REQ: Information on translucency

[Watcher187]

Ok, I am looking for a simple TEXT answer for this. I do not intend to watch anymore video "tutorials" and try to decipher what the lisping broken english bridge troll whispers under a torrent of what he considers "music". I just want, if someone out there knows, a simplish answer to a basic question. I have read everything I can find and nothing seems to answer this. Here's what I want:

 

I want to make the cloth on a shirt translucent. I want to see the skin underneath.

I do not want to know how to "make" a shirt. I already do that.

I do not want to make it transparent. That is not at all the same.

I am already aware that if the shirt does not have the correct mesh there will be no skin underneath.

I just want to see through certain clothes etc without making them 100% invisible.

I have every tool available and if I don't and you reference it I will damn well get it.

The old easy way of simple alpha channeling the dds is not doing the job.

 

I'm sorry if this post is curt but I'm at my wits end with a community subterfuging knowledge with horrible media.

Thanks in advance for those that help.

[alucrad90]

1, "repair" the nude body with bodyslide

 

2, If the shirt do have a bsgm file, use Material Editor to edit its alpha

 

3, If not, edit the alpha value in nifskope

[Guest victorddp]

I guess you tried to make an alpha channel in your texture with gray tones, right? English isn't my first language and I don't know if I'm understanding well.

 

 

 

 

[Watcher187]

no simple black and white but with the material files I'm unsure of the settings as well

seems ones using the bgsm I get all or nothing when I'm looking for like 50%

no simple black and white but with the material files I'm unsure of the settings as well

seems ones using the bgsm I get all or nothing when I'm looking for like 50%

[Guest victorddp]

Ok, open the diffuse texture in PS or Gimp,in alpha layer, black represent 100% of transparency, you must use a shade of gray in those places you want to leave translucent.

 

In NifSkope, open your nif file, go to BSLightingShaderProperty (if you don't know how to add this property, follow this text-tutorial) and look for "Alpha" in Block Details, a value of  0.0 make it 100% transparent, a value of 1.0 make it 100% opaque, start with a value of 0.5 and adapt it to your satisfaction.

 

 

If you want 50% translucid:

 

- 9e9e9e (Grey, 50% black) in PhotoShop.

- 0.5 in Alpha field in BSLightingShaderProperty.

 

Edit: In that tutorial they explain how to create transparency in a BGSM file:

 

In Material Editor open your BGSM file and in the General Tab you need to change Alpha Test Reference to 127 and make sure below that Alpha Test is checked off.

[prinyo]

Ok, open the diffuse texture in PS or Gimp,in alpha layer, black represent 100% of transparency, you must use a shade of gray in those places you want to leave translucent.

 

In NifSkope, open your nif file, go to BSLightingShaderProperty (if you don't know how to add this property, follow this text-tutorial) and look for "Alpha" in Block Details, a value of  0.0 make it 100% transparent, a value of 1.0 make it 100% opaque, start with a value of 0.5 and adapt it to your pleasure.

 

 

If you want 50% translucid:

 

- 9e9e9e (Grey, 50% black) in PhotoShop.

- 0.5 in Alpha filed in BSLightingShaderProperty.

 

Are you sure the bgsm settings for transparency will not overwite the BSLightingShaderProperty of the mesh?

According to my tests this is what happens. If the texture is added directly to the mesh then this works, but I was unable to achieve semi-transparent result when using bgsm.

[Guest victorddp]

 

Ok, open the diffuse texture in PS or Gimp,in alpha layer, black represent 100% of transparency, you must use a shade of gray in those places you want to leave translucent.

 

In NifSkope, open your nif file, go to BSLightingShaderProperty (if you don't know how to add this property, follow this text-tutorial) and look for "Alpha" in Block Details, a value of  0.0 make it 100% transparent, a value of 1.0 make it 100% opaque, start with a value of 0.5 and adapt it to your pleasure.

 

 

If you want 50% translucid:

 

- 9e9e9e (Grey, 50% black) in PhotoShop.

- 0.5 in Alpha filed in BSLightingShaderProperty.

 

Are you sure the bgsm settings for transparency will not overwite the BSLightingShaderProperty of the mesh?

According to my tests this is what happens. If the texture is added directly to the mesh then this works, but I was unable to achieve semi-transparent result when using bgsm.

 

 

I have no idea, really, it's what I know, I have not tried it firsthand.

[Watcher187]

ok after messing with it a bunch more using the very helpful guidelines above I have come to this conclusion:

Transparency in the alpha channel is an on or off area based on the alpha channel and where you paint black/white

Translucency (as far as I've found) is ONLY affected by the bgsm settings these allowed a see through top that retained all of its other properties.

I will try to post caps of the settings if needed/wanted I'm going to do some more testing

[alucrad90]

 

 

Ok, open the diffuse texture in PS or Gimp,in alpha layer, black represent 100% of transparency, you must use a shade of gray in those places you want to leave translucent.

 

In NifSkope, open your nif file, go to BSLightingShaderProperty (if you don't know how to add this property, follow this text-tutorial) and look for "Alpha" in Block Details, a value of  0.0 make it 100% transparent, a value of 1.0 make it 100% opaque, start with a value of 0.5 and adapt it to your pleasure.

 

 

If you want 50% translucid:

 

- 9e9e9e (Grey, 50% black) in PhotoShop.

- 0.5 in Alpha filed in BSLightingShaderProperty.

 

Are you sure the bgsm settings for transparency will not overwite the BSLightingShaderProperty of the mesh?

According to my tests this is what happens. If the texture is added directly to the mesh then this works, but I was unable to achieve semi-transparent result when using bgsm.

 

 

I have no idea, really, it's what I know, I have not tried it firsthand.

 

 

bgsm will overwrite the settings in nif, I've tested

[prinyo]

ok after messing with it a bunch more using the very helpful guidelines above I have come to this conclusion:

Transparency in the alpha channel is an on or off area based on the alpha channel and where you paint black/white

Translucency (as far as I've found) is ONLY affected by the bgsm settings these allowed a see through top that retained all of its other properties.

I will try to post caps of the settings if needed/wanted I'm going to do some more testing

 

You made the bgsm to allow translucency? What is the setting?

[SlapMeSilly]

The alpha setting in a bgsm is as stated a transparent (100% invisible) on/off flag based on a threshold specifying how much leniency of black to mask on.

 

To do a translucent you need to dump the BSLightingShader node and make a BSEffectShader node and apply a bgem file (not bgsm). I can't really go more in depth on that since I've never got it to work quite the way I'd hoped. If you wanted to do something a kin to see thru glass that should work. If you wanted something that had a translucent texture other than a solid color it'll take some playing around and frankly I don't know how to make it work right.

 

An untested and unsupported alternative (that used to work) is to set up the nif like you would have in skyrim and on the BSLightingShader node where you put the filename to the bgsm try using "-1" without quotes. I've heard some people say that that tells the game to use the nif settings instead of a material file. There are many, many reasons to use a material file instead but if it's for your personal use do what you want. Using this method you can use nifskope to play with the alpha settings and get it how you want it pretty quickly.

[prinyo]

What I'm trying to do is make the Institute uniforms see-thru (advanced technology in play after all :-))

This means one mesh with multiple textures applied via different bgsm files that the game will swap.

It seems to me the solution is tied to the alpha settings of the bgsm files.

 

[Watcher187]

OK 1: be warned that for some reason a LOT of clothing does not use the full bodies' skin in the mesh which will lead to giant holes under clothes

2 so far just changing ALPHA in the bgsm does do translucency

3 I still have to me around to find out how to make the effects (reflectivness water etc) fade a bit or most outfits start looking like translucent vynal or plastic

 

if\ when I'm better with nifskope I'll be able to replace the "skin" under clothes to the full (modded cbbe in my case) without thwe clipping I assume will happen with just a cut and paste

[prinyo]

The lack of body in the outfit is not a problem. 

If I understand correctly what you say I'm probably not preparing the textures correctly.

[Watcher187]

As far as I've seen translucency though the bgsm does not require an alpha channel or adjustments to the dds texture

[prinyo]

What do you mean by "2 so far just changing ALPHA in the bgsm does do translucency". What exactly do you change? 

[Watcher187]

What do you mean by "2 so far just changing ALPHA in the bgsm does do translucency". What exactly do you change? 

not sure if yiu can see it but I set ALPHA to 0.5000 here

 

 

 

 

 

 

*****also note this is not my file it's from another's that I'm remodding for myself

[prinyo]

This method makes everything in the texture appear translucent. Seems you can't have parts of it been completely opaque and other parts see-thru. 

[Chbaakal]

This method makes everything in the texture appear translucent. Seems you can't have parts of it been completely opaque and other parts see-thru. 

 

Actually, you can. Use the Material file for the full transluscent effect, then use NifSkope's Alpha Property and the texture's Alpha channel to make whatever part see-through.

 

[prinyo]

I did not understand that. 

Setting the alpha to lower than 1 in the bgsm makes everything see-through. 

And the bgsm will overwrite any relevant settings in the nif.

 

[Chbaakal]

I did not understand that. 

Setting the alpha to lower than 1 in the bgsm makes everything see-through. 

And the bgsm will overwrite any relevant settings in the nif.

 

Ummm...isn't the BSLightingShaderProperty, where your BGSM is set, different from the NiAlphaProperty, which is using the DDS Texture files? I did it for the Minoko armor set in Bazoonga's workshop (see below).

I set the Alpha in the BGSM to 0.8, Test Ref to 127, and checked Alpha Test for the Transluscent effect, then added a NiAlphaProperty to the mesh, with the Flags set at 4333 and the threshhold at 127. It seemed to work, for the most part....

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: Ah, I see what I did, now that I previewed what I typed. The Material file Alpha is set at 0.8, so the entire mesh is at 80% Opacity. But the DDS Alpha Channel itself will affect the Opacity even further, with the threshold set at 127. Guess I didn't need the NiAlphaProperty after all. Sorry, I'm a dumbass....

 

[prinyo]

Here is an example.

This is made by setting the Alpha in the bgsm to 50.

As you can see in the second screenshot the shoes are also semi-transparent. There is no way to keep them or other parts of the textures completely opaque. And as you can see in the both screenshots the texture is shown in a strange way, not sure how to describe it, like of web of dots. 

 

 

[Chbaakal]

Here is an example.

This is made by setting the Alpha in the bgsm to 50.

As you can see in the second screenshot the shoes are also semi-transparent. There is no way to keep them or other parts of the textures completely opaque. And as you can see in the both screenshots the texture is shown in a strange way, not sure how to describe it, like of web of dots. 

 

transp1.jpg

 

transp2.jpg

 

Could you leave the BGSM with Alpha at 100% Opacity, and use the DDS Alpha Channel itself to dictate Transparencies? Seems like Material files are not really required, especially when DDS files can already do all the things Material files can, like Transparencies, Chrome, Metal, Mesh Effects, etc....Material files are good for General, blanket effects, but you'd still have to have separated parts in a mesh? That seems....well, useless....

 

 

[alucrad90]

 

Here is an example.

This is made by setting the Alpha in the bgsm to 50.

As you can see in the second screenshot the shoes are also semi-transparent. There is no way to keep them or other parts of the textures completely opaque. And as you can see in the both screenshots the texture is shown in a strange way, not sure how to describe it, like of web of dots. 

 

transp1.jpg

 

transp2.jpg

 

Could you leave the BGSM with Alpha at 100% Opacity, and use the DDS Alpha Channel itself to dictate Transparencies? Seems like Material files are not really required, especially when DDS files can already do all the things Material files can, like Transparencies, Chrome, Metal, Mesh Effects, etc....Material files are good for General, blanket effects, but you'd still have to have separated parts in a mesh? That seems....well, useless....

 

 

You will need a "NiAlphaPropety" node like what's needed in skyrim

[prinyo]

To recap: Seems nobody yet knows how to make parts of a texture show as semi-transparent while keeping other parts fully opaque using a bgsm file. 

None of the solutions so far achieve that (or I'm doing something wrong when testing them).