decaling question

[modernhorse]

Hi all -

Here is a noob decaling question. The attached model has transparency of 40%. I have applied a decal which clearly is darker than the rest of the model(look at the top of the model - here is more transparent than the face which is the decal). I have matched the colors in my paint program to the model's RGB values. I presume because the model is semi-transparent this accounts for the color differences. Am I correct? How do I get around this?

 

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

Doug

[pixmite]

Have you tried to use a decal image with an Alpha Channel to block everything except the Eyes/Mouth etc?

 

Pixmite

[modernhorse]

Hi Bruce -

Thanks for the reply. Uh no, don't know anything about that. How does one do that?

[JoshB]

If you make your model transparent it will make everything on the model the same transparency. What I would suggest doing it create a color map which includes the color of the blobby--with the face on it. Get it where you want it. Then create a transparency decal which will be some shade of gray where you want it to be transparent--and black (well one shade lighter than true black) where the face is. You can do this real easily by duplicating the layer of the color map and playing with the levels. Then right click the images link under the decal and hit add image. Select your transparency image. Set type to transparency. The decal will be placed in the exact same spot as the color map and you should get what you're looking for.

 

J

 

edit: if you want I can demonstrate something for you.

[Gerry]

Josh, if you get around to it I would be interested in some clarification on that point. Doug, to answer your question (though I don't know which approach will work for your purposes) open your face image in Photoshop. ( If that's what you use. Should be similar in other paint progs though.)

 

With the wand, click in the area you want to be transparent. Make sure it's all selected. Under Select, choose "save selection..." and you'll get a window asking you to name the selection. Call it "silhouette" or "outline". ClickOK.

 

In your Channels palette (usually tabbed with your layers palette) make sure there's a new channel with the name you gave it. this is called an alpha channel!

 

Save as a Targa file.

 

Now in AM the image should be silhouetted, with the background color masked out. You may need to re-import it, but it *should* update by itself.

 

Like I said, I don't know if this method or Josh's will work best for you, but you will definitely find it handy to save Targa's with an alpha channel in the future.

[pixmite]

Doug,

 

Here's a crash course in using an Alpha channel as part of a decal:

 

I'm hoping you have a copy of Photoshop or some other program that allows you to create an Alpha channel for your decal. In photoshop you click on the channels folder. If this in not visible, pick it from the windows menu. At the bottom of this window there will be a icon that looks like a dogeared piece of paper. Clicking this will add a channel called Alpha 1.

 

The Alpha channel works like this: areas in the channel that are completely white will let 100% of your original picture through. Areas of the channel that are completely black will let 0% of your original picture through. Areas that 50% black, i.e. grey will let 50% of your original picture through. Think of white as being clear, back as bing opaque and grey being half way in between (kinda like Sun Glasses).

 

So how do you use this to solve your problem? Add an Alpha channel to your decal image. Using the lasso tool in photoshop - or equivalent in another tool - select the area that is outside of your eyes/mouth in the layers window. Go back to the channels window, select the Alpha channel and fill this area with 100% black. Select the inverse and fill this area with 100% white. So when you're done your alpha channel should kinda look like a negative of your original picture, i.e. white eyes/mouth on a black background. Save this file as a 32bit TGA image. This format will retain the Alpha channel transparency information.

 

Apply this image to your model as a decal in place of the old one. What it will do is only apply the portion of your decal where your alpha channel was white, i.e. eyes/mouth. The remainder of the decal will be blocked because the alpha channel was back in those areas.

 

Hope this helps, but if it didn't, try searching forum on Alpha channel use. They are powerful tools when you get to know how to used them.

 

Pixmite

[modernhorse]

Thanks for the replies fellows. I'll try and post my results here later.

 

Doug

[modernhorse]

Okay I'm back with more questions.

 

I've been trial and error-ing for a bit and I'm quite baffled by this whole Alpha channel thing. Partially I'm sure because I don't have a full version of Photoshop, i'm using Photoshop Elements. This doesn't have an channel pallette. There is very sketchy info with the online documentation on it as well. One sentence to be exact.

 

Anyhow my question from reading the above posts from Gerry,Bruce and Josh are as follows:

 

1) When you create an image and save it as a 32bit file is this "automatically" an alpha channel image?

2) Once I have created this 32bit file, when I bring it into A:M, should I be leaving it as a "color" decal or as a "transparency" decal?

3) If I just want to create a decal that has eyes and a mouth and I want to apply this to a non-transparent model (still unsure about whether I will go the transparent route), should the image I create in my paint prog have a black background and white eyes and mouth ? And then this decal should be a color or transparency decal? What I end up with now is the eyes and mouth come through okay but the rest of the decal overrides the color of the model's surface. I'm missing something here.

 

As you can see I've been playing quite a bit with this and so far am not getting very far. Sorry if I'm seeming a bit thick here but I think I'm missing some vital info.

 

Thanks again.

 

*edit* I just read a post by Vern in which he says that Photoshop Elements has no alpha channels which would explain why I can't find any docu on it. Guess I'm SOL.

 

Doug

[zandoriastudios]

Doug,

with Photoshop elements, I don't think you can work with the channels... When you save as 32bit targa it IS saving an alpha channel--the problem is that it is by default saving a completely white channel.

 

To get the face on the balloon, all you need is the color type image in your decal. If you were able to use an alpha channel, that greyscale channel would act as a "mask" to hide the part of the image you don't want to show. [you may want to download the free program GIMP, that will let you work with the alpha channels]

In this case,working with the software you have, you could simply use the "exclude color" to block the part of the image you don't want to see. To avoid creating a "halo" around the shapes that you are mapping, you don't want to paint them with a soft brush. If you do, the softer edges of what you are drawing are not going to be excluded--the exclude color has no tolerance setting, it is an either-or type of thing... So you need to draw the "face" with the Pencil tool rather than the paintbrush, which will give you unaliased, hard edges. This may look like crap when you are looking at the decal, but when you render the model A:M will antialias the edges and it will look smooth.

So that is my suggestion: Draw the face in black on a white background, using the "pencil" tool in Photoshop elements. Save the image as a regular 24bit targa. Import the image and set the exclude color to white. now you should be fine to apply it as a decal on your balloon model.

[modernhorse]

Will - Thanks very much for the explanation. I'll put it to use and be back with an update.

 

Doug

[JoshB]

Sorry gentle people fell asleep on the job. Doug I am most apologetic. Gerry as well. I hope to PM you both to let you know I have finally posted as promised. Attached should be a zip file containing the necessary files.

 

One is a PSD file. Two layers. One for color, one for transparency. The project file with my default cone model.

 

Create the color map--complete--no alpha channels--be sure not to use pure black as AM trys to set that as clear (at least for me). Apply it (in this case I did cylindrical)--then edited in the UV editor. For the transparency map just duplicate your color layer--desaturate--tweak through levels. White is opaque--and black is clear. Therefore, we need the face to be white, and the body to be a shade of gray. In AM right click the images link--add image--transparency.tga--be sure your repeat is the same so it will position properly (you may have to play with this to get just right). Poof you're done, and it's animatable.

 

J

 

And I will apologize ahead of time for the second post as it is to include a sample render.

transparency.zip

[JoshB]

And here is the results of the above files put together.

 

J

[modernhorse]

Hey all,

Making some headway. Still not done but getting there. Attached is my progress. Now to figure out how to match up my bump map with the color decal.

 

I also found out that Project Dogwaffle has Alpha channel support. I just need to figure out how to use the program now.

 

Thanks for all of your support fellas.

 

Doug

[zandoriastudios]

Now to figure out how to match up my bump map with the color decal.

Under the Decal name in the PWS, there is a container for IMAGES. Right click that>add Image. Then once the bump image is added, set it's Type to BUMP. All of the images in a decal use the same UV coordinates.

[ypoissant]

Doug,

 

I hope you realize that your display is set to some odd color settings. I checked your posted images and they all appear to use only 4 bits (16 levels) for red and blue and 5 bits (32 levels) for green. That is even less than 16bits. That explains the heavy banding in all your images. I would suggest you set your display property to 32 bits or 24 bits to get optimal view of your preview renders.

[modernhorse]

Yves - is this due to jpeg compression settings? With this image I just took a screenshot, pasted it into Adobe PhotoDeluxe (bundled software that I use on occasion) and when it asks me for quality I just hit "standard".

 

I just checked and my monitor settings are at High Color - 16bit. Maybe I'll boost it up to 24bit and see if that solves the banding. Thanks.

 

*edit* I just changed my monitor settings and rerendered the image. Wow, major difference(see attached). Thank you Yves for the heads up!!

 

Doug

[modernhorse]

Gee, I can't seem to leave this thread alone.

 

Continuing along with the bump map : I cannot get it to line up properly with the color map. I have copied the color decal, renamed it, added it to the model, changed it's property to "bump" in the decal. It is working as it should though i'm doing something wrong in lining it up.

 

I have checked the scale and position settings and they are exact. Incidentally, I started on a new copy of the model and added both maps without altering their position at all and the bump map was still significantly larger. So I edited the scale and position settings to match that of the color map.

 

And if someone can point me to more information on this predicament I'd be happy to read it for myself. Thanks again.

 

Doug

[steve392]

If Im thinking right ,Im sure I done one by having the bump map set to colour to place it then changed it to bump afterwards ,Doug I might have dreamed this though lol

[modernhorse]

Steve !

Man, you just made my day. Here's what I did - I made the model about 40% transparent so my original color decal would show up. Then I changed the properties of my bump map to color, positioned it so it matched the original color decal. Applied it, changed it back to bump and VOILA ! Thanks man that did the trick. I guess if you hang around here long enough you just might learn something.

 

 

*edit* added the fixed up image.

 

Doug

[steve392]

Glad you got it Doug and glad I wasn't dreaming lol

[zandoriastudios]

I explained this on page 1 of tthis thread.... A decal can have MANY images in it--not just one.

You DON'T make a decal for color and another decal for bump and another decal for specularity, etc!

Make ONE decal that contains multiple images. Color,bump,specular intensity,transparency, etc. You load the images into the decal by right-clicking the Images container of the DECAL. then choose add image from the context menu THAT ADDS THE IMAGE INTO THE LIST OF IMAGES IN THE DECAL! Then change the "TYPE" for each image to color, bump, or whatever.

please re-read this post until you get it. then when you get it, you will say, "Dope!" (in your best Homer Simpson impersonation) and slap yourself on the head!

[modernhorse]

Will -

Head hurts, reading, re-reading .... oh man ...don't tell me ................DOPE !

 

Maybe this one will stick with me, I learn much more by making these kind of mistakes.

 

Thanks.

Doug

[JoshB]

Yeah I should've been more detailed on that little tidbit as well. In my second post. Right-click the images link UNDER the decal on your model--Add Image.

 

Sorry. Could've saved you the dope.

 

J

[modernhorse]

Hi again,

Since it's Friday I thought I'd post an update for the halibut. Can't seem to get the depth I want from the bump map yet but still working on that. I'll get it now that I'm armed with more knowledge of where to look. Anyhow, here's where my character is for now.

 

Doug

[modernhorse]

Here I am again with a minor question. How does one paint a nice sharp decal without all the aliasing? As Will suggested I've used a pencil tool and it still looks like crap. Is my resolution on my .tga too low when I paint it? See attached. As always I'm open to suggestions. Note - there will be closer scrutiny than we see with the attached.

 

Thanks,

DopeDoug

[JoshB]

What size is your decal now? And, honestly I don't really see the aliasing you are talking about. I mean there is a little here and there but not due to the map. The blob has a little and the bubble he seems to be flying into has a little--but again not really the maps fault here.

 

One way, to get rid of the aliasing leftover from the 2 antialiasing passes from the final render option is to over sample. Let me digress: You are using the FINAL render option and not the shaded render option for these examples right? If you render your image 50-100% larger than what you intend to view it at when you shrink it down a lot of the aliasing will be subsampled away--that's oversampling in a nutshell.

 

J