hello everyone. Wondering if someone can point me in the right direction once again. Here is my problem:

1. I would like to add a surface texture to a geometry, lets say a grid.
2. I would also like to add a decal on top of the surface texture.

ok, I know that that should not be very difficult however I seem to be having some trouble making it work. I have read some differing opinions here in the forum re: whether to use vex to make your own custom shader, or using layers to create the same effect. Here's my worry:

3. I would like to animate the transparency for the decal so that it can slowly fade in/fade out.

4. I would also need to use an alpha on the decal to create transparency in certain parts ofthe decal so that the surface texture will show through.

If anyone can give me a tip on how to do this it would be awesome.

thx for your time.

Sealth

Use a texture VOP, and multiply it with a Parameter VOP to control the transparency.

HI Stealth,

I set up a quick example of how to achieve what you're looking for with the VEX Layered Surface SHOP.

If you need more control, you might have to create your own shader but I believe the VEX Layered Surface SHOp should be sufficient for your needs.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Cheers!
steven

Hey Steven, thanks for the advice and example! It helped me solve the problem of the decal being added to the surface texture.

However I have some questions regarding some further settings. I have several decals which will be fading in and out of tranparency during the course of the animation.

The problem that I am having now is that there are areas of the decal that are dark (not quite black) that are to varing degrees transparent as well. However I just want pixels or areas with RGB values of not (0, 0, 0) to fade in to opaqueness and all areas with RGB values of (0, 0, 0) to remain transparent.

Any help is duly appreciated.

Sealth

I'm a newbie and got used to alpha's working correctly with default settings in realtime apps.

For easy alpha transparencies when rendering:

Use VEX Layered Surface shader.
Select your Texture Map (tif).
Change Texture Tints to Diff + Alpha.

Only took a half hour to figure out. uggh

~Shawn