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Author Topic: Working with transparent GIF's and textures  (Read 13552 times)

mfox7

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Working with transparent GIF's and textures
« on: January 04, 2008, 11:37:28 pm »

Hi again.  If you have read my messages before you know just how new to this I really am... sorry for all the what should be dumb questions.  Some of these things just aren't covered in the manual - or at least nowhere I have found yet.

OK, when I apply a texture to a face or series of faces, something strange happens.  I have set the alpha mode to "Layer" so it will blend with the color of the material.  But instead of doing this, the texture shows up but with a totally BLACK background!  Does anyone know what the heck is going on?  I have tried lots of different strategies for this (using no black in the texture, playing endlessly with the material, etc) but still have no clue.

Thanks as always for your ideas. :)
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Nate_Bro

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Re: Working with transparent GIF's and textures
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2008, 12:57:05 am »

is it still black when you render it?
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My computer specs for Anim8or and other graphics:
1.  3.2 GHz Pent 4 HT 1 MB L2, with ATI 128 MB Vid Card
2.  3.0 GHz Pent D 4 MB L2, with ATI 512 MB Vid Card
3.  1.7 GHz Pent Celeron M, with ATI 64 MB Vid Card

mfox7

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Re: Working with transparent GIF's and textures
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2008, 01:07:10 am »

Actually it gets stranger.

For whatever reason, the program doesn't seem to know which color to blend with the material color.  Looking at it more closely, I found that it took all the lighter shades (whites, off-whites, etc) and blended them with the material color (a brown).  This image is a face, (eyes and a mouth) so I needed the image background to match the skin color and the whites to be there.  Is there a way to tell the program which color to use as the background?

Also, as far as rendering goes, something else is happening... the texture does not show up at all.  Instead, it replaces it with a metalic silver color.  This is getting more and more bizarre each time I try to fix things.  Do you have any ideas about what's going on?

Thanks again :)
« Last Edit: January 05, 2008, 01:37:41 am by mfox7 »
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Nate_Bro

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Re: Working with transparent GIF's and textures
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2008, 02:40:21 am »

well i was looking at the file. but it didn't render for me the same, but sounds like the metalic silver color is the An8 default.

but i think it would be easyr for ya if you used UVMapper, there is a link on the An8 resoucre page.
just export your head mesh from an8, to .obj format, open it in  UVMapper, and save the mesh and the .bmp, and import it back into an8.

that way you can draw directly onto the mesh, and not have to worry about anything else.

Hope this helps. :)

 
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My computer specs for Anim8or and other graphics:
1.  3.2 GHz Pent 4 HT 1 MB L2, with ATI 128 MB Vid Card
2.  3.0 GHz Pent D 4 MB L2, with ATI 512 MB Vid Card
3.  1.7 GHz Pent Celeron M, with ATI 64 MB Vid Card

hihosilver

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Re: Working with transparent GIF's and textures
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2008, 05:02:47 am »

I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, it's a bit confusing.  A screenshot would help.
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mfox7

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Re: Working with transparent GIF's and textures
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2008, 07:35:43 pm »

Problem solved!  Thanks to everyone for your help!  :)

I spoke with one guy online (AIM) and he thought it might be a hardware thing - It probably is, but using "Darken" and then setting the material color to white did the same thing.  (Just for future reference).
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