Transparency fails no matter what I do?

CrashCrazE13

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Hi, I'm fairly new to SL, but I'm assisting a client with their SL asset store (I'm a 3D game artist) and I am having an issue I've never had in any other engine or software:

No matter what format (32-bit albedo/color targa w/ alpha channel, PNG with transparent regions, all TGAs with alpha channel, etc) my meshes have no transparency. I've tried to find a solution anywhere from YouTube to any forum on the internet, but most commonly the issue is beginners not understanding alpha channels.

I use Autodesk Maya 2022 with Adobe Photoshop 2021. I have tried both Second Life Viewer and Firestorm build viewer 6.5.35 (Build > Upload > Mesh Model in both applications) and have the same issue. I've tried the asset in a game engine I'm more familiar with, Unity, and it works fine with alpha blending set to cutout. I do not see an option for alpha blending in the viewers. Aside from albedo with transparency, my other maps are a normal map, and a specular map. I have tried flattening images before exporting the TGA/PNG, but nothing was different. I tried having the 32-bit TGA albedo or the PNG albedo as the only texture associated with my mesh to see if specularity or normals were the issue, but nothing changed. I tried a simple cube two ways, one a 32-bit TGA checkerboard pattern and the other a PNG, but both cubes were opaque in the viewers even though transparency was successful in Maya.

The predominant area with this issue is the fried egg white (black edges), but the tomato pulp should be semi-transparent as well.

Here is a Drive folder with images to help:
Issues - Google Drive

Is there any solution? Has anyone had this issue?

Thank you in advance.
 
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Beebo Brink

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Welcome to the joy that is making content in SL. I'm sure someone will be along soon to help you out.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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It's been a while since I've done this, let me see if I recall. Also, I use Gimp not Photoshop.

What I do in Gimp is add a layer that is the color(s) that I want the edges to blend into. Put it in the bottom of the layer stack, and then make it transparent before merging the layers with the option, I think it's called, keep colors from transparent pixels.
 

Erich Templar

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I suspect the problem is not the textures, but the textures as applied to the mesh. Crash seems to know enough to be able to create textures that should Just Work in SL, but it seems that when they are imported as part of a mesh object, something goes wrong.

Way out of my field, I'm afraid. I never got into creating mesh.

One suggestion for Crash: import one of the texture files into SL and apply it to a standard SL prim, and see what happens.
 

Soen Eber

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No experiance with mesh, but on ordinary prims I sometimes have to set texture size to 99% or 101% (I forget which) to keep the edges clean.
 

Adeon Writer

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The prim's faces are probably set to PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_NONE. If that's the case, the alpha layer of the texture is dropped.

Use PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_BLEND for normal transparency, or PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_MASK for what most game engines call cutout (no partial transparency but avoids alpha glitching)

These are LSL parameters, but most viewers have a dropdown on the build menu to set these per-face without needing to use a script as well.
 
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