Smooth Transparency Gradient
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:44 pm
I have a .png material, but the gradient is not smooth. It looks fine in SketchUp, but looks bad when rendered with Twilight. Why?!
There are 2 ways that an alpha channel of a png can be used in a material. It could be a "clipping mask" or a "transparency mask".
A clipping mask finds a "level" of transparency in the alpha channel and makes it the "clipping" point. That is, below "50% transparent" the image will be solid, above 50% transparent, it will be clear.
A transparency mask uses the png's alpha channel's full transparent gradient. This means it will also take longer for it to render.
The easiest way to get the .png's transparency to be read in Twilight as a "transparency mask" is to import the image as .png and leave it as an unexploded image.
There are 2 ways that an alpha channel of a png can be used in a material. It could be a "clipping mask" or a "transparency mask".
A clipping mask finds a "level" of transparency in the alpha channel and makes it the "clipping" point. That is, below "50% transparent" the image will be solid, above 50% transparent, it will be clear.
A transparency mask uses the png's alpha channel's full transparent gradient. This means it will also take longer for it to render.
The easiest way to get the .png's transparency to be read in Twilight as a "transparency mask" is to import the image as .png and leave it as an unexploded image.