Jaybird
03-29-2002, 09:17 PM
Well, I've been doing a lot of "screaming" lately about not being able to maintain fully transparent portions of texture bitmaps converted from 8 bit to 16 bit DXT configurations. I reported that DXT-1's with Alpha would not show the transparencies and that 555's worked in some cases.
After more careful testing, it turns out that the DXT-1's DO take-on the transparencies BUT you have to be right on top of them ( within 1 km ) for the transparency to show properly. When approaching objects converted to DXT-1 with Alpha, say, 5 km from the object, the fully transparent areas don't show at all and the (black or green) colors made fully transparent show up big time. As I get within approx 1.5 km from the object, portions of the bitmap that were made fully transparent start to become fully transparent. Then, from approx 1 km on-in to the object, it displays properly that-is the fully transparent areas of the bitmap are indeed fully transparent.
The fact that they don't show the full transparency until I get so close to them is unacceptable. Sureley, there's something I'm doing wrong because if MS is using them without this anomoly, looks like I also should be able to do it.
The objects acting this way are custom helipads placed on invisible runways and one statue in a rotate-to-aircraft routine. I'm wondering if the runways or "rotates" have anything to do with this. All ground, billboard and other texturing I've converted to DXT-1 seems to work great, except for those with fully transparent areas in the bitmaps.
I'm using Image Tool, DXTbmp and FSTexture Converter in all these attempts and all seem to yield the same results.
I'd sure appreciate help from anyone who's mastered this matter of displaying fully transparent portions of bitmaps at all ranges of visibility.
Thanks and Happy Easter :-)
After more careful testing, it turns out that the DXT-1's DO take-on the transparencies BUT you have to be right on top of them ( within 1 km ) for the transparency to show properly. When approaching objects converted to DXT-1 with Alpha, say, 5 km from the object, the fully transparent areas don't show at all and the (black or green) colors made fully transparent show up big time. As I get within approx 1.5 km from the object, portions of the bitmap that were made fully transparent start to become fully transparent. Then, from approx 1 km on-in to the object, it displays properly that-is the fully transparent areas of the bitmap are indeed fully transparent.
The fact that they don't show the full transparency until I get so close to them is unacceptable. Sureley, there's something I'm doing wrong because if MS is using them without this anomoly, looks like I also should be able to do it.
The objects acting this way are custom helipads placed on invisible runways and one statue in a rotate-to-aircraft routine. I'm wondering if the runways or "rotates" have anything to do with this. All ground, billboard and other texturing I've converted to DXT-1 seems to work great, except for those with fully transparent areas in the bitmaps.
I'm using Image Tool, DXTbmp and FSTexture Converter in all these attempts and all seem to yield the same results.
I'd sure appreciate help from anyone who's mastered this matter of displaying fully transparent portions of bitmaps at all ranges of visibility.
Thanks and Happy Easter :-)