I have some models that I need to display with transparent parts. These models originate in OBJ format . I convert them to DirectX or VRML files and then use x2egg or vrml2egg to convert them to EGG format … all of which are directly editable text files.
My question is this; How would I go about converting the materials for the groups of facets in the files to transparent? What would I need to do to the files to achieve this? What issues would I need to address in code (setTransparency(1)??) ?
I think all you need to do is use textures with appropriate alpha values (non-white for some transparency), in addition to using setTransparency. How you do this would depend on the modeling package, but you could also do texture replacement at runtime.
Check these two pages in the manual, and try out some different textures edited with Photoshop or Gimp to have varying alpha channels.
Also, I am looking at how to do transparency without applying a texture for things like cockpit and windshield glass.
[edit]I figured out how to do it without a transparency, I change the materials opacity in DeepExploration and save to an X file then convert to EGG and use setTransparency(1). Note to self; Whenever you save a model as OBJ from DE it strips all opacity information since OBJ apparently doesn’t support it.[/edit]