MAYA alpha issues

[Duncan Fraser]

I stumbled across this while working on the Death knight mini comp. I was not alone in the frustration with Maya's inability to render proper alphas in the view port.

This "MAY" help you too.

1. Create two identical shader nodes in the Hypershade, the only difference being that one has an alpha map and the other does not.

2. Apply the normal shader to anything that does not use an alpha and the Alpha shader to anything that does use alpha's.

3. Within the attribute editor for the alpha map go to the "Colour Balance" tab and change the "Default Colour" to black and turn on "Alpha Is Luminance"

4. Swith the Maya view port to High quality render and enjoy the results.

Here are some pic's that I hope will help visually.

I have found that this works for me and I hope it will help others.

Cheers.

Duncan Fraser.

[Codeman]

Thanks for the tip. I know this will come in handy!

[JacqueChoi]

Yeh, I do the same. But I still get sorting errors when I have something with an alpha on top of something else with an alpha.

Can anyone verify if this is fixed in Maya 2008?

[Duncan Fraser]

Sorry guys I missed a few steps there but it should be fine now. I am not sure why "Alpha Is Luminance" is important but I can't seem to get it to work without it.

Cheers

Duncan

[Duncan Fraser]

Joxx

I use Maya 6.5 at home and Maya 2008 Service Pack 1 x64 at work and I have no issues at all.

[Ritorian]

Yeh, I do the same. But I still get sorting errors when I have something with an alpha on top of something else with an alpha.

Can anyone verify if this is fixed in Maya 2008?

I still get issues with alphas on top of alphas in 2008, i do the same thing as well i make a seperate shader for my alphas, its a quick fix but certainly annoying as hell. Hope they fix this soon

[nazeil]

In your viewport go to Shading>Polygon Transparency Sorting, and make sure there is a check next to it.

This has solved most of my sorting issues.

[Uberific]

I have another question with maya if someone can help? When baking Normals I have instances of the Search envelope on my target mesh not adjusting when i move the slider. Meaning its stuck weather its at 1% or 30% and its hampering my ability to get work done efficiently when pumping out maps because im too busy tryin to figure out why my envelope wont work. Anyone experienced this?

[Duncan Fraser]

Uberific

I have had similar issues with normal maps and I found if you type in a smaller number something like 0.3 or even as small as .03, that often fixed the problem.