Super easy transparent cockpits and nearly invisible combat units.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I was piddling around with textures in Threed and discovered a really simple way to make transparent cockpits to your models using the material editor in supports. Transparent ships are also possible!

1) Load a model into Threed and open the structure thingy to look at the objects that make up your model.

2) Page down to where you see the materials list at the bottom of the file, select one of the materials that has an actual texture BMP, TGA and PIC format are all supported and in the dialog that appears make sure the texture option is checked. You should see a preview of your texture showing.

3) Now move the opacity slider from 100 % down to say 25 % and hit OK. If you have trouble seeing the texture on your model set the ambient color to white before hitting OK. For some reason the default color of black really makes viewing the model in the 3d window very hard to see.

4) If you still have trouble seeing your model in the 3d view then hit options on the menu bar, select colors and then select white as the 3d ThreedWinColor and hit okay. You should now see the outline of your model with the transparency level you set earlier. Once your happy with the opacity settings just hit file save and load your model into the game to take a closer look at how the transparency adjustments look in game. Feel free to experiment with the opacity slider depending on how transparent you want your cockpit or model to be.

I made a completely transparent ship using this technique and it looks awesome in the map editor. I had to experiment a bit to get the transparency level where I wanted it but I just kept repeating the above steps and resaving the model file until I was happy with my models look. Oh, if you want you can also change the texture in the material editor by hitting From File searching for the perfect texture and loading new texture as much as you like. I keep most of my textures in my BZII Addon folder and add new ones when ever I want to change existing textures. Happy modeling and post any suggestions or feedback for all to see...BNG PS: Solid color texture files seem to work best for cockpits, but I guess any texture file can be made transparent this way if you want to experiment a bit more.

[Avatar]

Well...  um...

Adjusting the transparency of the material is nothing new and has a serious drawback...  your object will show up as white under 'no lights' setting, and will flash into view when lightning occurs on any setting (I believe...).  Before 1.3 supported actual hovering Scavengers my BZC Scavs were running on transparent treads, and this is what happened when you cruised around on Venus or set your lights to 'none'.

So, don't think you're all stealthy approaching the enemy in your invisible ship on Mire, cause you're showing up bright white when lightning flashes...  and in MP you're a sitting duck for anyone with their lights set to 'none'.

A better solution is to add an alpha channel to your textures.  This seems to have fewer drawbacks than adjusting material transparency.  The few ships I've done this way do cause serious lag on older systems, though, as you end up with multiple transparent sections in front of each other, something that drives the engine crazy...

-Av-

[Nielk1]

IIRC, that only occurs if it is at 0.

[SkyNET]

I believe the Cerberi Wraith uses a transparent model. Combined with a small radar signature, it's a really cool effect.

[bigbadbogie]

That is probably the oldest trick in the book BNG.

[TheJamsh]

yep, the MIRAGE from starfleet uses it

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Actually, in previous posts asking about transparent cockpits that was an issue I was curious on how to make them...well transparent. Old trick? Everything is new to me, and quite a few other modelers as well. I was just passing on information in that light.

Ironically, I've gotten less feedback from most of the questions I've ask then answers over the last few years I've been modeling. Why didn't anybody sound off about this cool information before? Oh, BTW I made a really cool sphere shaped unit that has a transparent outer hull with a really neat interior complete with a 3d cockpit and pilot figure seated in a chair. It looks really neat especially when you switch over to third person view as you can actually see where the weapons pointer is aiming due to the clear hull object. The hull is a simple green texture with the opacity set at 40 %. The unit seems to function perfectly in game with no apparent problems visually.

For what it's worth, it just a modeling tip for modelers with limited modeling skills...some of us still don't know it all yet guys?  PS: I believe that some of the other material settings in Threed can be adjust as well to set like the shininess of the transparency and other stuff.

[AHadley]

SkyNET might like that one...

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I'm really surprised how easy setting the transparency level of a texture is using Threed; a supposedly useless "piece of crap." With this technique even a novice model maker can easily produce an unlimited number of transparent models.

Imagine the possibilities of making see through props like city buildings, domed structures; I guess the list is pretty much unlimited with a little thought. Eww, imagine an emerald or ruby colored city? How about transparent bridges for starters? My imagination is spinning like crazy at the mere thought of what might be possible with the use of transparent textures like a new race of alien fighters like the predator alien movie.

You could like monkey around with the units ODF settings and set the image, heat, and radar detection settings really low; not completely at 0 but low enough to simulate stealth capabilities for combat units. I smell a new type of mod brewing people. To balance things out the weapons could be designed a bit weaker then usual and the use of shields eliminated to make destroying the stealth units easier for opponents in IA ST and MPI games.

Whew! Somebody slap me silly before I go completely mad with a power hungry desire for BZII world domination. LOL BNG.

[AHadley]

THWACK!

[Avatar]

Such information is in the boards, both here and at BZ2MD, but it's scattered all over the various forums and threads.  I know I've discussed just this both here in Maps and Mods, (well, the original before the board crash) and in the BZC section on BZ2MD.

For instance, in one post I put two pictures up of a heavily forested hillside, which looked virtually identical.  The question I posed was "What drags down performance the most, the top picture showing 100 trees or the bottom picture showing 3?"

The trick was that the bottom picture was of three trees with a wall between them.  The wall was textured with a screenshot of the same hill with 100 trees on it, with the proper areas between the trees made transparent.  From any distance at all the two scenes were identical, but the one with the wall had a few thousand less polygons in it.

Experimenting with such backdrops is what showed me that one transparent (or semi-transparent) object behind another increases the framerate hit a few hundred times.  Throw another transparency into the mix and you can drag down even a powerful system.  Throw in a few hundred and you can lag any computer made.  The engine doesn't like transparent objects stacked behind each other.

-Av-

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Wow, sounds like BZII is pretty antiquated by current game performance standards. Where did the thousands of polygons come from AV?

Unfortunately, I missed out on many of the old posts; truly a sad shame as a virtual database of invaluable information was lost in the process. Still, I'd like to see for myself where the transparency thingy leads for my own personal use.

You see I mostly model for my own pleasure rather then for stuff like MP games and such. I'm just really excited about my new discovery and never really thought that others have resigned themselves to refrain from using transparent stuff in large quantities for the reasons you mention now. I too will limit the use of them if I see the issue negatively affecting my gaming pleasure.

Still, I see vast possibilities for transparent props like icebergs, crystals, ice covered water, etc. From what I've seen some maps have way more props to begin with then really needed; forcing the game engine to work overtime especially with existing issues like AI over build and other performance related issues. Using transparent objects sparingly shouldn't really present to great of a problem under most scenarios in my view. To me it just opens up new ways to create more enjoyable maps and such.

I'm just simply amazed by how really easy slapping a transparent texture on a model truly is as my original intention was just to make some silly clear cockpits for my ships. It's nice to know that my imagination still runs wild from time to time. BNG.   

[OvermindDL1]

For note, that changing of transparency like that is just changing one number in the xsi file, not like it is hard in any way you think of it.
Generated by OvermindDL1's Signature Auto-Add Script that OvermindDL1 did manually since Greasemonkey does not work in Firefox 3.1 yet...

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

After playing around with the transparency settings; 90 % seems to work really nice for cockpits. You can barely see through them, yet just enough to see they're clear. Any color will do, but black cockpits seem to be the most common color right?

I may start creating faux pilot figures with fake 3d cockpit features on my models as the visual effect looks better then nothing at all under the transparent cockpits. You'd mostly just see a silhouette, but it looks a bit more realistic on my ships.

Strangely, the snipe points seem to be based around the hp_com point rather then the hp_eyepoint as I noticed this on one of my airships. Why does the cockpit glow when I'm in sniper mode? Is it because it's named cockpit and the engine reads the model parts names to some extent?