Alpha Decal
Hey Folks. Anyone who has been following my posts can see how I'm working my way through Maya. I'm now on mapping and am looking to figure out how to use an Alpha to determine which pixels on my map get applied, and which get ignored.
I'm used to 3DSMax where you just click a button to tell it to use or ignore the alpha. I don't ecpect it to be that easy in Maya, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Thanks, -dann |
Maya will use the alpha by default pretty much.
|
To clarify even more, it'll apply the image's alpha to the material's Transparency channel.
|
1 Attachment(s)
Well it's not so working the way I thought it would so what am I doing wrong?
To explain more clearly what I'm looking for is for the words in the image below "Alpha Please" to be mapped on my object, but the checker pattern be ignored due to the alpha. Do I have to do something with the color balance? When I try it affects the whole bitmap, not just the alpha'd area. Should I be using Alpha Gain or Alpha Offset ? I've searched the docs and can't find any explaination of what these do. I've tried changing their values but I have seen no effect. p.s. sorry the image quality is so poor, but 15K was hard to get to. |
Make sure you're using a 32-bit targa. When you apply the image to the color channel, the alpha will automatically get mapped to the transparency channel.
|
I am using a 32 bit tiff. I tired Targas, no differece.
Nothing is automatically happening with the alpha. I've checked in Photoshop, it is there. |
Try connecting the image file to the material's transparency channel. It should use the alpha channel.
|
Tried that, still uses RGB.
the only success I've had is by creating a duplicate projector utility and matching the links within the graph using Alpha istead of color. It works but what an ugly way to do it. Everyone says Maya will use the alpha automatically, but I don't see it. I guess my have the "special" version. |
Sooo Close
1 Attachment(s)
OK, I see what you're talking about with automatically adding the transparency, but that's only if you don't want to do any projection mapping. For my project I need projection mapping and Maya doesn't seem to add the transparency as easily with projection maps.
However I GOT IT TO WORK. Anyone care to see how, feel free to download and check out the file. Thanks for the hints along the way. -dann |
You could also always go to your file node, and in your attribute ed., there is an effects twirl-down, and in that you can check INVERT ALPHA to get what you wanted:)
|
Sorry Rage, but I wasn't getting any Alpha, so inverting wouldn't have helped much.
|
Argh!
1 Attachment(s)
I DON"T GET IT!!!
Every time I think I understand Maya, I get smacked down. I thought I had it working, but when I switched my multi-colored bitmep to black (which is what I need), it no longer renders. Is black illegal in Maya? It can't be, so what the hell do I do? Anyone who understands alphas in Maya, please take a look at this file and tell me how on this green earth I can make the bitmap text appear as black on the blue plane. Please don't tell me to paint blue into my texture map because this in only a test file that will lead up to the real file which needs to use an alpha as a decal. Please help me! I've been trying to map this for about 10-12 hours!!! I'm on the verge of tears here. Thanks, -dann :banghead: |
Ah, I checked your file, and none of your images match the image names in your shader's file nodenames?
BUT, I think I have an idea as to what you wanna do, so I'll give it a go:) ...be back... |
That's weird. I just looked and they match when I open the file. I'm looking forward to what you come up with.
Thanks. |
1 Attachment(s)
I think the reason the black wasnt showing up was because your enviornment was black? maybe?
is this what you were after? |
1 Attachment(s)
and here is your file....
|
1 Attachment(s)
Ok, here ya go:)
It is in Maya 5 format, and I tried to convert it to 4.5, but it won't work, so here is how i did it: Create a layered shader. Create your background shader. (BLUE in this case) Create your Black text shader. (I chose Blinn, like you did in your file) In Photoshop, remove the alpha from your color (rgb) image, and put the alpha in its' own file. ( I chose targa, as that's what I use) In the Blinn shader, plop your color (rgb) file in the COLOR slot. Then plop the ALPHA file in the Transparency slot. You may have to click INVERT under the effects menu of your transparency file attributes, otherwise your RGB color image will be the inverse of what you want:) Drop both the BLUE background shader AND your COLOR shader into your LAYERED SHADER node. The COLOR shader should be on the leftmost side of the Layered shader "drop-in" view area, and the BLUE shader should be on the right of that. That's it. My new file for you is attached. This same tecnique is explained in another way on the A|W "how-to" section of thier site:) |
1 Attachment(s)
Here is my resulting image:
|
DAM! hehe...
I just noticed that Howard posted a few minutes befoe me:) Oh well:) |
1 Attachment(s)
:bgreen:
Thank you, thank you, thankyou You guys are great! I couldn't open your files as I don't have Maya 5, but the description was enough. The really sad thing it that I had been following a tutorial I had gotten from digital-tutors.com and they were having me do one thing that was causing the problem. When you are supposed to drag the materials onto the Layered shader, their tutorial has you drop it onto the color tab, not the central box. What this does differently is it sets up connections between color, transparency, and glow, not just color. I just did some more tests, and that is the only difference between a working shader, and one that doesn't. Check out the subtle difference. I knew it had to be something small I was missing, I just couldn't find it. I was probably 95% of the way there after an hour, and the rest of the time was trying every check box I could get my hands on. I just never tried dragging the material to that area. Thanks again. If either of you were women or if I was a gay man I'd ask you to marry me. -dann |
whoops! I totally missed the boat here <:) I didnt realize that you wanted to layer the text over the blue! I guess my cognitive skills drop tremendously after midnight.
Rage is the man!! |
Cool:)
Happy you were able to understand my tips. |
All times are GMT. The time now is 04:43 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Simply Maya 2018