3D .OBJ Material Opacity/Translucency?

[htKnowles]

Hello!

I've been having a lot of success using Anime Studio Pro on a project I've been working on, but I've been having one small problem that I can't seem to figure out.

I've been wanting to make a 3D "stage", so to speak. Essentially, a 3D box in which I use 2D layers. The purpose of the box is to allow various, easy camera resets to get different angles.

I've been able to import 3D objects from Wings3D, but, while the face color of the material is present in the imported obj, the 50% opacity of the material is not present, and I'm hoping to get a glass effect.

I've been able to work around this problem by exporting the .obj files from Wings3D in several different selections, specifically the "glass" piece of the object seperately, and the rest of the object after. I can set the opacity of the "glass" layer using Anime Studio's opacity setting inside the layer options for that particular 3D object, giving me a fair glass effect.

However, as my 3D OBJ gets larger, and as I intend to start using multiple instances of the objects, I'd prefer to have the materials be accurate without the workaround. There appears to be some 3D edge/vector issue as well, when abutting the glass layer into where it should set, causing some slight artifacts along the seam. This may be because I need to tweak the .obj, though, as my edge loops aren't necessarily clean and there is some indication of weird math taking place during the smooth processes, mostly because of some strange spots which don't smooth well.

Is it possible for imported .obj objects to have transparency? I've also had trouble getting my textures to import when I was testing out different UV mappings. The color of the material imports, but not the image-based texture.

I'll continue with the workaround if it isn't possible to have translucent/transparent 3D .OBJ materials, but I'd prefer to learn what I am doing wrong if in fact it's my inexperience to blame.

H.K.

[Distinct Sun]

Double click the OBJ layer and change the opacity. You may need to select "allow animated layer effects, but I may be wrong. that might be for only if you plan on animating the opacity from say 50% to 100% over time.

check out the 3d options tab on layer settings as well. The edge extension and hatched shading can be kinda cool in some situations.

oh.. and when you have the obj Layer selected you can change the stroke color on the styles palette which in then change it for the object.

hope that helps some.

[htKnowles]

Thanks for the response. That is pretty much what I've been doing. I've been importing my object in two selections. The first is comprised of the the parts I want translucent, and the second part is the rest of the object which isn't translucent. I then apply the layer opacity to the desired level on the "glass" part.

This works really well and I've rendered some pretty cool effects using it but, in terms of workflow, I'm concerned that as I elaborate the scenes, and things get more complex, it is going to become unwieldy. It would be a far, far better thing to be able to simply import my entire object in one part, with A.S.P. recognizing which parts, based on the material assigned to it, are transparent.

My biggest question is if Anime Studio -can- display the wavefront .obj material effects, such as opacity and emission. Right now I can't find info on whether or not the render engine in the program can handle these effects. If they cannot, it's cool because I can continue to workaround and I'll know to stop trying. If it can be done, then I'll keep working on it until I figure it out.

I'd really like the emission material quality to work as well. I'd love to be able to have strips of light-emitting materials.

EDIT: I did just find an explanation describing that some 3D effects wont work, such as lighting effects. I'm going to assume that object opacity is also included. Maybe I can use a texture map instead.

[Distinct Sun]

with some experimentation... it looks like if you use the line
Map_D "bw.png" in your mtl file.
with the "BW.png" being a texture map with black representing the transparent area and white representing the non-transparent area, you can get a hole in a 3d object. keep the map_kd around for your color texture.
the "map_d" is the opacity map.
the "bw.png" is the source for it. you can name it as you like, and I don't think it has to be a png, but maybe.

in the 3d option tab you can turn off "hide back facing Polygons" if you desire to show them.

hope that helps.