I'm used to making alpha transparencies with Max etc and Flash but I'm having a little difficulty with Poser export.

I made a tree and have mapped leaf sphere Props. White background green leaves. Corresponding Alpha map, Black leaves white texture.

I import it into Scenebuilder and the texture looks shocking only on the spheres. so I open up texture lab load the texture onto the leaf spheres looks great, load the alpha terrfic.
Nice transparency, nice green leaves

When I import into Atmos I have the shocking degraded texture again.

Can anyone give me any tips and clues about how best to deal with Poser textures. The trunk of the tree looks fine.

Things I have tried:

Putting the texture to none on the leaf spheres before exporting out of Poser. I then tried loading the texture on with texture lab but no joy.

I tried exporting out of poser with none on the leaf spheres loading the texture on diffuse and then loading up the textures in texture lab. No transparency.

I know there is probably a simple answer for this but I can't sort it

Please help, It will be a walking talking tree once I sort this last little problem out. I want it to look pretty.

Hi Shelley

Can't quite follow all you've done.....but I've found that the alpha map doesn't 'stick' unless the VPO has been published already, with the material in place. Then re-open the MTX in Scenebuilder, right-click on the instance that has the material applied, open texture lab, load your alpha map, Save MTX, bob's your uncle.

Obviously, you need to include your alpha map in a Resources folder, as it's not in the MTS, just referenced in the MTX.

Hi All !!

Adding to what runner said, also put Antialias="0" for the instances having alpha maps. This reduces the white edges created due to alpha maps on objects.


Best Regards,

Anup

quote:

---

also put Antialias="0" for the instances having alpha maps. This reduces the white edges created due to alpha maps on objects.

---

Aha! Thanks Anup, didn't know that. I've been selecting the instance then using Tab/Instances/Edge Antialias/NoAAOpenEdges, whatever that may be LOL

Edit to add BTW, Shelley, texturing objects via the Textures tab doesn't really work unless you've UVmapped the object prior to import. There are plenty of free UVmappers available, message me if you need a link.

Just to confuse matters, you can texture Scenebuilder primitives OK via the Textures tab

[This message was edited by runner on July 08, 2003 at 10:22 AM.]

Nice to hear from you both again.

Well, I know about getting rid of the white edges etc, etc and mapping.

The idea of baking the texture on by adding it with texture lab onto the mapped only object, publishing and then opening again is a great idea. I will try it today!

What I would like to do is to have a clean slate, no texturing in Poser (only mapping) and go from there in scenebuilder that way I know my textures will be fine.

I will post back as to what happened

After todays tests the solution was to publish. I had gotten out of the habit of doing that and was just saving loll.

Saving with compressed on is great as you don't need the resource folder. My builder also got ugly so I reinstalled that.

Thanks for heading me in the right direction! All fixed!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Shelley:
I had gotten out of the habit of doing that and was just saving loll.

---

ROTFL Yeah, confusing, innit? You can get so used to saving the MTX that you forget the Publish button exists.

There is one thing puzzling me though.

When I publish compressed out of Poser I get
80kb and 40kb.

I open it in scenebuilder, go into texture lab add a texture file size 106kb, add alpha 70kb =
176kb file size.

Then when I publish compression on I get a massive:

396kb and 37kb = 433kb

The added textures should only make the file size around 300kb loll.

Got any secrets Runner? I am concerned because of 56kdialup. Normally just getting it from Poser is fine but getting a good texture with alpha for these leaves is proving tricky without huge file size.

70kb for the alpha!! They must be some trees!!!! You obviously work on a grand scale ROTFL

Is there a reason why it has to come straight from Poser to Scenebuilder? If it isn't animated, I'd be trying things like exporting out of Poser as 3ds, opening in Unwrap3D (or Lithunwrap), mapping, saving as obj, and bringing in as obj to Scenebuilder, publishing, then adding the alpha map. Or variations of that route. Poser to Vet makes for much bigger files.

whisper *but I'd want my alpha map to be no more than 10kb* LOL

Also, I'd try mapping it in a UVmapper, but adding the material/texture to the object within Scenebuilder, then publishing to compress the texture, then adding the alpha map. I'm stingy, wouldn't want a tree to weigh in at more than 15 - 20kb including alpha map.

HTH

edit to add.. just read back over your first post, and see that it is animated, so all the above advice is prob'ly useless. I've never tried exporting from Poser as animated obj, so don't know if that would work.

[This message was edited by runner on July 10, 2003 at 04:15 AM.]