Just need some help with strange shader behaivior

Post by **Magnus** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:49 pm

I made one of my bots skin totally alpha. I then applied my modified hologirl shader to her so there are several waves of energy flowing down her body at a time instead of just one at a time. That way she is transparent(fitting the name spirit), but she is still visible due to the several waves of energy flowing down her body at all times.

She looks great in the model selection screen, but in maps she seems to flicker and flash in and out of visibility. I can still see her head because instead of being transparent because of the alpha skin her head is appearing black, but the hologirl effect seems to not want to properly render or render at all some of the time.

I went back and gave her whole body a black skin and there was no problem. The hologirl effect rendered just fine and there was no flickering but it just kinda looked lame that way. It seems that something about skinning a bot totally as alpha causes some kind of bug. Still yet I would if it is possible to get this to work realy like to keep the transparent skin with the hologirl shader.

Is it possible that for some reason the walls and flor of the map are being given render or display priority over her hologirl effect because most of the rest of her body is transparent?

Anyway if anyone has any idea of what is going wrong and how to fix it please let me know.

Thanks.

Post by **Kat** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 12:24 am

Have you given this to any of your mates to try on their machines? Without looking at the shader one can easily assum it might be a graphic card/driver problem.

I'd recommend posting the shader here for perrusal

Post by **obsidian** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:49 am

Also, can you post a few screenshots of the problematic model in question?

It sounds like a depth sorting issue, but can't be sure unless I can see it.

Post by **Magnus** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:49 am

Ok, obsidian, how about I send you the bots themselves?

I am currently building my FTP/website so I cant really post pics and files yet.

And after all I gave you credit in my readme for helping me with the other two bots and pointing me to your shader tut.

Corncobman here at Q3W and misantropia over at PQ also got credit in my readme for the great deal of help they provided as well.

So I am sending the finished beta bots to you and them before I release them to the public.

I would welcome the feedback prior to releaseing the final versions anyway.

That is if you want the credit and the bots.

Anyway get back to me with where to send them to you if you would like.

Thanks!

Post by **obsidian** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:04 pm

I can take a look at them if I can find the time in the next few days. I'm a bit busy at the moment but I'll see what I can do. Email the PK3 to me if the file is just a few megabytes (see email button in my profile). Otherwise, upload them somewhere and I'll download them.

Post by **obsidian** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:22 am

BTW, got your files but haven't looked through them yet. Will be doing so on Sunday or Monday.

Post by **obsidian** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:57 am

FIX LIST

Do not include game assets (eg. textures) that appear in vanilla Q3 in your PK3. They inflate the file size. Modified textures should be renamed/relocated accordingly.

Change .zip file extensions to .pk3

"models/players/savagephantom/red_h" shader appears in both "spirit.shader" as well as "savagephantom.shader" - possible conflict and redundancy.

Invert your alpha channels in your skins (for example, "models\players\spirit\default.tga"). Alpha channels, white = opaque, black = transparent. You have them the other way around. Same thing with those eyes. You did this on numerous textures which is why the heads are appearing as white rather than transparent. The bodies are fine, because the alpha channels are correct in those files. Check all your texture files, it should fix most of the problems you've been having.

Spirit bots:

In the model select screen she looks great as far as her body being transparent and the hologirl effect flowing down her body, but when I get her in a map she seems to flicker as though her hologirl effect is turning on and off.

I have a hunch that this is caused by the use of tcGen environment in that shader. Try commenting that line out, you shouldn't need it for the kind of effect that you're going for on that model. I haven't exactly tested this, but I assume that that's the problem when reading through the shader.

The reason why it looks fine in the model selection screen is because you're looking at the model from a fixed angle. In game, you are looking at her when you/she is moving about.

Savage Phantom:

I wanted a tinfx shader on him to make his skin look shinny, but it just wouldn't work all the time. When it did work it covered up a Q3 A icon I put on his chest. I never figure out how to get that icon to show through the tinfx shader and I couldn't keep it working all the time so I just removed the shader.

Probably has to do with the order of your texture stages... Try having the tinfx shader in the first stage with tcGen environment followed by an alpha channeled Q3A icon on the second stage and blendFunc blend.

My 2 cents:
Some of the bots are hard to see. For example, you have a nearly pure black model, I would probably add glowing/shiny elements to make him a little more visible.

Post here if you have any more problems.