Game Development Community

Reflective and transparent surface

by Stephen Walsh · in Torque Game Engine · 10/25/2005 (9:10 am) · 13 replies

Anyone any idea on how to do it?

i've read the tutorial at
"http://holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tutorials/transtex/p2_translucent.shtml"

but no luck, the engine seems to just ignore the alpha channel. for example i have a black surface amd i add a alpha channel and save it as a png. (with the same same name as a just a plane black image in jpg format)

i load the jpg in quake and the png in torque.

but just black =)

any input would be great... (do i have to do something extra with the alpha channel that i'm missing?)

THanks in advance
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Torque Owner Jason Farmer
#1
10/25/2005 (9:59 am)
So you want an Environment mapped, transparent mesh?..

Do you mean a DIF or DTS object?

If you're talking about DIF objects then I don't think Torque supports transparency on Difs out of the box, you have to apply a patch (which I never got working BTW)

If you're talking about DTS shapes then you might be in luck.

I know the engine works uses Alpha channels, never had environment mapped tinted glass before though, maybe something I could give a try. If I have any luck, I'll let you know.


Possible problems you might be having though:

Alpha Mask channel not saved back to the Alpha channel of the png file in Paint Shop Pro (I forget this all the time)
Material not set up for Environment mapping in your modelling program.

If I get time tonight, I'll try to get a simple mesh working.

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#2
10/25/2005 (10:31 am)
I was working with dif's in quarke, some people back in 2001 said they got it woking with worldcraft.

but nothing about quarke

as for the dts, i'm sure i could but something together in 3Ds max7, and i could look into it that way. if i get something before you ill let you know, i'm on msn at "walsh dot stephen at gamil dot com"

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#3
10/25/2005 (2:29 pm)
I got it, read this link to set up the png image.
http://holodeck.st.usm.edu/vrcomputing/vrc_t/tutorials/transtex/p2_translucent.shtml

then once you got that read this link in how to apply it to a dts object. and hey presto you got yourself glass.
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/ThinkTanks_Powerup_Tutorial#Setting_up_Glass

there was one thing that i has to do my self to get it working the way i wanted it, seems my glass was dark glass i had to make the orginal colour very strong so i had to invert the mask (for pant shop pro go mask -> invert. Did the trick. anyone need any help you have my address above and i.m on msn most of the time

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#4
10/25/2005 (2:31 pm)
So now any one any idea on getting reflection to work? lol

Torque Owner Bruno Grieco
#5
10/25/2005 (5:21 pm)
I still have problems getting reflection to work. I did everything the tutorials said to but the reflection only appears in Show Tool Pro using a specific option.

Strange thing is that other people managed to get the reflection working ( of my models ) in their games.

Torque Owner Alan James
Really Really Good Things Studio
#6
10/25/2005 (5:33 pm)
@Stephen
I'm at work right now, but I'll try to post how do do all of this with reflective difs, transparent dts objects, semitransparent, etc. Is this kind of what you are looking for?

www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/site/media/thumbnails/screenshot_201-00007.JPG
(I have some improved screens at home, I'll try to upload those to our website also to see if they are what you are looking for.

Alan
reallyreallygoodthings.com

Associate Jaimi McEntire
King of Flapjacks
#7
10/25/2005 (5:45 pm)
There was a thread on using reflecive dif's for water a while back. Here's a link, if you're interested: www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=24242

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#8
10/26/2005 (4:13 am)
Kind of , the reflection i was looking at was metal reflection. but wow nice level , how did you get the atmospheric colour to work. looks v-well, i thinka reflective dts object would be better ,i want to try avoid using quarke - i dont like it - its too messy (3ds max is far better).
you should have my address in the above posts, im on msn all the time if you want to stop by

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#9
10/26/2005 (2:32 pm)
Still having problems, the link didnt do anything for me, i know there is a way of getting metal reflections via the alpha channel (without messing with code) . please let me know if anyone out there as managed to do it. im using 3Ds max 7 and photo shop pro 7.04.

cheers

Torque Owner Bruno Grieco
#10
10/26/2005 (6:23 pm)
All you "should" have to do is using an alpha reflection map as a bitmap in the reflection slot in Max.
You should also set a $Prefs:evironmentMaps = "1" in /client/prefs.cs.

But I've done all this and it still doesn't show up.

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#11
10/27/2005 (4:12 am)
Couldn't find "evironmentMaps" in prefs.cs so i put in

$Pref::evironmentMaps = "1" not
$Prefs:evironmentMaps = "1"

still didnt work.

they say that it can be done by following this tutorial but i just cant follow it fully ( the layer bit -photo shop pro 7.04 doesn't have layers, it has masks)

http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/ThinkTanks_Powerup_Tutorial

Associate Andy Hawkins
DrewFX
#12
10/27/2005 (6:03 am)
There's a typo in this so if you copy and paste from here it wont work.

"evironmentMaps" is missing the "n" after the first "e" so this will work...

$Prefs:environmentMaps = "1"

Torque Owner Stephen Walsh
#13
10/27/2005 (8:09 am)
I think you mean

$pref::environmentMaps = "1";

Thats 2 ":" after prefs and "pref" instead of "prefs"

anyway it still didnt work

did anyone get it working?