Getting alpha materials from blendigo, driving me crackers!

[seanser]

I realise that it's the simplest of processes, i understand the concept, i've looked at dr Bouvier Leducs tutorial and searced around the site, but i just can't get my alpha blended materials to work in blendigo.

I have UVed a colour map, the black silhouette of that map and have used the null default material within blendigo as well as trying my own null map.
At this stage i think i've tried every concievable blended combination of these and still can't get it to work properly .

The best I was able to come up with was a semi-transparent material with the shadow around the edge of the plane rather that the shrub image i'm tryin to alpha.

If someone could explain this to me as if I were a five year old, I would be eternally grateful. I'm doin an archi-viz of a house which is coming along great, a few plants and trees will really set it off.

[MSUdom5]

Could you post the material files?

[seanser]

I've thrown together a quick test blend of a plane with textures included to show the kind of combination i've been tryin out.
Posting files is another thing I havn't done before hope this is ok. Thanks for the help.

[zsouthboy]

Post a screenshot, but try turning off BiDir to start.

EDIT: Ah you posted a blend - I'll take a look.

[BbB]

First make sure you're using PNGs for your clip map, or at the very least 100% quality JPGs. Highly compressed JPGs dirty your blacks and whites and make any blending messy.

This map must be a black-and-white image. Indigo doesn't support alpha layers in images.

In Blender, go into a different layer from your scene layer and create one plane. Assign this plane with a new material called OPAQUE. The plane won't be rendered since it's in a different layer but will act as a placeholder object for your material so that it doesn't get deleted upon saving.

Now return to your render layer and select the mesh where you want the alpha material applied. Assign this with a material called LEAVES.

Now go into Blendigo, select this mat and assign it a BLENDED material type. Load your B&W alpha clip map in the texture field, this will be used to control the blending between material A and B.

The black areas of the map will let the material on the left show through while the lighter part will favour the material on the right. So assuming the leaves correspond to the dark parts of your clip map, select material OPAQUE as the first blend mat on the left and NULL as the mat on the right. This should make any object mapped to the white of the clip map disappear.

Sorry but you did say as though you were a five-year old...

[seanser]

You are a gentleman and a scholar sir, clear as a bell and that is exactly how I like new things explained, it leaves no room for confusion or excuses.
I shall post my results in finished works section later on in the week, cheers

[zsouthboy]

Heh, BbB to the rescue.

I don't know anyone else that has singlehandedly helped more people use Indigo (directly or not).

[seanser]

Leaves? how do you them leaves

[BbB]

ZSouthboy: Cheers man. Probably more indirectly, and unwittingly... And as long as it's nothing too technical...

seanser: Looking dandy!

[palawat]

After BbB's zillions of trees/leaves "test rendering", I think he (BbB) is the right one for this (and basically for a lot more to come).

[dmn]

In Blender, go into a different layer from your scene layer and create one plane. Assign this plane with a new material called OPAQUE. The plane won't be rendered since it's in a different layer but will act as a placeholder object for your material so that it doesn't get deleted upon saving.

Actually, you just hit the 'F' button next to the little car button in the links and properties panel of the blender mat and it will not get deleted, even if it is not linked to any objects. (very helpful tooltip reads 'save this datablock even if it has no users') A circle will appear next to the materials name indicating that it will be saved.