Why do some hairs have this choppy alpha problem?

[Libera Romano]

Does anyone know why some hairs have this choppy alpha problem? Is it me? Is it my computer, settings, etc? I seem to have this problem viewing just certain hairs. I never buy them when I see this problem, so is it the hair or me? I hope you can see from this picture what I'm talking about. The edges aren't smooth like they should be.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

That says "Demo".  And if that is not the demo hair you are seeing parts of the demo that were cached when you tried on the hair demo.   A cache clearing should fix that.

[Libera Romano]

No, It's the Demo. I don't buy them when they look like this. I'll try to clear the cache and see if that works though. Thanks

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Okay.......it's been a while since I bought hair (maybe a couple months) and the normal demo hair has the sign above the head with demo plastered all over it.  Maybe this is a new way to show that the hair is a demo..........I agree it's not a good way to show the hair but I can see a hair creator doing that.  It might not be a problem but something intentional.

[Charolotte Caxton]

The demo streaks are pretty common nowadays, as the box over the head thing is no hindrance if all you want to do is take a photo.

I think the jagged edges she is referring to are the actual spray painty looking strands, especially noticeable at the very top of the photo. It is my opinion that that is just the way the hair was made, during the drawing of the texture, some kind of process was used that produced this airbrush type effect.

Libera, are you seeing this with only a particular designer, or is it random? 

[Libera Romano]

That didn't work. It's still the same.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Ahhh, yeah..........I see it now.    Not the "Demo" but the poorly textured hair itself.  That is a product of how the texture was made and/or saved.  I've had that problem with textures I've made before.........it was anti-alisiasing.  I had not set anti-alisiasing in my editing program.  Also saving as PNG can do that too.  It's a creator problem.....not anything to do with SL or the viewer.  I wouldn't purchase a hair with that either.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I got focused on the "demo"........and consequently my suggestion was wrong.  It's how the texture for the hair was made by the creator.

[Kylie Jaxxon]

That's a shame...the style/cut is really cute

 

[Libera Romano]

Yes, that's what I was refering to, the choppy alpha textures. But in the photo at the store it's not like that all. Which makes me think it's me or my viewer. I even bought one of the hairs thinking maybe it was the demo, and it still happened.

[Kylie Jaxxon]

I think a lot of places photoshop their ad pics

 

[Libera Romano]

OK thanks everyone, I thought it was me! Yah, cute hair. I'll IM the creator (Lala Moon) and see if she has an update or something.

THANK YOU!!!

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

The choppyness is the result in a change over how alphas are handled.  As you can see, it's horribly imperfect. (T_T)

Up until now, all alphas other than Linden trees and the avatar mesh have been treated as if they're 8-bit and have 256 potential levels of transparency.  Because of this, the client has had the daunting task of deciding which texture is in front while dealing with multiple alpha surfaces. (._.)

Now, I believe the feature is called "Automatic Alpha", but someone can correct me.  What the client is doing is finding textures with alpha values 0x00 and 0xFF and not much in between.  Once it passes some sort of threshold, the client renders it as a 1-bit alpha.  Meaning, it's visible or it's not.  This is far easier to overlay from one alpha to the next since there's no blending necessary.  ()

But... I don't believe the current threshold has been set at its best.  Hair strands in alpha textures do tend to be 'on' or 'off' but still depend on the shades in between to smooth themselves out.  Once the client knocks it to 1-bit, that's lost and you get that grainy, pixellated look. (>_<)

I haven't explored it much, but, there's a setting either in preferences or a debug setting for Automatic Alpha (someone please correct me).  This can disable the feature so things will go back to as they were before.. ()

Another solution (And, it's hard work) is to find each alpha textured prim and set Transparency to 1%.  This will be such a small change in transparency that it'll relatively go unnoticed, but, it'll be enough to "trick" automatic alpha to not trigger and leave your hair strands alone.  ()

****WARNING!!! - Don't do this to the whole head of hair.  The solid textured prims need to stay solid or things just get uglier!!! DX **** 

[Kylie Jaxxon]

lol, good thing you put that warning in there...I love the hair so much, was going to buy it and do what you suggested

 

[Libera Romano]

WOW!!! Thanks, I had a feeling it was something to do with the new viewer cause it never happened before. I'll try that transparency bit. It takes time, but I've done something similar before with a hair.

[Libera Romano]

BTW. The HAir is called +LALA Moon+ Kurione [ DEMO ] In case you go buy it. I'll see you there! LOL

[Peggy Paperdoll]

So this a a quick and dirty way to "fix" the alpha sorting glitch that been around since 32 bit textures?  It need to go the trash heap.  The fix is in how graphics are rendered.....not fooling the graphics cards into thinking something is all or nothing. 

 

If what you say is true (and I have no reason to disbelieve you) bad move Linden Lab.

[Libera Romano]

Thanks, IMNOTGOING! I found it under the develop menu-rendering-automatic alpha masks (non-deferred). It makes a big difference.! Thanks