Having problems with transparent meshes

[allomerus]

Hello everyone!

 

I've been spending the last two months trying to understand the whole modding system -from Tescs to Blender and away. So far I've been able to handle all my problems using the many comprehensive and accurate tutorials available on the net, but for once, i am pitted against a problem that does not seem to have been covered anywhere.

 

I've created a transparent and glowing (the glow uses the emit value of the mesh) ''orb'' with a baby dragon floating inside it. Everything goes fine, except that when it is put in game, some of the objects are hidden by the translucent mesh depending on the view angle.

 

For an example, the dragon's eyes can only be seen from the top of the orb, while it is only possible to see the dragon from the back.

 

For some weird reason, I cannot export the mesh into a .nif file with all the mesh parts joined. I get the error: ''global name 'logger' is not defined''. I'm saying this because I thought that making only one mesh would keep the orb itself from hiding the other parts, but hey, I'll probably never know if it would've worked. : (

 

I made sure the textures are only one-sided to avoid the game constructing weird structures inside the translucent part of the mesh, but that dosen't seem to be the problem.

 

Anyway, if anyone has an idea as to how to fix this, I'd be greatly thankful, since this is the last real problem before I can get it finished and running.

 

Thanks for your time, and sorry for my sometimes-awkward English.

[LHammonds]

The transparency should work just fine (without much trouble) as long as you do not have overlapping transparency. When you start getting into overlapping transparency, you actually have to assemble your model in a very specific way in order for the transparency engine to work correctly (like overlapping hair).

 

But even with the model created correctly, you can still get what is called the "blink" effect where the model can disappear at certain angles. This is why you don't see many roman plumes on helmets utilizing multi-transparency because sometimes the helmet will disappear at certain angles to reveal a player head with no hair or ears (for openface helms) or headless (for full helms).

 

Multilayered Transparency

 

Throttlekitty had written some fairly good explanations related to this but I cannot find them any more (probably "archived" since it was on Bethsoft forums)

 

LHammonds

[allomerus]

The transparency should work just fine (without much trouble) as long as you do not have overlapping transparency. When you start getting into overlapping transparency, you actually have to assemble your model in a very specific way in order for the transparency engine to work correctly (like overlapping hair).

 

But even with the model created correctly, you can still get what is called the "blink" effect where the model can disappear at certain angles. This is why you don't see many roman plumes on helmets utilizing multi-transparency because sometimes the helmet will disappear at certain angles to reveal a player head with no hair or ears (for openface helms) or headless (for full helms).

 

Multilayered Transparency

 

Throttlekitty had written some fairly good explanations related to this but I cannot find them any more (probably "archived" since it was on Bethsoft forums)

 

LHammonds

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help me : )

 

Turns out, I had already found that tutorial and used it, applying the 4845 value (or whatever the number is) to transparency, which actually made it work. Gosh I took so long to figure it out!

 

I did not know, however, that this blinking thig was common.

 

Considering that I have applied the good value, does that mean there is no real way to fix the problem?

 

And furthermore, what I find rather odd is that you describe the blink glitch as causing the whole object to disappear, while only the objects inside the translucent zone are hidden. And even then... the problem is that (assuming that I properly understand the meaning of ''multilayered'' and ''overlapping'') there is only one transparent layer. So it's not like two translucent meshes one on top of the other, althought the NiAlphaProperty applies to the whole model and cannot -seemingly- be restricted to a single item.

 

Do you think it would work, or if it would be possible, to actually remove the niAlphaProperty from the parts that are not supposed to be translucent?

 

Or -the idea has just popped inside my tortured mind- will the problem go on if I link the solid parts to a texture that has no Alpha channel?

 

As I said, thanks again for the help LH : )

[LHammonds]

The blink problem happens because the Oblivion engine (well, most all game engines) cannot handle one transparent object overlapping another very well. But I think it is mainly centered around to separate objects regarding the blink. But even creating a single transparent object with overlapping pieces (like hair) can be problematic simply due to how the mesh was created (something called Z order I believe).

 

I am not a best person to explain this mainly because it was all theory to me when I read it and my memory isn't the best...especially when I did not understand well what was being said. But, regarding the hair example, one would create the separate strips of hair and then being to join them together in a specific order. I forget how but it was something like selecting the base mesh then the hair strip farthest down the view order (like the lower head) and then joining the next one up and so on until you get to the top layer.

 

So, if you have your transparent crystal ball with an opaque object inside it, it may be very important as to how you modeled everything. You might have to separate the two pieces and then re-join them. I'm just not 100% sure. I have a staff weapon I am going to do this with but have not reached that point.

 

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1211793435.jpg

 

 

LHammonds

[allomerus]

All right, I'll try to work on that, thanks a lot!

 

-I might come back crying in a few days considering how ''good' I am at understanding all this theorethical stuff, but still, thanks a lot for the help. And the headache hehehe.

[LHammonds]

I did a quick test and having an opaque object inside a semi-transparent ball worked just fine.

 

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1275512477.jpg