OK, Another Building, Not So Plain This Time, But...

... how do I get the following effect in Blitz that I got in RAD?

Lemme explain a bit...

The last plain building I made was full of geometry in order to get see through window openings... kinda costly poly wise for a game model.

I only just realized that I was really doing things the wrong way...

Anyway... while experimenting with making models in CShop, and using them in RAD and Blitz, I stumbled upon a technique that allowed me to use plain flat structures without any openings, and have the texture maps do the work of providing me with translucent areas which would not only serve the purpose of providing see through windows, but also save the poly count of the models by allowing simpler geometry to be used...

... no more modelling window openings, frames, sills, and borders.

Take a quick look at what I'm talking about...


house in RAD... notice see through windows, done using texture transparency areas


closer view looking into the house through a 'window'


same model, textures are a bit richer with lightmap 'baked' in, but black areas do appear translucent

I think that there is a way to do this in Blitz, but can't find it...

Now I know a few of you guys are familiar with this techinique, and have been using it for a while now in your stuff, so be patient with me... I've always been a lil slow...

Thanks in advance for any and all help

Oh yeah, the textures were ripped from MOH, and the model is a simple a frame... as a matter of fact, without the great textures, the model wouldn't look like muh of anything... great textures are everything.

--Mike

Okey dokey, all you need to do is, load your the texture (with your windows in) and set the alpha flag in the loadtexture command, (see documention on this) and apply it to your model.Hey presto!!!!! :-)

The alpha flag will make all dark areas transparent.


Good luck
BLUE
:-)

Thanks Blue....

doooohhhhhhh... sometimes i feel like such a dummy.

the solution is right there infront of me, hidden in plain sight...


--Mike

Hehehe, been there, done that ;-)
Jus glad i could you out! :-)

Nice graphics by the way :-)


BLUE

The credit goes to the guys who made MOH... it's their textures that make the thing look halfway like anything. Without the textures all I've got is four blank walls and two wedges on top that don't look like much of anything :).

quick question...

the model is already textured, I just load the model (.b3d) with loadmesh()... how would I apply the proper texture flags?

I'm looking... sorry to be such a pain...


--Mike

use the texturefilter command.

Give the texture you want to have the alpha diaplyed on a unique ection of its name. Say its wall.bmp at the moment, change it to wall_a.bmp (you will need to re create the lightmaps in chsop)

the sett he texturefilters to support alpha textures for any texture with '_a' in

texturefilters "_a",2

load your model and it will automatically have all textures with '_a' alpha mapped.

Note blitz uses texturefilters "",9 as the default (colour and mipmaps)

Thanks Ben... will give this a try...

--Mike

... no good, didn't work.

i think i may have to catch the textures when CShop is loading em...

--Mike