How to add transparency to cloth? (FAQ)

[Delta-1035]

How is it possible to do that???

Image of a skin by Culvar

Thanks in advance.

[AceMastermind]

I assume you mean the "holes" in the cloth piece?
Add an alpha channel to the cloth texture and paint the parts you want transparent as black (white is visible) in the alpha channel.
Then in the cloth ODF under [Properties] add this line:
Transparent = 1

[Teancum]

Whoa, I didn't know that! Ripped capes here we come!

[Delta-1035]

Ok... I'll try...

[obiboba3po]

Whoa, I didn't know that! Ripped capes here we come!

lol i didnt know it was that easy either thanks!

[Commander_Cody771]

Lol. Finally something Teancum didn't know. Coolies! I'll try it.

[SBF_Dann_Boeing]

Woah i didn't know that either. You could reskin cloaked anakin and make his cloth opaque, to turn it in to a veil or something, that would be cool. You could also make cool cloth styles with jagged or other shaped edges...tho that would look silly.

[Culvar]

You have to change something in the mesh of the soldier too if I recall.(It was in the transparency tut)

[AceMastermind]

You have to change something in the mesh of the soldier too if I recall.(It was in the transparency tut)

Nope, cloth geometry is handled differently by the engine than normal geometry, all you need is a texture with an alpha channel and that 1 line of code added in the cloth odf for it to work.
Another way cloth geometry is handled differently is that it is never backface culled ingame, meaning your cloth geometry doesn't need to have "thickness" which causes nasty clipping, nor does it have to be flagged as double sided in Edit Flags which will likely cause it to split ingame.

[MandeRek]

I always thought that cloth was messy when having a 3d model for it, but Frag discovered it works fine as long as it's not frozen.. This is how they did Ki-Adi's ponytail i guess! And sweet about that transparancy; loads of new capes can be made just be using new, partly transparent textures

[Delta-1035]

I assume you mean the "holes" in the cloth piece?
Add an alpha channel to the cloth texture and paint the parts you want transparent as black(white is visible) in the alpha channel.
Then in the cloth odf under [Properties] add this line:
Transparent = 1

Whic name for the alpha channel???

[Teancum]

Hmm... can you do transparent = 1 for models themselves? That'd be handy.

[AceMastermind]

I always thought that cloth was messy when having a 3d model for it, but Frag discovered it works fine as long as it's not frozen.. This is how they did Ki-Adi's ponytail i guess!...

Well Kiadi's ponytail would hardly look good if it was looking like a flat sheet of paper, plus it's too small and the vertices are spread out just far enough to avoid clipping itself.
By the way, kiadi's ponytail geometry transforms were frozen, U3D shows it's coordinates at 0,0,0

Whic name for the alpha channel???

I'm not sure what you're saying....please explain

Hmm... can you do transparent = 1 for models themselves? That'd be handy.

I don't think so, it may be a special property of ClassLabel = "cloth", but you could always try it and see.

[FragMe!]

Yes I take back my comment about freeze the model and or transforms you can.
I do stick by my saying you can use any primitive for the cloth, case in point is for something I am working on for Dann I used and open bottom
cone and removed the top point and it works just fine as a cloth (now if I could get the collsions right it would be better ).

Just staying on the cloth topic I also found out that when you are UVing the cloth anywhere the polies are not connected to another poly it creates a split in the cloth in game. Once again on the cone cloth, it is mean to be a total wrap around no breaks but if I just UV it so it is flat with the center front of the cloth at either edge of the TGA it splits in game but if I select those edges and do a "heal" so they join the split goes away. That was a fun one to figure out.

anyway that is all for now.

[AceMastermind]

I do stick by my saying you can use any primitive for the cloth, case in point is for something I am working on for Dann I used and open bottom cone and removed the top point and it works just fine as a cloth..

Yep, you can use whatever primitives you want, it's what you do with those primitives that determines the outcome.
In your case you say you used an open bottom cone then removed the top point, this makes it a cloth piece without "thickness" which will work and look fine.

[Delta-1035]

"Add an alpha channel to the cloth texture and paint the parts you want transparent as black(white is visible) in the alpha channel."

How add an alpha channel???

[Frisbeetarian]

Check the FAQ thread:

How to work with alpha channels in GIMP(video tutorial)

[Delta-1035]

Thanks Frisbeetarian

[ForceMaster]

The line:
Transparent = 1

works perfectly for clothes, I tried to put that into the ODF of an object and does not work, color that alpha added to the texture is black as I did in the clothes of the sniper but is white space of the object.
already tried?

[DarthD.U.C.K.]

thats something different
this line works only for cloth
fi you want to know how to make other objects transprent click me!