Alpha Channel in Daz3D
Hi,
I have been loading my many models into Daz to make use of the features. One being the rendering screenshot using iRay.
For the vast majority of my models/textures are fine and I get excellent results, except for any that host PNG's with Alpha Channel, they all come out as solid. (see attached pictures), this makes it hard to use Glass or Masked textures. All my textures are PNG's (32bit) even those without Alpha, as I want the quality for rendering.
The first picture shows the texture in Daz3D, the second in my texture editor as a 32bit PNG. When I load this model into other engines like Unity, Unreal, Sansar etc, they honour the alpha channel.
I have been through all the many menus and settings but I cannot see any setting for Alpha. Clearly I am missing something specific in Daz3D, I would very much appreciate any signposting, or menu drilling route to the issue.
Just Me
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Comments
It seems mor reliable to use a separate mask image - load the PNG into an editor, add a layer behind the image layer, fill that with black, fill the image with white (preserving trasnparency) and save as ImageName-Trans, then load that as the Opacity or Cutour Opacity map.
To do all that to every leaf/branch,glass,window textures that I have would take months, and only for use in Daz3D? Using Masks is old fashion, alpha channels have been around since the dawn of the Gif. If what you suggest is the only solution, then I will use other platforms. I do thank you for taking the time to respond.
I did load the model into Hexagon and apart from flipping the UV's vertically (signs of an old engine), the alpha channel worked fine, as intended. If only Hexagon had a rendering plugin, or when I click 'Send to Daz Studio' it would work and keep the settings.
Just Me
It should be possible to automate the process of creating the images in many applications, using actions or macros. Even the application of the mask could probably be scripted in DS fairly simply.
select by colour and select the bg then invert selection and fill that
I do this in Gimp all the time
that said it is possible to use alpha images in DAZ studio but you need a shader that supports it
I don't know how, my shadermixer skills nonexistent but I certainly have encountered ones that do, I think using the layered image editor you can do it too and possibly thats how those shaders work
I was actually looking for a shader, that is how it is done in Unreal, Unity etc... As I only want a screenshot of a rendered model, I settled for a very quick solution. Turned on Preview Pane in Explorer and with Windows 10 Pro 64bit, it renders FBX and OBJ's, then use my selection screen grabber, take the results into Fireworks for polishing. The reults aren't that bad for internet use.
Update:
I did get the first responce from the support team "
Yesterday at 18:48
I spoke with our team, and there is no alpha blend in Daz Studio. Are you using custom content for this scene?
Content designed for Studio (or Poser or other similar rendering tools) typically comes with a grayscale transparency map that we load into the Cutout Opacity property. When we use content designed for other engines, we're used to having to tweak surface/material settings. And yeah, sometimes that means creating our own maps for things that aren't available from the content creator.
I can share my 3Delight shader I made from an old shadermixer tutorial on the old forum
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/uploads/FileUpload/aa/e1a7431871c50159ddc6d5bf927eed.duf
sadly it doesn't work in iray
and I tried applying iray uber, no luck and looking at the latter in shadermixer is like looking at a pile of spaghetti, certainly not 3 nice easy bricks, I can play with node editors, do in Octane and Unreal Development kit all the time but it has to be simple because I am
Hi,
Wow, thanks all for the information, much appreciated.
On the face of it, Daz is using old technology such as masks, they do not cover alpha blending so everything has a very sharp and ofc jagged, edge. Opacity strength is perhaps useful for glass and other partially visible surfaces. Either way, this is not as easy as more modern engines, or as it perhaps should be.
Thankfully, my 'fix' of using explores preview window, which is sufficent for my immediate needs. In my capacity as Content Creator, I will not try contributing to Daz3D, my publishing on Unity, Unreal and Sansar reaches 95% of users.
Have a great Christmas break, for those that practise those festivites.
Regards, AWM
An opacity map can have shades opf grey to avoid aliasing and so on - and usually does. An external control map (such as a mask) offers the same options as an embedded alpha channel, at least as far as I am aware.
Here is one solution:
Hello,
We talked to our QA team, and you could try this:
Add a plane into the scene (go to Create, choose New Primitive, and then choose Plane) > select this plane in the Scene pane > go to the Surfaces pane > find Base Color on the right side > select the square box directly under Base Color (it is the box on the right) and choose the png image > then, find Cutout Opacity under the Surfaces pane > again, select that same png image > now, under Cutout Opacity, click on the image that was just added and in the drop-down you will see Image Editor, go to this > under Change Grayscale From, choose Alpha.
Beyond this, we do not support Alphablend. Please let us know if you need any further assistance.
Phew.... copied for those that wanted to know how to use alpha textures in Daz.
yes this is a LIE function as I suspected, just some brighter sparks than me figured out how to link the bricks in shader mixer so it displays simpler in the user editor, I fiddled in shadermixer and actually got it to work in openGL just using the diffuse but sadly not iray
still this is at least a useable method thanks for sharing