Trans not workin on new textures.

[zygot3]

i have been making quite a few stained glass textures using this shader.

textures/gormenghast/sg_border2-red
{
qer_editorimage textures/gormenghast/sg_border2-red.tga
//q3map_surfacelight 20
surfaceparm nomarks
surfaceparm lightfilter
surfaceparm alphashadow
surfaceparm trans
{
map textures/gormenghast/sg_border2-red.tga
blendFunc GL_SRC_ALPHA GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA
rgbGen identity
}
}

Now for the past 2 times i’ve created textures for stained glass they arent transparent. The textures cast the colored shadows thru them. but you cant see thru the textures. i have my alpha channel in the tga but it doesnt seem to be working. ive check the new texs vs the old texs and they seem identical. I dont understand. Could it possibly be a setting in photoshop that changed? i cant seem to think of anything else. because i’m using the same shader for all of them. And btw there is a white box around the new texs in gtk. I’ve also taken the alpha layer from a “good” tex and deleted the old alpha layer and created a new one with the copy. its still a no go. Its driving me crazy. does anyone have any ideas?

[Grand_Nagus]

I had something like this happen because I accidently saved my texture as a compressed tga… At the time, I didn’t even KNOW you could compress a tga! But when I saved the texture again as an uncompressed tga, it worked fine. You can tell if it’s a compressed tga if the file size for that texture looks odd-ball; for instance, if the texture is physically as big as your other textures (ex: 256x256) but the file size is different.

But if all else fails, you ought to test things by using a texture that you KNOW works and renaming it to ‘sg_border2-red.tga’ just so you can test your shader.

[zygot3]

Well now if that dont just take the cake. heh. i did the renaming thing you suggested. and it didnt work. now i’m more completely stumped. i’ve checked the shader that i use for the one that works against the other and all thats different is the path meaning the file name as they are sitting in the same folder. anyway the new one does have color shadows like i said. so why wouldnt it be transparent?? only part of the shader works for the texture but the whole shader works for all 8 other texs that i’ve made?

[nUllSkillZ]

I have heard that one version of Adobe’s Photoshop doesn’t save TGA files with alpha channel correct.
So may be this is your problem.

[zygot3]

Now i think that my pcs possessed. I did what GN said and it didnt work. then i copied over a texture that was working with one that isnt workin. loaded up gtk and checked to make sure it switched the tex and it did. then ran the compile. when i go into the level it shows the old texture in its place. and i’m sure that the map is the correct one.

[Grand_Nagus]

So it doesnt’ work with a known good texture, huh? Pretty weird, it must be the shader. And it would be really weird if you’re using a duplicate shader from what you’re using elsewhere! But just for a giggle, try changing your line:

rgbGen identity

to this:

rgbGen vertex

and see what happens. I can’t remember which rgbGen you need, but I think it has something to do with that.

…

EDIT: You’ll need to recompile your map when you make these changes! The light shining through the window is compiled into the map, so changing the texture and doing this shader edit won’t change the light that’s currently compiled into your map.

[zygot3]

yeah i know. but i just found out the weirdest thing. After i compile in gtk. i usually use q3map2toolz to compile using vis -fast and light -fast. now i’ve used both q3map2toolz and the compiler in gtk and guess what? its not compiling the map at all. my paths are correct so now i’m completely mystified. i’m using q3map_2.5.15_win32_x86 for both tho. do you think it has something to do with that? cause i really think i’m going crazy! but when i save the map with another file name it is apparently workin. or it is compiling the map but with the old texture. i’ve loaded the tex in photoshop its the new one and in gtk its also the new one. in fact i took the old tex completely out of the dir. and i map a completely new map!!! and its still the old one!!! wtf!!!

[WolfWings]

Latent copy of the compiled map or a shader file laying somewhere you didn’t think it was.

Use the Find File function in your computer (F3 from Windows Explorer) to find all copies of your map’s .bsp file and all .shader files that contain the problematic shader, you probably have a secondary copy that’s loading somewhere you didn’t know about.

[Grand_Nagus]

WolfWings is right, you might have that same shader script in another .shader file. I was working on a map and had that same problem, and later found out that I had a shader script called ‘textures/funky/t_ball03’ in both the shader files ‘funky.shader’ and ‘test01.shader’… Took me forever to find that problem!

If you didn’t find any problems there, have you created a .pk3 file for the map that you’re working on? If so, does it have a shader file in it? If it does, and if it contains the same shader script as the one you’re posting, then your map may be using that shader when the map’s run in the game. All you’d have to do there is make sure what’s in your .pk3 file is the same shader file that’s in your ‘basexx/scripts’ folder.

[zygot3]

DOH! thats what it was. thanks GN. i guess my sysetm wasnt possessed. User error. heh. i did make a pk3 file with the shaders and texs in it. i’ve just retried without the pk3 and it’s all good. all of it the new tex and the old and swapping them. all works now. but i still dont get why it would have colored shadows if the shader in the pk3 didnt have the new tex? anyway it doesnt matter. thanks fellas.

[WolfWings]

It had coloured shadows because q3map2 was loading the correct .shader file (the unpacked one) but the game itself was loading files from .pk3’s which were over-riding the seperate .shader files.

[ydnar]

Don’t change rgbGen identity to rgbGen vertex.

Also, note that even if you do, it doesn’t require a recompile.

y