See through like a ghost.

[incenseman2003]

What exactly would someone have to do to get a pawn to be see through like a ghost?

[scott]

use an alpha map, theres a couple of ways of doing this (i belive) the best and easiest is making a TGA texture with something like photshop, you can make an alpha mask as a 4th layer, you got RGB (red green blue) and then the 4th called alpha, this is a grey scale image, the darker and lighter colours represent the more or less transparent (not sure wich way rf uses them but just invert if you want the opposite efect) this will be loaded with your texture onto the model, if you dont have photoshop theres a bmp 2 tga programe with rf in the tools, basicly instead of you creating one image with all chanels you make your texture and alpha map seperatly, normal texture and a grey scale of the same size and save as .bmp and use the converter to merge the 2 textures into a tga

[Juutis]

The docs:

SetAlpha(float Alpha);
Set the transparency for the pawn's actor.

This is a lowlevel command, you could use it in the start of a script to make the pawn transparent. But of course, if you want to have visible and transparent parts in the pawn, you will have to use a texture with an alphamap.

the darker and lighter colours represent the more or less transparent (not sure wich way rf uses them but just invert if you want the opposite efect)

Black is completely transparent and white is solid.

[incenseman2003]

I tried a greyscale overlay. I tried the black setting at 0,0,0. It was not transparent at all. I have done this with other things. I this can be done with textures for world geometry. Can it be done with a non-player actor? I have never tried it before with an enemy.

EDIT: I got it to work. I just used a tga file created with the bitmap and the alpha just like I would if I were making a transparent texture for a wall made from a piece of geometry.

The same thing is done for both.

Yayyy!!!!

That's what I get for over thinking.

[incenseman2003]

Now when I have the see through texture applied the animations don't work. When the texture is not see through the animations do work.

Anyone have any ideas?

[zany_001]

perhaps a pic of what your trying to do, if its not too revealing as to your game?

also, did you modify your mesh AT ALL as well as changing the texture?

[incenseman2003]

When I change the texture I use the tga2gebmp2.exe and that doesn't modfiy the mesh at all. It just changes the texture. With the see through texture that is a tga file created from a bitmat and an alpha the animations just don't work. When I use the texture that is not see through the animations work fine. That is all there is. A pic really wouldn't explain it any further or better. If you try to use a tga file with an alpha in it on a pawn the animations just don't work. Can someone else try this and see if they get the same results?

[steven8]

Dang. I've only used tga2gebmp2 on static models, and I don't have RF installed just yet. You could try this. Change the texture with tga2gebmp2, then rebuild your actor astudio. Make sure the new texture is in the same folder as the actor.

This may not work at all. I'm just throwing out an idea.

[incenseman2003]

I always make it a habit to have the tools that I am going to use and the materails all in the same folder.

I built the actor and then tested it. It was not see through.

I then changed the texture and it was see through but no anims.

Is it possible that pawns just don't work with transparent textures.

It's gotta be dem dang martians!

[steven8]

What would happen if you just go into your modeling program, apply the texture there, then rebuild the actor? Do you use MIlkshape? Can it handle TGA files?

[bernie]

Milkshape can handle TGAs but Astudio can't.
Changing the texture with tga2gebmp works fine.
I have done this several times in the last week with no problems.

1 Export .bdy file from milkshape using .bmp texture
2 build actor file using Astudio adding .mot animations.
3 load .act file into tga2gebmp and change texture to .tga
4 save changes
The .act file can then be used as a pawn with its animations no problems.

[incenseman2003]

Here is what I did:

I made and textured my model with a bitmap in milkshape.

I then exported it as a bdy file.

I created the animations in milkshape and exported them as mot files to the same folder as the tools. mesh and texture.

I made sure that all the tools, the mesh, the texture and the mot files were all in the same folder.

I used the AStudio.exe to build the actor file. I was careful to make sure that I added the correct texture and mot files.

After the acter was successfully created I used the AlphaCreate.exe to turn the bitmap texture and its alpha into the transparent texture.

I then used the tga2gebmp2.exe to change the texture for the actor.

The anims did not work.

I changed back to just the bitmap texture.

The anims worked.

I changed back to the transparent texture.

The anims did not work.

I did this several times to make sure that it was the transparent texture that was the problem.

[bernie]

It doesn't look like the problem is the way you're doing it. The problem must be elsewhere either the model itself, the animations or your texture. The texture is the most unlikely.
Any Idieas anyone?

[incenseman2003]

Remember that if I use a texture that is not transparent the anims work just fine. It is only when I use the transparent texture that the anims stop working. That tells me that it has to be the texture. I know it sounds kooky but it is the only thing that seems to affect it.

[steven8]

Alan wrote back and told me that he used a brush with the ghost on it because he was unable to make a transparent actor.

bernie, could send one of your working actor files to incenseman to try out?