Tips Alpha Channel & Texture Correction in LW

[Anonymous]

My hope it can useful for all
Apology, if related this topic already posted before

3D Window Preview :


Render with Lightwork :


Tips in Photoshop & Lightwork Rendering:




If those related links get broken, just download content at the next post .

[Karl Ottenstein]

And, as Luzan mentioned the use of the alpha-masked images in Artlantis... one should mention that they are immediately usable in Piranesi as well, but even more simply as Piranesi doesn't need any geometry, it will just inert the masked image to scale, with shadow casting, in a scene. 😉

Karl

[Chazz]

This is a fantastic summary Luzan, thanks for posting it and doing so in th face of the impossible language of english. Thanks also to all the other contributors.

My question is if this could be done using the Picture Object in the library and instead of making a material, you just point the Picture to the Tiff file directly. Would this still work? It seems like it would be easier but I'm probably forgetting half a dozen steps. Anyone?

[Dwight]

Using Picture 12 and a masked image is simple:

Start with a PNG file. PNG is a relatively new format that supports transparency.

When you turn off the frame in the Picture 12 and call an image made in Photoshop with a transparent background, you'll get a masked shape.....

of course, that image must be in the library database so if you lalalala have a new image, you must load it or Archicad can't see it lalalala....

[Chazz]

Thanks as always Dwight. Your info is excruciatingly l timely, I was just working on it. And it is so nice when one actually does know the lalalala parts.

And the shadow-casting part works too? That seems to me like a minor miracle to me. I'll do a test here in a bit.

[Chazz]

Can't get the transparency to work with PNG but it works great with TIFF. On the downside, I can't get the shadow casting to work with TIFF or PNG.

[Dwight]

I guess you need PING, BLINGG or DING formats for that.


Back to the floating icon on the material, then. Not so bad, eh?

[Chazz]

It gets curiouser and curiouser.....

OK, when I export to Atlantis 2.0, the transparency does NOT come through (on TIFF or PNG) but the shadow casting IS present in both file types (for the rectangular shape, not the cutout shape). If anyone anyone had any thoughts about what I'm doing wrong, I'm all ears.

[Dwight]

Just tell artlantis to use the alpha channel, or another background color...

[Chazz]

Dwight wrote:
Just tell artlantis to use the alpha channel, or another background color...

Pretty sure I've tried every permutation and combination in Artlantis. No love. I can get the alpha material to look like translucent smoked glass but nothing totally clear & transparent. This may be something I should take up in the Artlantis forums......

[Thomas Holm]

You may test to place the image itself in Artlantis, as texture on an empty object with invisible material, instead of exporting the Archicad object with attached image.