<throws down his tools...>
Ok, I've got a (very crude) texture for Gaia with foliage (and blossoms) over branches & vines and an alpha channel cutting out all the empty spaces... Looks good (ok, fair) in GMax... looks good (ditto) in the toolset...
Totally crappy in-game :-(
The alpha masked areas are either white or chrome (depending on env?).
So I loaded up the CEP Lizardfolk Lich Chief, which has cool translucent armor (in the toolset) and... nope, solid as lead :-(
(note: I maxed out *all* my video options (except shiny water, which it wouldn't let me select :-P) on my poor old laptop... fps was 3! Didn't make a difference...)
So I looked at the Treant and the Treegiant models and I noticed all the alpha masked bits (puns always intended ;-) are on planes and open geometry, not closed solids. And they do work.
Here's my questions:
- Is there a way to alpha mask solids and I just don't have things set up right in GMax?
- Has anyone done this? What models should I look at?
Right now I'm thinking of three other approaches I might take:
- Slicing open the geometry. This has the added benefit of giving me layers of material at the expense of double or triple faces.
- doing like the Treegiant did and surrounding the body (shrunk down to twigs) with a snow-storm of planes. More faces and truly ugly if re-textured w/ barkskin or stoneskin.
- subdividing the mesh and cutting out faces :-P Fun.
Any suggestions? Observations? Rules of thumb?
<...after smashing his thumb>
