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Alpha Dithering and Billboards


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I believe the tree you have circled in the distance is still showing the model, not the billboard, and the leaves appear sparse because of the technique used to save mipmaps. I think Photoshop weights downsampled colors by the pixel alpha when saving mipmaps, or at least has an option to.

 

In my own MakeDDS tool, there is an option for "mask correction" which does the same thing.

My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without.

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I believe the tree you have circled in the distance is still showing the model, not the billboard, and the leaves appear sparse because of the technique used to save mipmaps. I think Photoshop weights downsampled colors by the pixel alpha when saving mipmaps, or at least has an option to.

 

In my own MakeDDS tool, there is an option for "mask correction" which does the same thing.

 

 

Actually these billboards were generated by the Leadwerks Editor. As in a previous post, I created them by adding "vegetation_" to the gmf files and checked 'enable billboards'. I don't have the original source for the DDS files since I got them in an asset pack here. What do you suggest?

 

With the billboards, how would I correct very 'sharp' edges that occur when the objects are far away?

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My guess is the trees have black pixels where the leaves aren't, and they are getting blended into the billboard image. That's what the settings I described corrects, or you can just paint the background green in a paint program. Is that the sample Pure3D tree that comes with the editor?

My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without.

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My guess is the trees have black pixels where the leaves aren't, and they are getting blended into the billboard image. That's what the settings I described corrects, or you can just paint the background green in a paint program. Is that the sample Pure3D tree that comes with the editor?

 

The trees I'm having trouble with are from the European Nature pack you gave us. (which was generous of you, btw) And those now files are gone!

Leadwerks Post Here (Beech Trees)

 

Could you update the mipmaps?

 

 

The Spruce trees that are included with the editor (not using them currently), are found in the free Arctic level and on the left of this image.

post-214-0-84762100-1305338060_thumb.jpg

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So I did what was requested, and the trees are even more defunct than before. The leaves disappear if more than 20 LE units away, and the billboards are just brighter. This is extremely frustrating, as there is no place to download the original files.

 

There are other people in the community that would like to have access to the files again, once they are fixed.

 

Michael, could you just modify the beech trees and post a zip here?

post-214-0-24585600-1305690347_thumb.jpg

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At some point last year I decided I wanted to let Michael fix his models up and sell them, and I removed the free versions because I didn't think new users would really understand the fixes he made, and why they were better than the free ones. (I did give a warning of several months.) I believe this is one of the issues he resolved, but I'd ask him confirm that is correct. This was before the asset store came around, but that's what it eventually morphed into.

 

Sorry for the inconvenience, but it sounds like you'll be better off with his commercial packs that resolve this and some other issues.

My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without.

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BTW, there is no restriction from anyone sending you the original free pack that was posted. I worked a deal out with Michael for those to be free to the community. But again, he made the effort to rework the assets for the commercial pack, which should not be distributed.

My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without.

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  • 1 year later...

Hello :)

 

if i enable the billboard option - i got a billboard, but with no alpha masking - just a black plane with the billboard texture...

 

hmm - dont know how to fix it - also the standard spruce is showing a non alpha billboard...

 

would be great if somebody can help !

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todays new amd driver update does not help to get right working billboards - the billboardplanes appears all without alphamask (bb-texture i can see)

 

maybe its a bug of my radeon saphire HD 7800 ...

 

Lotsof thanks to josh for this fantastic engine - simple awesome :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

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