posted 12-13- 08:58 PM               

If so I must have fluked it bigtime for a canopy I did, I completely ignored the material thing and instead changed the alpha.

Thanks,

posted 12-13- 10:38 PM               

If I want to use a transparency without textures I just use an alpha of 1 to f and a texture index of 0. If you want to use textured transparencies you also have to set the texture flags in the asc file as well as the alpha in the lod.

posted 12-13- 11:58 PM               

I understand that, and thats they way I would have thought it all would have worked.

Are you saying that you set the alpha part from 1 (almost solid) to F (transparent) to get transparency? I had just assumed that the alpha in the LOD polygons was 0 for transparent to F for solid, as it would be for most other systems (I just scale the values and push them at D3D). If this is the case then this would be my problem, which would mean that all of the untextured LODs might have the wrong colour in OPS.

posted 12-14- 05:10 AM               

The alpha being 0 disabling transparency thing through me, and coupled with a few co-incidences I was forced down a wild goose chase from which there was no escape until utter humiliation set in

Turns out I had a slight problem in OPS which caused some things to look "right" and not others.

posted 01-09- 10:10 PM               

Build your canopy however you want (I usually "hijack" one from another plane and modify it).

Now, import the canopy from the P-51 into your workspace in AC3D (be sure not to have anything selected or it will get replaced)
When you do this, it will bring the COLOR of the P-51 canopy into the AC3D pallet. Use the edit feature to view it. You'll see that it's got some color, no texture, and a "transparency" of 0.188 or so.

Now, delete the P-51 canopy; you only wanted the color (unless you just want to modify it to use for your own).

Now, highlight your canopy, and set it to ONE-SIDED surfaces (IMPORTANT!). Use the 3D screen to rotate the canopy around. You need to be able to "see" the canopy ONLY from the outside--any inside surfaces must be invisible. If not you may have to "explode" your canopy and delete all the "inner" surfaces.

Now, you've got a one-sided canopy. Set all surfaces to the Mustang canopy color, and then export your canopy .lod back into your working directory.

In the sim, you should now have a canopy that's invisible from inside the cockpit, and has a very slight blue tint from the outside, showing the "edges" of the glass surface.

You can use two-sided surfaces to get a "tinted" canopy, but it's hard to get the transparency right, and of course it tints the outside world

posted 01-10- 07:06 PM               

Unfortunaitly I don't use AC3D so I can't use any of your excellent advice.