Ambiera ForumDiscussions, Help and Support. |
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I just found a fix to a long standing problem I was having in wanting to both use normal mapped textures with transparency: To get around this problem previously I was using very dark textures without any normal textures....this was not great as still brighter than surrounding normal mappoed textures and still affected by directional lighting and thus would stand out and look wrong. I found that you can just add normal textures then select 'normalmap_trans_vertexalpha' in the irrlicht Properties 'Type' and this solved the problem! - now I have normal mapped textures plus tranparency....sweet... Its not 100% perfect but way better than what I had before as the object non-transparent part is now 50% transparent but still ok... Hope this help someone.... |
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Don't you knew that already? I have a youtube video on the topic as well, not just normal maps there are other materials too. When choosing normal with transparency you always have to first select the base material that is normal map from the normal material properties and then only select the material type from irredit/irrlicht properties. Otherwise if you directly select the material type from irrlicht/irredit properties for example directly from solid to normal map with transparency. Your object will become invisible (complete transparent). That can be a reason you were not aware that you can do that already from irredit/irrlicht properties, maybe you have tried in past but your object had become complete transparent and you might have thought the material type is not working. Anyways I am glad that you now know how to use normal maps with transparency. Cheers???? |
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thanks, yeah well not everything becomes evident straight away Im sure you would agree...the fact the irrlicht settings can be somewhat buggy as you said probably didnt help. Some things take time and can be overlooked for a bit...until something just clicks later on...I was just playing around with the settings and found a solution that way... |
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Yeah, I agree, Irrlicht/irredit properties are experimental options, that is the reason why they come turned off by default. not everything present there works, there are more bugs in there. but TBH these properties are the most useful properties when it comes to material editing. Yeah, there are so many things the engine is hiding in itself, that it is hard to remember and find each and everything. Only users who regularly use it and play around with different options are able to find these things and workarounds. many people think how come I know that much about this engine, the answer is simple, I have given this engine more time than anything else in my life in the last 7 years. I was using this engine day and night, not to create games and other stuff, I was having more than 600-700+ CC projects on my pc, but all of them have been lost due to that ransomware attack, and man that's the only grief of my life, and I regret too, that I didn't share those projects with the community. |
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Actually with more testing found this 'normalmap_trans_vertexalpha' Type to almost never work properly...whether a brand new level or editing an old project from a year ago... No wonder I couldn't get it to work before...its just way too buggy and your comments about I should have known this before was not well founded...the problem here is the engine not the user... I'm getting different results each time and not able to match my latest 'success' the other day using the exact same settings....so weird. In one case got a half result when unselecting front and back culling, and other time only got half a result when changing to the 2nd last type of 'vertex alpha with channel' and 'normalmap_trans_vertexalpha' mostly just doesn't work at all...for completely unknown reasons...I tried over 50 scenarios and still cant work it out... I will have to have another look another time...as getting nowhere currently. |
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You need to make sure the default material for the object is normal map, selected from the default material properties, in between attributes and behaviors, and then only change it to normal map with additive transparency from irrlicht properties. It will work. Changing lights and other settings sometimes might reset it. You need to repeat the process again. The same goes with parallax mapping as well, and some other material types too. Maybe I should make a proper video on this topic on how to use those material types, there is already a video on my channel but It's a live video in the Hindi language, I had made all my live videos into private videos except a few one. As I mentioned already irrlicht properties are experimental properties so they do not tend to work always, but there are workarounds. You should give it one more try and I am sure it will work. Edit:- You are right, It is not working with the vertex alpha, but works with transparent add. I just tested it now, and it is weird, I have used it in past and it had worked with transparency as well. Will look into this more. |
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After a bit of fiddling, I remember that it was model-dependent, as I was testing it on a plane mesh, this was not working for me, so if your model has vertex transparency then it will work with that. you can try clearing vertex colors as well, to see if it works for you or not. but make sure you have base material as Normal map selected in general material properties before setting to anything else in irrlicht/irredit properties. As it deals with vertex alpha, your model needs to have vertex transparency so normal transparency will not work there, maybe, you were talking about additive transparency that worked for you there, or maybe you have mistakenly cleared all your vertex colors. |
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With bit more fiddling got it to work as expected - ie using a normal map texture such that not affected at all by directional lighting but will be affected only by points lights with transparency (and not affected much by ambient light): - Select in Properties and add normal map and and the normal map here before going into Irrlicht settings... - Find the transparent texture and deselect everything except ZWriteEnable, BackfaceCulling, and either select Trilinear or Anisotropic filtering. - Now change Type to 'normnalmap_trans_vertexalpha' This should work now. If not (ie it goes invisible or no change) repeat the process again but maybe start by switching first to transparent alpha then normal map above but should only be changed in the Properties not in Irrlicht settings.... that's my 2 cents worth and now works pretty well..yes the solid parts are like 50% transparent but overall its quite good...and adds depth and detail to transparent objects like gates and walkways etc..might even be good for indoors windows...? try turning on/off backface culling to change the look... admittedly a new scene with this exact process doesn't seem to work for some reason... |
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Hello, I know the posts are 3 years old, but I was just looking for something about using normal maps with transparency, but I "solved" half of my problem, let's say. Here's my problem. I use a texture (any 2D character) applied to a simple plane mesh, the thing is that the texture is already set to alpha channel transparency (to avoid the square mesh to be visible, and see only the character), and I would like to link its normal map texture which has transparency too (still too not see the square mesh), I saw that it was impossible from the editor irrlicht/edit but I wonder if it would be possible by scripting? to have: 1: a texture on plane mesh .png transparent in trans alpha channel. 2: linked to this first texture, the normal map texture also transparent in normal map trans alpha channel. Thanks in advance for your answers. |
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