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Post by Bakie on Jan 25, 2016 16:44:55 GMT -5
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone knows how to make a part of a sticker slightly see-through.
I was working with a drop shadow that has to be slightly transparant, but I can't get it to work.
Even if I make my whole sticker transparant it won't work. Or at least nog in game, in Studio it works just fine.
Is there someone out there who knows how to make a sticker work with transparancy?
Ow and I know about the alpha layer, but with stickers they only seem to work with white=visible and black=invisible parts. And I need it to work with Grey parts too..
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Post by TheNathanParable on Jan 25, 2016 20:51:32 GMT -5
Are you saving your texture as DXT5? Anything below that will probably mess up your alpha (or remove it entirely).
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Post by phyre on Jan 26, 2016 3:14:07 GMT -5
Baufive described a similar issue on his Tumblr when he worked on converting his TS3 accordion doorscreen to TS4. Apparently TS4 really does not like grey areas on an alpha and seems to read them as either white or black. However, because you say full transparency also does not work it might be the type of file you use, like the previous poster suggested.
If you are using the proper file type I would ask: Are there any semi-transparent objects already in the game? You could try to take a look at their alpha map if so.
The only semi-transparent items I know of are glass objects but you wouldn't want to work with glass shaders for a decal.
Sorry I can not give you more direct help but I never tried anything like this in TS4 myself.
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Post by Bakie on Jan 26, 2016 5:17:09 GMT -5
Are you saving your texture as DXT5? Anything below that will probably mess up your alpha (or remove it entirely). Baufive described a similar issue on his Tumblr when he worked on converting his TS3 accordion doorscreen to TS4. Apparently TS4 really does not like grey areas on an alpha and seems to read them as either white or black. However, because you say full transparency also does not work it might be the type of file you use, like the previous poster suggested. If you are using the proper file type I would ask: Are there any semi-transparent objects already in the game? You could try to take a look at their alpha map if so. The only semi-transparent items I know of are glass objects but you wouldn't want to work with that for a decal. Sorry I can not give you more direct help but I never tried anything like this in TS4 myself. Hi, thanks for both your answers. I'm always working with DXT5, with every Mod I make...that's not the way to go either maybe, but it always works!  And the parts which I made white and black do work like they suppose to do. No, I've not seen any semi transparant stickers in game, so I was already thinking that maybe this isn't possible at all, but I thought I can ask the community, maybe they know something I don't know about.  I also already thought about other objects, but like you said, besides the glass there isn't something else that has a semi transparant effect. And the problem is, that it isn't really a shadow of course as it's a flat item. I wanted to make a fake one using the semi transparant drop shadow. And it just like you said, when using grey on the alpha layer, the game will read is as white or black. The last thing I tried is making a fake shadow from pure grey, but that's looks awful on a colored wallpaper. So I think I just have to skip the shadow on the sticker. Thanks for your answers anyway!  |
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Post by TheNathanParable on Jan 26, 2016 16:27:17 GMT -5
Is it possible to change the shader used by the wall sticker?
I remember reading something about custom hair with transparency and how they use a glass/glasses shader, because it's the only shader in the game that supports interpolated alpha? Am I right in saying that?
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Post by phyre on Jan 26, 2016 17:13:25 GMT -5
Yea, you could use a glass shader for it but that has two distinct drawbacks. First, it will give the whole sticker a glass-like appearance since it not only effects transparency but it effects the way the object is rendered in its entirety. Second, as described by Baufive during his conversion of those screen doors, even glass shaders in TS4 have a limit to their transparency as darker shades of grey are treated as black (and same for lighter shades of grey and white). This means that you are still limited in TS4 in what you can achieve in terms of transparency in comparison to TS3
You could give it a try though, depending on what stickers you want to make it might still look good since TS4 glass is quite... cloudy.
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Post by lavsm on Jan 28, 2016 4:45:03 GMT -5
There is a semi-transparent wall graffiti that came with Get Together, I think it's called "Angry Gnome". If you have that pack maybe you could see if those settings work for your shadow. Good luck!
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Post by lavsm on Jan 29, 2016 7:39:06 GMT -5
I made a test decal using the one I mentioned above and it seemed to work. The only change I had to make was in the shader settings (PhongAlpha), change AlphaMaskThreshold to 0 to make a soft-edged shadow. Hope that helps!  |
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Post by Bakie on Feb 2, 2016 6:20:28 GMT -5
I made a test decal using the one I mentioned above and it seemed to work. The only change I had to make was in the shader settings (PhongAlpha), change AlphaMaskThreshold to 0 to make a soft-edged shadow. Hope that helps! Wow! Thanks! I'm going to test it out real soon! I will also make a screenshot from the sticker if I succeeded and it has been uploaded. Thanks for searching for a way to solve this. |
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Post by Bakie on Feb 2, 2016 8:36:03 GMT -5
lavsm I did just clone the angry gnome decal and replaced it with my decal and it worked!!! AWESOME! Thank you very much!
Now is there also a way to change things on my normal decal so it would work for people not having Get Together too?
Already tried several things like changing the phong to phongalpha and changing AlphaMaskTreshold, but that doesn't seem to work. :(
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Post by lavsm on Feb 3, 2016 5:09:39 GMT -5
I'm glad that worked for you! I was able to get the same results using the base game tree decal. I just changed the shader settings to match the ones in the picture. If you want I could look at your file (or just let me know which decal you originally cloned).  |
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Post by Bakie on Feb 3, 2016 5:50:42 GMT -5
I'm glad that worked for you! I was able to get the same results using the base game tree decal. I just changed the shader settings to match the ones in the picture. If you want I could look at your file (or just let me know which decal you originally cloned). I used the same decal of the tree but it didn't work. Now I cloned your tree decal, and the shadow seems to work, but I can't place it in game. It stays red, also when using the moveobjects on cheat :( |
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Post by lavsm on Feb 3, 2016 6:12:34 GMT -5
How strange, I don't know why it wouldn't work for you. When you cloned my tree did you choose recolor or 3D mesh? The behavior you're describing sounds like what happens when you have a recolor of an object without the original mesh in game.
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Post by Bakie on Feb 3, 2016 8:26:23 GMT -5
How strange, I don't know why it wouldn't work for you. When you cloned my tree did you choose recolor or 3D mesh? The behavior you're describing sounds like what happens when you have a recolor of an object without the original mesh in game. I choose standalone, but I do have the tree decal as I own a legal disc version of the game. I will try with the 3D mesh or maybe you can tell me what you exactly changed in your Tree decal. Maybe I missed something the first time. |
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Post by lavsm on Feb 4, 2016 4:08:51 GMT -5
Oh, I think that's the problem. Since I had to change the shader settings in the mesh to make this work it is technically a custom mesh and you would have to choose "Create 3D Mesh" if you want clone mine. If you want to make your own, just clone the tree decal using "Create 3d Mesh" and delete the shader settings that were not pictured above (except I kept "DoubleSided" to make both sides visible) and change the AlphaMaskThreshold to 0. I'm not really sure if it's necessary to delete them but I was trying to make it as close as possible to the gnome decal settings. Good luck, I know you can make it work. |
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