The case of the vanishing alpha

[TrickyVein]

Friends,

 

I have an interesting case; consider the following:

 

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3903/sanfranchinatownworldd.jpg

 

1) The diffuse map, created after 'successful' generation of LOD objects within a worldspace.

 

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/1667/sanfranchinatownworlda.jpg

 

2) It's corresponding alpha channel.*

 

*There is no alpha information. .tga textures were acquired from chucksteel's 'LOD Essentail Pack' (available here).

 

What should the compression level of .tga textures be? 16, 24, or 32 bit? What should the compression level of .dds textures be? Is the LOD object generation process being corrupted within the GECK?

 

I would love to be able discuss this and arrive at a solution and share it with the members here. Simply cutting and pasting relevant alpha channels into the generated image is a suitable workaround, of course. But I'm not happy with doing that.

[GrindedStone]

Well first off, it's LOD. Even if you had a telescope looking at the window you wouldn't need to see thru it. Ergo, make it defuse since you noticed it. Then move on down the road. Alpha channels... Really... I think you're being anal retentive or nit picking. Yeah there's a couple of reasons to get into that channel. Making it defuse. Sneaking a specular map into a normal. It's not something you really have to fool with. Why bother? Duplicate the layers an merge them down. The alpha will stack and stack until it's defuse. I know it's because you are using one of the more complex editors, but 99% of the time you can use a less complex editor to get jobs done quickly. Any of them that directly edit .dds for example. It sounds like you are working too hard, ain't no need for all that.

 

We get by just fine on halfarsed phone it in's. You got something special, then yeah do it the hard way, because it's worth it then. I'm just going to guess that LOD is the opposite of special unless you're trying to create some polycrack HD version of LOD that won't ever even be noticed directly. I wouldn't think that, but I trust these modders about as far they can throw their framerate down with 4096 textures on soup cans. You're .TGA works with GIMP's default settings, so find out what GIMP defaults to, then use that. Then the windows are missing alpha because they are broken on that mesh. It's actually a pretty nice asset as far as buildings. Look at the UV it isn't used anyway, just the borders. You would still need to defuse that alpha on the UV border regions. I would imagine Chuck ignored it, because LOD doesn't matter as much to even consider it that long. Who knows.

[TrickyVein]

I take your point, though I think everyone could benefit and learn something if we continue taking an exploratory and pedagogical approach to optimizing workflow. I am not looking for a 'quick-fix' (I already have one). As much as it behooves any of us to practice efficient and safe modding and world-building, we owe it to ourselves to understand our toolset and how the changes we make result in the end product.

 

I am not interested in pushing the technology beyond what is really capable. I should emphasize, or make the point, that making use of 2D textures with alpha channels for LOD objects merely to *suggest* the presence of geometry is far, far cheaper than rendering triangles of the same (this principle is demonstrated again and again throughout Bethesda's approach to creating LOD), and in this particular application, being able to see through the LOD mesh is essential.

 

I also know that it is possible, because an earlier version of my LOD texture did preserve its alpha throughout object generation, though I've since overwritten it and couldn't tell you why it was working in the first place.

[TrickyVein]

I think I've solved the issue. Upon closer inspection, the .tga textures in the 'source' folder themselves did not have alpha channels. In saving from a .dds to a .tga in pshop, this channel is not being preserved for whatever reason. Simply editing the .tga fixes the issue.

 

Yeah.

 

While it was fun at first, I don't really appreciate some members high-jacking the thread to vent their own insecurities and shortcomings when it comes to modding.

 

Thread cleaned up. -Millenia