I'm having a strange problem that seems to be an issue of overlapping/intersecting objects, one of which has a transparancy map. It looks as though on some places where there is intersect between the objects, the object without a transparency map becomes transparent. It's hard to tell if the small lines of transparency are exactly where the objects intersect, but that's how it appears. The objects in question where Michael2 and the MilBeard, but I also noticed similar lines of transparency on his head where his transparent eyebrows intersect. I checked the materials and they look fine... I've posted this at the e-on feedback board, but would really like to know what I'm up against. I'm using Vue 4.1, on a P4 machine with 1gb memory. Any suggestions? Thanks, folks. Matthew

Hi Matthew, I don't have Michael 2 and not the beard, and it doesn't happen with other figures since Vue 4.06 for me with Poser pple. I think you have done well to report it to e-on. Maybe somebody here has the same problem??? If an object without transparency map becomes transparent... have a look in the material editor for this material and check if the transparency slider is correctly at 0%. If this doen't solve the problem, could you please post a sample image where these points appear? Let us know:-) Guitta

Thank you for the response. I have re-checked the materials of the problem items and verified they are correct. Here is an ugly close-up showing the problem, I've circled it in blue. Also, I've got a vue scene that reproduces the problem to a smaller degree using non-copywriten objects. Rendered without antialias, I consistently see small dots on the stairs where they intersect with the spheres and become transparent, showing the red plane below or the shaded backside of the stairs. Obviously a few pixels incorrectly rendered are not the end of the world...But the problem seems to get more severe the more complex the intersecting objects are. What results do you get? Thanks again, Matthew vue scene url: http://www.astolat.com/mad_jack/vueprob.zip

Oh, here's a close-up of the viewprob test scene render, showing some of the offending dots..

Matthew, I have downloaded your stairs. Do the following: Open the material editor for "ball", click the transparency tab and make FADE OUT COLOR white, LIGHT COLOR white, FLARE-->INTENSITY 0%, SPAN 0%. Do the same with "sphere". Then render again. :-)Guitta

I'v just tried these changes to the transparent objects' settings. Unfortunately I am still seeing the same results. Were you able to reproduce the glitch? This is actually a show-stopper in the degree it is occurring in my project. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions or ideas. Thanks all, Matthew

With your settings I got the same result as you, but with my settings all the spots (black and red) disappeared, even with preview render. I cannot do it right now, but very late this evening I can upload your modified file, so you can try yourself. :-)Guitta

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/~vue/vueprob2.zip

Sorry, I had no time to do it yesterday, I was working until 2 in the morning:-). I have uploaded the file at the address above.

Guitta

Yeah, that ZBrush release was a doozy. Were you following that all night? I myself was up until around 1:45 PST, but I'd only bought ZBrush the day before so it wasn't so critical for me. Anyway, about this transparency problem. I really do appriciate your attention to this, and I did try loading your scene and rendering. However, I also got the same results with your scene as with my scene. Are you sure you didn't have antialiasing turned on when you rendered it without the artifacts? In this simple scene the problem is displayed so minutely that the AA entirely removes visibilty to it... I'm still hoping for a resolution to this, but it is starting to look less hopefully. The e-on tech support said to just turn on AA to blend away the artifacts, but while that removes visibilty of them in this sample scene it is not enough for the complex scene I first noticed the problem with. In that scene, as shown in the picture I posted earlier, the artifacts are so large that they discolor the area even with AA. Of course I could clean up in post, but that's not really the point. It looks like a straight-up rendering defect to me, applying transparency to non-transparent objects where they intersect transparent ones... What do you guys make of it?
Thanks again,
Matthew

ZBrush ?? you said? I'm not working for Zbrush. I'm a translator and when other people goes for vacation, I have triple work, all urgent. That's what I'm doing all day long and often in the night:-) Guitta

Oh, I didn't mean to imply you were working for ZBrush. I just thought I saw posts from you along with all the other people waiting for the ZBrush release. I'm really sorry to hear about the pressing work-load. ;) What do you translate? Is it rewarding work? Actually, wouldn't like to get this off-topic, but I'd be interested to hear about it, perhaps. Then again, I'm a software developer and by the end of the day I don't care to talk about work at all. Sometimes I don't even want to look at a monitor...

I translate mostly interviews and instructions from English to French and German, and legal texts (like 300 pages-contracts)from French to German, and from German to French. Very international job, impossible without Internet. :-)Guitta