solved Use of OpacityTexture, Functionality and Blender export

[gryff]

I've been experimenting with the ability to use the opacityTexture with materials. And I have a couple of questions.

First, what is the functionality of the opacityTexture in BJS. In the PG demo of fire, it appears to be acting as an alpha map that gives a general shape of the flame.

Candle stick

However, when I try to use the same flame and alpha map on a simple plane in a playground - I just get the square image of fire

Simple plane

Why? Does the use of .opacityTextures require the fireMaterial script? If it does, that is not indicated in the docs.

 

Secondly, I tried using the same two textures in Blender - see result below. A simple plane has one material with two textures - flame and opacity.- and as you can see both have an impact on what is rendered.

However, when I export the plane to .babylon I get this curious comment:

Quote

WARNING: Opacity non-std way to indicate opacity, use material alpha to also use Opacity texture

Looking at the .babylon file the material only contains the flame texture - no reference at all to the opacity texture used.

What does that mean? And how do I export these alpha map textures from Blender ?

Edit: I have the opacity texture exporting now by changing the value of the "alpha" in image below to 1.  But I still get the warning message and the result viewed in the sandbox is just the square plane with the flame texture

cheers, gryff

[JCPalmer]

For the warning piece, I have too many files open today to talk about.

[gryff]

@JCPalmer: no rush Jeff   But I would like to know why that simple PG demo of the plane seems to do nothing. I'm using the BJS resource textures - so ... ?

Maybe my coding is wacko or maybe the "opacityTexture" delivers something  I am not anticipating . But until the demo works, the issue with the warning is a moot point.

cheers, gryff

[BitOfGold]

Opacity texture means "get the alpha channel from this texture and ignore the rgb"
It is a bit confusing.
I did not know this.
a .useGreenFromOpacityTextureAsAlpha or something like that would be a good option I think.

A black/white opacity texture is easy to save in a small jpeg, so it is logical to use B/W jpeg for opacity texture and not an alpha from a png.
So, the candle opacity texture does not work because it does not have alpha.
http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#WVLHH#6

[gryff]

15 minutes ago, BitOfGold said:

Opacity texture means "get the alpha channel from this texture and ignore the rgb"

@BitOfGold : And that is what I am expecting - and got in Blender (see image above)

The "candleOpacity" texture - is a B/W image, though a .png rather than .jpg. Here it is :

Texture

And it works i with the "candle" PG I link to above - but not with the simple plane PG I created. Which is why I asked if it requires the fireMaterial.js script.

cheers, gryff

[GameMonetize]

Ok so the fireMaterial is not required

 

But the opacityTexture wants a texture with alpha channel by default. The CandleOpacity.png has no alpha channel.

But no worry I got you covered: you can ask the texture to use RGB value (the luminance) to act as alpha like this:

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2L1MHP#1

opacityTexture.getAlphafromRGB is the key here

[gryff]

19 minutes ago, Deltakosh said:

opacityTexture.getAlphafromRGB is the key here

@Deltakosh My crap programming skill strikes again

TY DK!!

Now to see how far I can push this

cheers, gryff

 

[GameMonetize]

My pleasure my friend!