Can I ignore file's alpha in viewport?

[naughty]

I have a single material assigned to a single object. The material has a single File texure in it's color channel. The file is a TGA file and it has an alpha channel that's almost entirely white (opaque) but with a tiny amount of black where there's a bit of "punch-through" transparency.
The problem I'm having (and it's a big one!) is that Maya see's that the material has an alpha channel and consequently thinks every polygon using it is transparent to some degree (even though 99% of them are totally opaque (100% white alpha)).

As a result the polygon sorting in my persp viewport is completely bolloxed so I can't see the model properly and I'm trying to work on the texture. I'm not interested in rendering as the model is for export only...

So, what I want to know is this, is there any way of making a second copy of the material using the SAME file texture but telling Maya to ignore the alpha channel in the hardware viewport on ONE of the material copys but not the other?

I really don't want to have a second identical file with the alpha removed as I'm constantly updating it and this would just be a real drag.

:nathaN

[dylanmaxwell]

consult the hypershader!
in the hypershader frame on your shader and choose Duplicate with connections to shading network. Then just disconnect the transperancy mapping on one shader and not the other.

I'm unsure why you need to do this if you're not going to render. Is it just to see the openGL shading better?
there may be setting for that alone.

good luck
Dylan

[naughty]

eh? I don't have any transparency mapping, that's the point. Like I said, the alpha is picked up solely from the color channel because the TGA file happens to have an alpha channel.

There isn't any way to disconnct this is there?

I can't remove the alpha channel from the TGA because that's the bit I'm working on at the moment.
I'm only interested in the GL view because the model I'm trying to build is solely for export to a game engine and I obviously need to see it properly otherwise how am I supposed to model it at all?

I'm using Maya 3.01 by the way..

[rivard]

I think I had the same problem once, when you Save your TGA from PS save it as 24 bits instead of 32 or soemthing like that. It sorted me out, hope it works for you.

[dylanmaxwell]

saving as 24 bit will remove the alpha so don't do that.
try this,
go to the file texture attributes and set the alpha gain to ZERO
just a guess.
-Dylan

[sibben]

Open the Materials Hardware Texturing section and set Texture Quality to highest. This will ignore the Alpha. Put it back to default to see the alpha again. This affects viewport behaviour only which is what you wan't, right?

Sibben

[naughty]

NO no no! I NEED the alpha channel.

Look, there seems to be some confusion. here's the deal:

I WANT to see ALPHA-TRANSPARENT TEXTURED polygons in my persp VIEWPORT.

THE ONLY WAY TO ACHIEVE THIS is to assign a bitmap file THAT IS 32BIT to a Material's COLOR channel. THE OPEN GL hardware renderer picks up the alpha component of the bitmap and AUTOMATICALLY draws the polygons correct transparency in your viewport.

It's THIS FUNCTIONALITY that I want to DISABLE BUT ONLY FOR ONE MATERIAL

Setting the Hardware Texture detail to anything other than Default DOES achieve this BUT ON THE ENTIRE SCENE and NOT at a material level so this is no solution either (besides the texture looking awful).

secondly, YOU CANNOT SEE MORE THAN ONE TEXTURE ASSIGNMENT SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE VIEWPORT. SO MAPPING ANYTHING TO A MATERIAL'S TRANSPARENCY CHANNEL IS IRRELEVANT EXCEPT WHEN RENDERING, UNLESS I WANT TO SEE EITHER color OR transparency BUT NOT BOTH (which I certainly don't want)

Is what I've said above definately right? If anyone can 100% verify OR correct me on the above points please do so as the solution probably lies in the invalidity of my above assumptions..

I guess for now I'll just have to get photoshop to output TWO copies of the same file each time I update it and get it to remove the alpha from one of them. I'll just have to remember to replace the second material copy on my model when I'm finished...

:nathaN

[naughty]

AH, ha, now that's the kind of smart thinking I like. Unfortunately, I've already tried this and I don't know whether this functionality is just [censored]-up or buggy or what but I just get crazy, unpedictable results. It's just too mad and random to explain what happens but I get materials "locking" me out of changing the quality, or both auto-flicking back to default or one sticking on "low" even when I change the channel to "none" and all sorts of even weirder crazyness.

This is my best bet so far though so I'll just keep trying to jiggle the settings around till I get it sorted.

:nathaN

[joojaa]

Well the easiest (read the only) way to do this is to make three different files for ech texture (one with both alpa, alpha, and color), then if you got some informative naming convetion in use you can use a mel script to enable disable on a per material basis.

[rivard]

Yea whatever man, just stop yelling, no one is forced to help you here.

I think someone needs a break. ;-o

[rivard]

Ditto, roger that.

[sibben]

Uh, I guess this Hardware Texture Quality trick is a fat workaround which was never intended by AW. I've used it sparesly only, though.

I work in the games industry and we sometimes use lots of masked textures on top of each other. 3D programs in general never seem to be able to sort them right in the viewports - it becomes a mess. So I have to wing it by ear and export it through our toolchain to see what it really looks like.

This sucks bigtime! I'd really like to see some application that actually handled these things in a clever way.

Sibben

[naughty]

hmm. yes it's annoying alright.. and we don't even have a proper tool/viewer set up either so if I want to see an exported model I have to go and hassle a programmer...!

[jeffd]

Yep, the Maya viewports suck for us game folks who are used to seeing things in real-time. Especially now as we are exploring more and more complex shaders our viewports saddle us more than ever.

Seriously, though, you gotta get your progs to get those viewer tools done. A long turn-around art pipeline is a good way to fall behind and get your project killed.

--JeffD

[joojaa]

I think everyone would benefit from this. But i think av is working on this, atleast thats one thing they should do.

But you can import the code in your pipeline to maya open gl and create your own nodes (apparently some studios do this), but its too big of a hustle for me (you could easily fake this with the sw renderer, altough it wouldnt be real time + easy to screw up)

[eug]

I had the same problem...a file with alpha channel mapped in the color channel of the material...

I got rid of that going into Color Balance of the file and then raising the Alpha Offset to about 2.0 ... everything looks nice back again, and you still have your alpha channel...

Regards, Daniel