texturing question

[swiss_cheese9797]

I am 90% done with a maple tree model I am making from scratch. I decompiled the model and textures for the trees in hl2 to review the methods they used to make them. I have made my own methods based on their methods but I have run into one snag. The textures that have alpha channels for the smaller branches on the hl2 trees are not anti aliased, which I am assuming, helps the fps rate (can someone tell me if it matters if I make my branch transparency textures aliased or anti-aliased?). I have used a 3d particle system in max to create clumps of leaves for my branch textures and I have one question, how do I make my textures aliased in photoshop? some of the edge pixels are semi-transparent. And I know how to make the leaves renders in max aliased but it would change the shadow effects I have made in a very serious and bad way. I'm hoping theres an adjustment I can make in one of the menus to lower the ammount of semi-transparent pixels or just switch semi-transparent pixels off alltogether. Clue me in? Thanx very much.

 

[mindless_moder]

i really dont get the question i think i can get a better idea of what your talking about if you post the alpha . if the edges of your leaves are blurry then youll just have to remake the alpha without the feathered blurry selections.

 

[Ti133700N]

Don't start to add too much effects in Max. The antialiasing is done with the Source engine if we are talking about the same thing. Just keep in mind that the renders in Max have nothing to do with the result in game. The nearest result you can get from what it will look like in game is probably the ActiveView. And for the leaves textures then you just have to use different tones of grey in the alpha channel to get different opacity values. Screenshots would help alot...

 

[swiss_cheese9797]

ok let me rephrase. I have a texture with a transpacency. and I dont me an alpha channel, I mean its a tga where the outlining areas are just transparent. the edges are anti aliased, but i dont want them to be. if I just made the alpha from this, it would still have anti aliased edges in the alpha channel, which I dont want.

my texture:

note the anti aliasing.

my alpha:

by making an alpha from the texture, the pixels are still semi transparent

valve's branch texture:

valve's texture is properly aliased. no semi transparent pixels at all.

How do I take semi-transparent pixels and make em solid?

It wouldnt matter if my texture edges were aliased or not if I could just find out if aliased edges save rendering time ingame. If they dont then I will just leave my texture as it is. and I'm not worrying about the alpha channel just yet. the alpha channel will be finalized once i get my alias problem solved

 

[Ti133700N]

Absolutly no difference in performance, plus it looks alot better when antialiased.

 

[swiss_cheese9797]

if there's no difference, then I shall leave it anti aliased. Thank you VERY MUCH for that crucial info. I shall continue modelling now.