Gradual Alpha transparency

[Ian Malcolm]

But it doesn't matter what kind of compression you used. Cloudlets are something special and what's making them so special isn't how they are compresssed, but how engine works with them. Same can be said about clouds. But it doesn't mean you can use it on the world objects.

Feel free to try, but you are wasting your time. Even ArmA isn't using "smooth" transparency on grass or trees...

[Fab.]

yeah but at least i'll be able to make custom cloudlets work properly

besides, arma prolly doesnt use multi bits alphas on their vegetations because of performances... (multi bits alpha lags way more than one bit alpha which lags a lot more than no alpha at all)

i dont see why they wouldnt have goten rid of that problem in arma, since this is exactly the same problem you get with car windshields and you dont see that in any other games if i'm not mistaken... if we reached a point where we can create such awesome lights and shadows, with pixel shadders and you-name-it, i'm pretty sure now we do have the technology to handle multi bits alpha channels properly...

im gonna quickly try to map an object with the bis cloudlet textures and see if it works... it'll just take 2 mins to try anyway

[edit] yeap, doesnt work with vehicles, binarized or not. but as i said at least we could have descent working customized cloudlets in the future... even thought that wasnt the point of the thread (sorry, my bad)

@ linker split : you could always use a nicer resolution for your grass texture using one bit alpha channel only so it doesnt look so pixelized around the edges... i dont mean crazy resolutions, but i have done A LOT of vegetation since 2004 or so and i think the final result looks pretty descent.. and besides, one bit alpha channel makes for much better performances too

[feersum.endjinn]

It is probably true that BIS didn't really write any internal documentation about .PAA format, if you read ther post mortem of OFP at Gamasutra, one of things they mentioned doing wrong is lack of documentation. However PAA format has been reverse engineered and documented by community ages ago, check it out in Community Wiki.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Paa_File_Format

[Fab.]

ouuuh thanks thats awesome... i barely checked out that wiki for some reason

[Linker Split]

thanks for your interest guys!
I will do textures with a better resolution, so they will not look so pixelized as Fab said...
Btw, is there any way of trying to force the OFP engine to handle multiple alpha channels?

[Fab.]

Btw, is there any way of trying to force the OFP engine to handle multiple alpha channels?

the conclusion of this big discussion is, nope there isnt (at least none that we can figure out)

good luck with ur textures and keep up the good work,

Fab

[Linker Split]

ok men, thanks anyway...
no problem, I'll still try to do the best i can