFA GLITCH FIX

[Ceka Cianci]

I'm gonna post this in here because it's a common problem and the fix is buried in the blog..  As much of a problem as it has been over the years, there really should be a sticky of some kind somewhere in the forums..

If there is I missed the party and didn't see it, so I'm gonna post the things in here and bookmark this so it's in my quick references for me and others I may come across needing help with this..

Here is a link to the blog which has a video of how to fix hair with transparency in it and transparent tops..

Here is a link to the priority list  and how to use it, that someone had given me earlier today..

https://slalphaglitch.tumblr.com/

 

As well as the information from the last link below so you can copy and paste it to a note card from here..

 

SL ALPHA GLITCH FIX

November 11, 2022

What is this “alpha glitch” thing?

While SL has many different type of alpha issues, this fix is for when two rigged meshes with alpha textures make each other go invisible. For instance, your see-through dress may break your fishnet stockings, or your hair may make your top go invisible.

You used to be able to fix this by using bump and specular maps to assign priorities, but LL replaced it with a new method.

How do you fix the alpha glitching now?

There are two things that decide the priority: the attachment point, and the root prim transparency.

Let me explain. LL recently added priority to each attachment point, here is a breakdown of what priority each bone has. Please note that the lower the number, the higher the priority:

1 - Chest
2 - Skull
3 - Left Shoulder
4 - Right Shoulder
5 - Left Hand
6 - Right Hand
7 - Left Foot
8 - Right Foot
9 - Spine
10 - Pelvis
11 - Mouth
12 - Chin
13 - Left Ear
14 - Right Ear
15 - Left Eyeball
16 - Right Eyeball
17 - Nose
18 - R Upper Arm
19 - R Forearm
20 - L Upper Arm
21 - L Forearm
22 - Right Hip
23 - R Upper Leg
24 - R Lower Leg
25 - Left Hip
26 - L Upper Leg
27 - L Lower Leg
28 - Stomach
29 - Left Pec
30 - Right Pec
31 - [HUD] Center 2
32 - [HUD] Top Right
33 - [HUD] Top
34 - [HUD] Top Left
35 - [HUD] Center
36 - [HUD] Bottom Left
37 - [HUD] Bottom
38 - [HUD] Bottom Right
39 - Neck
40 - Avatar Center
41 - Left Ring Finger
42 - Right Ring Finger
43 - Tail Base
44 - Tail Tip
45 - Left Wing
46 - Right Wing
47 - Jaw
48 - Alt Left Ear
49 - Alt Right Ear
50 - Alt Left Eye
51 - Alt Right Eye
52 - Tongue
53 - Groin
54 - Left Hind Foot
55 - Right Hind Foot

Example: if you want to wear alpha hair with an alpha top, then you can attach the hair to your skull (priority 2) attachment point while attaching your top to the spine (priority 9). This way your hair won’t make your top go invisible. This has endless uses both for creators and residents, and can easily be switched up by anyone who want to change priority within their outfit. But there’s a catch, there’s also the matter of the blending options on the root prim:

While I have done limited testing on all the aspects around this, I can say for sure that a root prim that has transparency of more than 1% (including 100%), has a higher priority than a root prim with alpha masking or no alpha. This means that if your hair on the skull (priority 2) attachment point doesn’t have a transparent root prim, it will still glitch with your top on the spine (priority 9) attachment point. 

I believe this means all rigged mesh with alpha textures would benefit from having a root prim with transparency, as this gives the user freedom to configure their outfit freely.

Important: 

• While the attachment point priority changes have been confirmed as an intentional change and should stick around going forward, the root prim transparency part is not confirmed. This means that it might not remain true in the future. 
• Making your root prim 100% transparent instead of just partially transparent will help reduce lag.
• This fix is only relevant for rigged/fitted/bento mesh, and will not work with anything unrigged/resize.

Please share this information as we all benefit from more people knowing about this

 

I hope this helps some having problems.. I know I have a bunch of things that were kind of put on the shelf because of the glitch that I can't wait to get back in circulation..

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[ValKalAstra]

Is that what's going on? Gosh, I thought I was going crazy when outfits suddenly had alpha issues. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You're a fashion lifesaver.

[Sukubia Scarmon]

I hope I understood that correctly - So where I put my stuff matters, but if the rootprim has no transparency, it's pretty much not going to work either way?
Most of the newer hairs, especially the alpha style hairs, are no mod, so... yeah. Same with heads - my eyelashes tend to take out literal chunks outta any hair I wear, there's few hairs where there's no conflict happening - I'm gonna do some testing and see what happens. I do have a few rare hairs that are alpha style AND mod, and god knows how many semi-transparent tops and dresses.
Either way - thanks for bringing this to my attention! The mdoe people know, the better, and maybe some hair and clothing creators will change either the modrights (LET ME DREAM) or put some transparency in their logoprims.

[Ajay McDowwll]

3 minutes ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

I hope I understood that correctly - So where I put my stuff matters, but if the rootprim has no transparency, it's pretty much not going to work either way?
Most of the newer hairs, especially the alpha style hairs, are no mod, so... yeah. Same with heads - my eyelashes tend to take out literal chunks outta any hair I wear, there's few hairs where there's no conflict happening - I'm gonna do some testing and see what happens. I do have a few rare hairs that are alpha style AND mod, and god knows how many semi-transparent tops and dresses.
Either way - thanks for bringing this to my attention! The mdoe people know, the better, and maybe some hair and clothing creators will change either the modrights (LET ME DREAM) or put some transparency in their logoprims.

On the subject of the root prims, I know at least KMH is updating their hairs to have root prims with transparency, so they'll work within the new priority system.  I'm sure other creators are/ will be doing so as well.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 hours ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

I hope I understood that correctly - So where I put my stuff matters, but if the rootprim has no transparency, it's pretty much not going to work either way?
Most of the newer hairs, especially the alpha style hairs, are no mod, so... yeah. Same with heads - my eyelashes tend to take out literal chunks outta any hair I wear, there's few hairs where there's no conflict happening - I'm gonna do some testing and see what happens. I do have a few rare hairs that are alpha style AND mod, and god knows how many semi-transparent tops and dresses.
Either way - thanks for bringing this to my attention! The mdoe people know, the better, and maybe some hair and clothing creators will change either the modrights (LET ME DREAM) or put some transparency in their logoprims.

ETA: I Had things backwards in what has priority in the root prim.. It's the root prim with transparency that has the priority and not the solid root prim without transparency. I'm working on fixing this post at the moment..

[Fixed this  line]Ya, I guess since the root prim is looked at as the priority item in the linkset, if it's transparent,  then it will set the priority over a solid root prim from another item.

I'm wondering though if both items have solid root prims, if putting one on before the other sets a priority between the two or if that would keep them at their priority points?

Also with the lashes.. I had one of my favorite monso hairs that I couldn't wear because  it would always clash with my applier brows and lashes.. But once I dropped it on the ground and seen I could mod the textures and put the logo root prim to transparent.. I couldn't wait to get it back into my inventory and put it on..hehehehe

I think once more people know there is a fix, there will be more knowing to say something in product groups to creators about maybe fixing the root prim to transparency on things like no mod hair.. I would think they could add a transparent root prim in there as the new priority in the linkset and still keep their logo.

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Sukubia Scarmon]

14 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Ya, I guess since the root prim is looked at as the priority item in the linkset, if it's not transparent,  then it will set the priority over an alpha texture from another item.

I'm wondering though if both items have solid root prims, if putting one on before the other sets a priority between the two or if that would keep them at their priority points?

Also with the lashes.. I had one of my favorite monso hairs that I couldn't wear because  it would always clash with my applier brows and lashes.. But once I dropped it on the ground and seen I could mod the textures and put the logo root prim to transparent.. I couldn't wait to get it back into my inventory and put it on..hehehehe

I think once more people know there is a fix, there will be more knowing to say something in product groups to creators about maybe fixing the root prim to transparency on things like no mod hair.. I would think they could add a transparent root prim in there as the new priority in the linkset and still keep their logo.

 

I'm gonna have to test that out more in depth - I just went online real quick to see if it works in general - Put the alpha-hair on the skull, the transparent top on the spine - and.. nope. It kinda did work when I put on the top first, then the hair. 
Since the hair was mod, I made the root prim transparent - so technically it should have worked with the lashes from my head, but it did not. And when I saved the outfit, put everything off, and wear it again, the hair also glitched with the top again. 

Uh.. maybe I should update my viewer or something, since it said LL changed that recently? That may be a reason.

[Ceka Cianci]

32 minutes ago, Ajay McDowwll said:

On the subject of the root prims, I know at least KMH is updating their hairs to have root prims with transparency, so they'll work within the new priority system.  I'm sure other creators are/ will be doing so as well.

I was checking out my Doux hair and they seem to be using a texture with transparency for their logo that sits inside the head.. I'm not sure about the much older hair which I haven't gotten to yet.. But so far all of those that I have tried and set to skull are working with the priority list now..

I have to edit all my monso hair, but just really glad that hair can be modified to make the rootprim on those transparent..

I'm just so happy right now that so many of my bangs and things aren't clashing anymore on my favorite hairs.. hehehe

Still have a bunch to look through today though and keep my fingers crossed.

[JeromFranzic]

Awesome! Hopefully this works in Open Sim, too. 

I have a bunch of hairdos from Ade and little bones that alpha me half nekkid, these fixes should work... thanks.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

I'm gonna have to test that out more in depth - I just went online real quick to see if it works in general - Put the alpha-hair on the skull, the transparent top on the spine - and.. nope. It kinda did work when I put on the top first, then the hair. 
Since the hair was mod, I made the root prim transparent - so technically it should have worked with the lashes from my head, but it did not. And when I saved the outfit, put everything off, and wear it again, the hair also glitched with the top again. 

Uh.. maybe I should update my viewer or something, since it said LL changed that recently? That may be a reason.

I'm curious if the top has a root prim also? Or maybe something else is the root prim? I'm just stabbing in the dark.. I only found out about this yesterday myself through word of mouth..

Also, LL wasn't too informative in their blog post that's for sure.. They could have at least told people when they did it and if they needed to update their viewers or not. It seems more and more the explaining  gets put to a streamer. hehehe

 

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

I'm gonna have to test that out more in depth - I just went online real quick to see if it works in general - Put the alpha-hair on the skull, the transparent top on the spine - and.. nope. It kinda did work when I put on the top first, then the hair. 
Since the hair was mod, I made the root prim transparent - so technically it should have worked with the lashes from my head, but it did not. And when I saved the outfit, put everything off, and wear it again, the hair also glitched with the top again. 

Uh.. maybe I should update my viewer or something, since it said LL changed that recently? That may be a reason.

I put that information in the wrong order and  had the solid root prim as having priority, when it is the root prim with transparency that has the priority over the item with the solid root prim..

I'm fixing that post now..

I'm also curious if the part in Bold may have something to do with your situation?

"While the attachment point priority changes have been confirmed as an intentional change and should stick around going forward, the root prim transparency part is not confirmed. This means that it might not remain true in the future.
    Making your root prim 100% transparent instead of just partially transparent will help reduce lag.
    This fix is only relevant for rigged/fitted/bento mesh, and will not work with anything unrigged/resize."

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Love Zhaoying]

40 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

This fix is only relevant for rigged/fitted/bento mesh, and will not work with anything unrigged/resize."

That's helpful!

[Ceka Cianci]

22 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

That's helpful!

Ya, I think because they are the only object and maybe if they were mod ,we could link one in there and change it up where it can work.. I haven't found any of my hair that is glitching yet  that is mod to try it out.. I would think it would though since it's changing the root prim.

[Sukubia Scarmon]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I put that information in the wrong order and  had the solid root prim as having priority, when it is the root prim with transparency that has the priority over the item with the solid root prim..

I'm fixing that post now..

I'm also curious if the part in Bold may have something to do with your situation?

"While the attachment point priority changes have been confirmed as an intentional change and should stick around going forward, the root prim transparency part is not confirmed. This means that it might not remain true in the future.
    Making your root prim 100% transparent instead of just partially transparent will help reduce lag.
    This fix is only relevant for rigged/fitted/bento mesh, and will not work with anything unrigged/resize."

 

Took a good nap, and tried again!

You did not make a mistake with the order, because that's how understood it the first time: Transparent Rootprim > Nontransparent/Alphamasked Rootprim.

And yeah, both the hair and the top are rigged items, and both are mod. The top does have a root prim, but neither making it solid nor making it transparent will make a difference. The only time the hair will not glitch with the top is when I put the hair on last - but that makes no difference with my head, who's on the jaw-attach point (And thus should have the lowest priority of the tree items) 

I'm actually super convinced it gotta do something with the viewer, I mean, that's where the graphical information is processed, no? Which also opens up the question, is that for LL viewer only so far - becaue I use firestorm, they may or may not have implemented that yet if it's a client side thing.

[Nalates Urriah]

Thanks for outlining the gotchas. I was going in circles trying to figure it out on priority of attachments only.

I think the rendering process takes some shortcuts. Changing a single item does not always work. When the whole avatar has to be rendered the results seem to be more consistent.

...but may be not.

[Ceka Cianci]

5 minutes ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

Took a good nap, and tried again!

You did not make a mistake with the order, because that's how understood it the first time: Transparent Rootprim > Nontransparent/Alphamasked Rootprim.

And yeah, both the hair and the top are rigged items, and both are mod. The top does have a root prim, but neither making it solid nor making it transparent will make a difference. The only time the hair will not glitch with the top is when I put the hair on last - but that makes no difference with my head, who's on the jaw-attach point (And thus should have the lowest priority of the tree items) 

I'm actually super convinced it gotta do something with the viewer, I mean, that's where the graphical information is processed, no? Which also opens up the question, is that for LL viewer only so far - becaue I use firestorm, they may or may not have implemented that yet if it's a client side thing.

This is the version I'm on at the moment..  Firestorm 6.6.8 (68380) Jan  3 2023

So ya, it may be that or something going on..  I have it working on my bang addons and things like that..

 

Just to add for giggles.. I was wondering why I was getting all these updated hair from Monso and not really knowing what was updated on them..  They added 2% transparency to the root prim..

After almost being finished modding all my  monso hairs, I seen the last one for some reason was no mod.. Then that made me remember that I had gotten updated hairs and went to see if the updated version was mod..  Sure enough they were all fixed for the alpha glitch.. lol

So I wasted about an hour running through those, fixing the ones before the update before it hit me that they were probably updated for this and they were.. hehehehe

 

 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

Seems like LL could actually fix it without us having to worry about priority

[Ajay McDowwll]

3 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I was checking out my Doux hair and they seem to be using a texture with transparency for their logo that sits inside the head.. I'm not sure about the much older hair which I haven't gotten to yet.. But so far all of those that I have tried and set to skull are working with the priority list now..

I have to edit all my monso hair, but just really glad that hair can be modified to make the rootprim on those transparent..

I'm just so happy right now that so many of my bangs and things aren't clashing anymore on my favorite hairs.. hehehe

Still have a bunch to look through today though and keep my fingers crossed.

The only issue I've found outside of KMH is Stealthic.  I have their Reckless hair (among many others) which I adore with an almost unholy passion... but their root prim has zero transparency, so it still glitches with my wardrobe.

[steeljane42]

7 minutes ago, Ajay McDowwll said:

The only issue I've found outside of KMH is Stealthic.  I have their Reckless hair (among many others) which I adore with an almost unholy passion... but their root prim has zero transparency, so it still glitches with my wardrobe.

I (I'm sure plenty others did the same) did drop a note to their CSR account after new FS was released and got an answer that they'll pass it to creator. Latest few releases of theirs do have a transparent root prim now as well. I'm not sure if they are going to update all of their hair or at least the current 4.0 line with that or not, but it might be worth asking at least.

[Sukubia Scarmon]

42 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

This is the version I'm on at the moment..  Firestorm 6.6.8 (68380) Jan  3 2023

So ya, it may be that or something going on..  I have it working on my bang addons and things like that..

 

Just to add for giggles.. I was wondering why I was getting all these updated hair from Monso and not really knowing what was updated on them..  They added 2% transparency to the root prim..

After almost being finished modding all my  monso hairs, I seen the last one for some reason was no mod.. Then that made me remember that I had gotten updated hairs and went to see if the updated version was mod..  Sure enough they were all fixed for the alpha glitch.. lol

So I wasted about an hour running through those, fixing the ones before the update before it hit me that they were probably updated for this and they were.. hehehehe

 

 

I was on 6.5.x, so yeah, updated that now - and interestingly, when I started the updated version up, it told me it made some changes to my graphical settings due to changes in the subrendering-systems - might be those changes!

Logged in, first test was successfull - if I add the top last, it does not glitch anymore! But the lashes from my head still do clash with the hair - said had has a alpha-masked root prim, which I cannot change, so I might have to wait until that gets changed - does lelutka do updates? Kinda new to them.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

I was on 6.5.x, so yeah, updated that now - and interestingly, when I started the updated version up, it told me it made some changes to my graphical settings due to changes in the subrendering-systems - might be those changes!

Logged in, first test was successfull - if I add the top last, it does not glitch anymore! But the lashes from my head still do clash with the hair - said had has a alpha-masked root prim, which I cannot change, so I might have to wait until that gets changed - does lelutka do updates? Kinda new to them.

The alpha from the lashes will still clash for me if  I'm looking at the side where I put the lash in front of the hair.. But as long as the lashes are behind the hair and I'm looking straight at my face, I don't get a glitch from my applier brows or my lashes..

Make sure your lashes aren't cutting into the bangs..

ETA: Also what hair is it? I'll grab a demo  so I can get a good idea of what you are meaning..

 

As far as Lelutka doing updates.. They do, but the last time they did any from what I remember was the addition of the evo x for their 2.5 heads to 3.1.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Ajay McDowwll]

50 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

I (I'm sure plenty others did the same) did drop a note to their CSR account after new FS was released and got an answer that they'll pass it to creator. Latest few releases of theirs do have a transparent root prim now as well. I'm not sure if they are going to update all of their hair or at least the current 4.0 line with that or not, but it might be worth asking at least.

Yeah, they have a huge back catalogue of hair, but it would be nice if the current generation could be brought into compliance with the alpha fix configuration.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Ajay McDowwll said:

The only issue I've found outside of KMH is Stealthic.  I have their Reckless hair (among many others) which I adore with an almost unholy passion... but their root prim has zero transparency, so it still glitches with my wardrobe.

I've got three from Doux, but for the most part all my others are working fine.. I'm just wondering if it was something they overlooked from how they usually do things.. Because they seem to be scattered over time.. one is really old, one from a year ago and one is really recent.. Where all the others that are from back then up until now work just fine with the fix.. So i think it was just something out of character for those 3 pieces I found..

 

[Sukubia Scarmon]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

The alpha from the lashes will still clash for me if  I'm looking at the side where I put the lash in front of the hair.. But as long as the lashes are behind the hair and I'm looking straight at my face, I don't get a glitch from my applier brows or my lashes..

Make sure your lashes aren't cutting into the bangs..

ETA: Also what hair is it? I'll grab a demo  so I can get a good idea of what you are meaning..

 

As far as Lelutka doing updates.. They do, but the last time they did any from what I remember was the addition of the evo x for their 2.5 heads to 3.1.

You're right! I was actually looking at the side, so perspective wise it was lashes above hairs. From the front, the lashes don't glitch with the hairs underneat it.

(The hair is Elias from Sintiklia)

[Ceka Cianci]

6 minutes ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

You're right! I was actually looking at the side, so perspective wise it was lashes above hairs. From the front, the lashes don't glitch with the hairs underneat it.

(The hair is Elias from Sintiklia)

Ya, that changes up the outside placement. I also put a prim wall behind me that  i made that was part transparent so i could tell right away the hairs i was working on had transparency in them..

Once I got going, I really flew through my hairs that I wanted to get put to the skull.. I would open like a doux folder and just attach all the ones in the folder to the skull at the same time rather than one by one.. I'd still be doing those tonight with as many doux hairs as I have..

I just looked and I've got a hair close to that from them called Eloise.. I need to do my Sintiklia hairs too..I forgot about them.. hehehe

[Sukubia Scarmon]

28 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Ya, that changes up the outside placement. I also put a prim wall behind me that  i made that was part transparent so i could tell right away the hairs i was working on had transparency in them..

Once I got going, I really flew through my hairs that I wanted to get put to the skull.. I would open like a doux folder and just attach all the ones in the folder to the skull at the same time rather than one by one.. I'd still be doing those tonight with as many doux hairs as I have..

I just looked and I've got a hair close to that from them called Eloise.. I need to do my Sintiklia hairs too..I forgot about them.. hehehe

Great idea with the wall, I'll do that as well. But for now, I'm so happy I can wear long hairs with my fancy garnments, without having to shove the hairs into the back and hope nobody looks at my back, lol.