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[ianross]

Thank you Steve, this is fantastic for cut out animation, it makes alpha mapping easier and pngs produce better quality renders.
I wonder if it is possible to load a sequence of png files on to flat plane and have it play as movie, somebody would have to write a script for this?
This was possible with bmp files, Kreator created a video on this years ago. Kevin please can you post a link to this, it just may inspire somebody.

[ronaldefarmer]

Steve:

 Transparency for lights is a great idea but it's not that easy. I've wanted to support that for a long time. Adding it to the ART ray-tracer is the most straightforward, and then probably the scanline renderer but only for ray-traced shadows. OpenGL is considerably more difficult.

Ray-traced shadows in scanline would be most useful to me; most of my rendering is scanline.

Your example works in the viewer for me, alpha and all, but I can't tell if the alpha falls off smoothly at the edges or abruptly. (And thanks for the compliment :-)

Alpha does not seem to fall off smoothly in the viewer, also back side of the material is not visible but I might have some settings wrong for the material. The compliment is well deserved.

[Steve]

I've fixed the inverted png textures. All png images are read in inverted, including reference images and backgrounds, so all I needed to do was flip 'em after they are read :-)

[johnar]

I wonder if it is possible to load a sequence of png files on to flat plane and have it play as movie,

 That was one of the really cool features in 'Terranim8or'.
 The option for this in anim8or would definately be a cool addition, but in the meantime, terranim8or still does an excellent job of doing exactly that. Then saves to .an8, making an an8 file with ímaged planes loaded in order in scene mode and  ready to go. Was/is handy for a lot of things. Ie: using as guide for scene animation, and making 'moving backgrounds'

Edit: Not sure about .png files in terranim8or. Must check that out

[kreator]

Johnar: I think that was what IanRoz was referring to.

I don`t think that Leslie enabled .png files to be loaded, have checked only jpg, bmp or gif supported.

With Leslies site now gone, I don`t imagine it will be upgraded either

[johnar]

Cheers kreator. Wow, thats interesting. GIF support. Hmmm.

With Leslies site now gone, I don`t imagine it will be upgraded either

Had better locate and put my copies of Terranim8or into a safe place.
 

[Steve]

raxx: Build 1121 fixes inverted .png files.

CrashDrive:

Also using two images (diffuse and transparency) on an object disappears in the viewport.

I've fixed a bug where materials with multiple textures were badly broken in build 1112. Check and see if built 1121 fixes your problem.

johnar: You can now output .png files when rendering a movie (but there is still an issue where you can check both RGB and RGBA simultaneously :-( )

[cooldude234]

So are we going to be able to use the alpha channel in our png files?

[Steve]

cooldude234: Absolutely. Here's a sample using a single RGBA texture .png file that was created by an Anim8or render. The texture has a b&w image with transparency, and the material color is magenta. The three materials have their diffuse texture's Alpha Modes set to: None, Layer and Final:

[Steve]

Fantastic! It was just a little copy-and-paste error that pasted the wrong OpenGL function. Darn you, copy-and-paste! :-)

[neirao]

Great Steve!!
yes, need only work in raytracer mode.
Anim8or always in big progress!!!

[Steve]

OK in the just posted build 1122 all blend modes and alpha modes should work correctly in ART raytracing, GLSL shaders and scanline rendering. ARB shaders and OpenGL Materials mode havr a few color issues which aren't easily fixable, but the transparency is correct (and the match each other :-) ).

Here's a sample project and the outputs:

[Steve]

Raxx: You can do this by setting the diffuse texture's alpha mode to "Final".

When loaded as a texture, could there maybe be a check box in the Texture Mode Selector dialog to apply the PNG alpha to that channel?

[Raxx]

Yarr, I noticed this later, thanks for clarifying. It's not very obvious, unfortunately.

In the new 1122 build, running your (Steve's) TargetBlendModes .an8 file, it seems to take a good 30 seconds or more between each texture not found notification. It took about 5 minutes before I could actually use the program. Is there a rogue loop going on in the code when searching for textures?

[Steve]

That's annoying. I'm assuming that it was essentially immediate on your computer for previous builds :-)  I'll look into it.