How does the invisible.mat work

[Rick]

There doesn't seem to be any shader in the invisible.mat so just wondering how it works?

[Haydenmango]

Its one of the options under Solid, Alpha, Light, etc. on the first page of the material editor.

 

--edit Now I am curious about how you could go about changing those values through code.

 

edit2-- Found it! http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/documentation/_/command-reference/material/materialsetblendmode-r243 The Invisible option isn't documented though so I don't know if it works with the function.

[Rick]

My invisible.mat in the editor has blend mode set to solid though, and it seems to still work.

[Haydenmango]

Yeah that is strange actually, sorry I didn't notice that!

[whiterabbit]

--edit Now I am curious about how you could go about changing those values through code.

 

edit2-- Found it! http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/documentation/_/command-reference/material/materialsetblendmode-r243 The Invisible option isn't documented though so I don't know if it works with the function.

 

SetBlendMode(5) does it

[macklebee]

if you open the invisible.mat in a text file editor, you will see that it only contains one line:

drawmode=0

As the property is not documented, its hard to say what all of the possible options could be. All other built-in materials have the drawmode set to -1. There are other properties as well that can be listed in the material file that have no documentation. When you create a new material, the text file will contain the property:

lightingmode=1

but when you save the material via the material editor, then this line is removed from the file and two undocumented properties are added:

alwaysuseshader=0

drawmode=-1

[Rick]

I always thought the invisible mat (maybe in LE 2) had a shader assigned to it that discarded everything, but with this drawmode setting perhaps the engine itself sees this setting on a surface and simply doesn't pass that surface along to be rendered?