Hi new to board & need help

# 1 15-10-2003 , 07:32 PM

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Hi all,

I'm glad I found this board, because i'm new to 3d, the software I pick into the 3d world is maya complete 4.5 for power mac G4. I'm about 8 to 9 months onto maya.

Now if someone could help me out here, I would be very grateful.

Well here it is, i've been trying to make this hardware texture were only the drawing is place is all I want to show.

For example, say I want to make leaves on a tree. So I start out in photoshop 7 drawing the color leaves on a white background, mostly paniting leaves in the middle of my drawing space, so my leaves don't touch the egdes. Then I open the texture in the hypershade in maya. Then I create a material > lambert > MMB from texture over lambert, as default. Then I make a polygon primitives > plane, then assign material to selection.

What I want is the egdes or the white part of the drawing of plane to be transparency & the leaves visible.

Like this below:

user added image

If no image is showing go here:

Link

Thanks in advance

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

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# 2 15-10-2003 , 09:26 PM

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You have to use an alpha to cut the white part out. It is a fourth channel in the colors and when you create it by default it will be an alpha channel. Make sure that the part you want to show is white and the part on the alpha you want to cut away is straight black. Anything other than straight black and it will have a silohette. Make sure you save it as a tiff or a tga for those will keap an alpha channel while a jpg will not. If you use mental ray make sure you use a tga because it has problems with tif files.

With leaves, if you want to get tricky, you could have a translucence channel that allows light to go through the leaf part but not the ribs and veines.

Hope this helps.

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# 3 15-10-2003 , 10:48 PM

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Hey thank you very much RickStefani, user added image

I'm going to try those things out that you said.

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

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# 4 15-10-2003 , 11:07 PM

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Thanslucent map, not channel. A whole new texture. Sorry for the typo.

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# 5 16-10-2003 , 12:08 AM

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I'm not fully understanding this. Let me see if I got this right.

Oh boy were do I start.

I will start with photoshop I make the leaves with a black background & the leaves white? Or do you mean do this in hypershade?

And you mean alpha out in the connection editor? And then over in inputs I have translucence, translucence focus & translucence depth, but no map?

And again the black & white thing I don't get it? Do you mean once again in the connection editor? In the outputs I have color gain, color offset, default color & out color. Is that what you mean by default, as in default color? And over in the inputs I have color > color R, color G & color B. And then ambient color > ambient color R, ambient color G & ambient B.

And do you mean save it as a tiff or tag in maya or photoshop?

What i'm doing is saving texture from photoshop as jpg, oh and I tryed to save as tiff and when I open it in hypershade its black, is that what you mean by black? Anyway then I MMB over the lambert and get this list:

Connect input of: lambert2

Default, if this is what you mean by default then how do I open up the connection editor for alpha & the black & white color part?

Ambient color

Incandescence

Transparency

Bump map

Displacement map

Other...

If you could explain in a little more detail I would really appereciate it very much.

Sorry for my ignorance user added image

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

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# 6 16-10-2003 , 03:03 AM

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Ok,. I just buzzed through this thread and got the jist of what your problem was. Whenever I want to do what you're doing, I use a TARGA IMAGE. In Photoshop, I would take the background eraser tool, erase a little of the portion you don't want to be visible. We're talking just a little mark, not anything more. The reason for doing this is to create an ALPHA CHANNEL. Alpha channels = transparency.

(NOTE: to get to the BACKGROUND ERASER tool, you need to locate the eraser tool on your toolbox in Photoshop. Click and hold over the button. You should get a list of three different erasers. Choose the Background Eraser Tool)

If you were to just regular erase, all you would have is a white background. With the background eraser tool, you should see a grey and white checkered background. This represents the transparency.

As opposed to taking this background eraser tool to erase the portion you don't want to be seen, I find that taking the lasso tool and CAREFULLY cutting around an object and deleting it is the best way. HOWEVER, if the portion you don't want to be visible on your image is all white, you can simply take the magic wand tool and select ALL of the whiteness at once and delete it. It will be replaced by the alpha channel (the grey and white checkered background).

Now save as a TARGA and stick it on a plane in Maya like you want. I find this to be the easiest way to solve your problem. Hope this helps.

www.Darkware3D.com

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# 7 16-10-2003 , 04:38 AM

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Darkware,

Hey thanks for the input. I understand you about the photoshop part & then saving my texture as Targa within photoshop.

But the alpha what? I don't see just alpha. When I MMB on the texture file and drag it over the lambert material I get a list I click on other... Is that right so far? Then in the connection editor in the outputs I click on out alpha, because there no just alpha alone that I can see. The ones I see are Alpha is Luminance, Alpha Gain, Alpha Offset & Out Alpha. And then in the input part on the left what do I click on?

Is the Alpha channel in the connection editor? Is that what i'm looking for is plane AlLPHA CHANNEL? And not Alpha the one listed above? If so where this Alpha channel at?

And you say Alpha channel = transparency, So is it the other way around, as in transparency = Alpha channel, so therefor I need to click on transparency in the connecttion editor?

And this is without rendering right? I want it to show on the hardware texture, without having to render to see this transparency result.

Boy being a newbie can be very frustrating sometimes.

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

Last edited by vedic kings; 16-10-2003 at 04:42 AM.

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# 8 16-10-2003 , 04:52 AM

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In photoshop.

user added image

Attached Images

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 9 16-10-2003 , 05:18 AM

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mtmckinley,

THANK YOU! :thumbsup:

No wonder I was having a hard time with is. It was all to be done in photoshop & not maya. user added image

Now i'm going to go do this and hope this works.

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

Last edited by vedic kings; 16-10-2003 at 05:31 AM.

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# 10 16-10-2003 , 05:41 AM

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You want to click on the triangle in the top right corner in the tool box and it will give you an option to create a new channel. By default it will be an alpha.

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# 11 16-10-2003 , 05:47 AM

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Hey thanks guys, I did it or we did it.

Awesome!

Now one more question, can this transparency around the leaves be seen without rendering?

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

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# 12 16-10-2003 , 07:27 AM

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yes, if you hit 6. That is how I do my templates in the viewport for building off a sketch.

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# 13 16-10-2003 , 07:29 AM

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mtmckinley,

THANK YOU! :thumbsup:

No wonder I was having a hard time with is. It was all to be done in photoshop & not maya. user added image

Now i'm going to go do this and hope this works. :thumbsup:

I am creating an illusion.

Homepage https://www.freewebs.com/vedickings/index.htm

Challenge WIP https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=17391

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# 14 16-10-2003 , 11:47 AM

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Yes, I believe I stated in the beginning that it was supposed to be done in photoshop. Guess you didn't see that part. Oh well. Glad you figured it out.

www.Darkware3D.com

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# 15 20-10-2003 , 07:04 PM

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There are two easy methods to create an alpha channel in Photoshop.

The first is:
Select your object first by pressing and holding the CTRL key and then right click on the layer you want to select. Then, switch over to the CHANNELS menu. At the bottom of the menu window is a small box with a circle in it, that's the Save Selection as Channel button. Clicking on it will give you an exact alpha channel layer for the object you've chosen.

And a simpler method is like this:
1. Create a new layer and fill it with black.
2. CTRL + LEFT CLICK the layer you want to alpha. Fill it in with white.
3. Save the image.
4. Import the image into the TRANSPARENCY of the shading group that you're using.

Done. Easy huh?

user added image