Making see-through things. - Printable Version +- Wings 3D Development Forum (https://www.wings3d.com/forum) +-- Forum: Wings 3D (https://www.wings3d.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Interface & Usage (https://www.wings3d.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +--- Thread: Making see-through things. (/showthread.php?tid=207)

Making see-through things. - nurgle01099 - 02-28-2013 So I am just getting started in modeling, and I have a pretty good handle on the basic controls of Wings3D, but I was wondering how to make things clear like if I wanted to make the leaves of a tree or a shrub or a window. I use gimp as a picture-manipulating software if it helps. Thanks! RE: Making see-through things. - oort - 02-28-2013 nurgle01099, Welcome to Wings3D and 3D Modeling. To get objects clear/transparent you need to modify the material properties used on a model. To make things transparent when viewing in Wings3D just Materials > Opacity lowered to something less than 1.0. The lower you go the more transparent the object will be. To get a rendered image which has transparent objects you have to first decide what rendering software you want to use. Wings3D comes with PovRay, Kerkythea, and Old YafRay plug-ins already installed. If you want to use the new and faster YafaRay you can get it on my website. Check the development forum for more information on the plugin. After you choose your rendering software you have to set the material properties for that plugin under the material properties. In the YafaRay plugin, I just added support for Transparency maps, which is what you would need for leaves. I haven't done enough testing to see how well it works on models with lots of leaves. oort RE: Making see-through things. - nurgle01099 - 02-28-2013 Thanks for the help Oort. Am I incorrect in thinking that lowering the opacity would make everything transparent, leaves and all? I was thinking I could make a 2d squarish shape and UV mapping it separably and texturing it as clear with some branches/leaves thrown in and then duplicating it around my "solid" model for the leaves and whatnot. Do you think that would work? RE: Making see-through things. - oort - 03-01-2013 Yes, lowering opacity will make everything transparent. Adjusting the opacity is only good for glass windows and only for reference when viewing in Wings3D. Yes, I think your method should work. You just need a diffuse map and a transparency map to hide the area around the leaf. Because Wings3D is a low poly modeler you will see a slow down if you put too many leaves on the tree. I don't know how many leaves you can get away with... oort RE: Making see-through things. - nurgle01099 - 03-01-2013 You've been a great help. Sadly, being a novice, I do not know how to make bump maps and transparency maps and diffuse maps and the like. Is there a tutorial somewhere that can explain these? Googling it doesn't seem to help. RE: Making see-through things. - micheus - 03-01-2013 nurgle01099, aren't you talking about texture with alpha channel? Take a look at this post RE: Making see-through things. - oort - 03-01-2013 nurgle01099, I have never created any of them either. Ran13 could probably explain them better but basically they are as follows: Diffuse Map = The color of the object (green for leaves). The green part will be surrounded by a white area to fill the typical square shape of an image map. Bump Map = A gray scale image that will produce the appearance of bumpy areas with the height of the bumps being controlled by how dark or how light the image map is. Black areas are lowest and white areas are highest. If you have a better video card you will see the bump effect while viewing the model in Wings3D 1.5.1. I have to wait till I have rendered with YafaRay to see it... Transparency Map = A gray scale or black and white image that will produce transparent areas. In YafaRay the colored areas will be visible and the white area will be transparent. If I remember right I have used some software that used colored areas for transparent and white for visible. You will see the affect of the Transparency Map while viewing the model in Wings3D. Even works for me... You can also have an image map that has both Diffuse and an Alpha channel in one image. In the Gimp that will show up as a checkerboard area. That could be what was used with the rose that Micheus referred to. I think you may be able to avoid all this by shaping the leaf exactly like a leaf and then creating a UV Map for the leaf and paint that. You would have to learn (not that hard) to use Wings3D's AutoUV to do that. It would of course increase your poly count which might be a problem if you need lots of leaves... oort Here is an image rendered with YafaRay. I had to use the method that required a separate Transparency Map (Gray scale image), because when I tried with an image map with both Diffuse and Alpha Channel the lower leaves resulted in a black blob. At least that was what I got when using ivy created with "IvyGenerator". I lit the scene with an Infinite Light > Directional with Sunsky Background and Skylight enabled. Also, under Render Settings I turned on Transparent Shadows and set Depth to 64. oort RE: Making see-through things. - Fonte Boa - 03-01-2013 Great render, Oort, as always! ------------ I'm not sure if nurgle01099 was referring to render job or to Wings interface work. Anyway, i've recorded a tutorial about how to use 32-bits images (images with alpha channel, usually TGA and TIF formats) into Wings work area to visualize images with transparent areas. I hope the video can be useful if not for him, maybe for some other users... I opened a new thread to this. Any feedback is appreciated. http://www.wings3d.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=211&pid=1549#pid1549