smooth change of the texture?

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/smooth change of the texture?

Lui(Posted 2007) [#1]
hi
i got a problem:
i wanted to create of flying island also with differend textures, like in the terraineditort like FLE or T.ED
it should look like in this picture:


but everything, i was able to make was this(the sharp edges):


Has anybody any idea how to make the texture edges smooth??
is this possible with Blender or Gile(s)???


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2007) [#2]
FLE, TED and so on they are using vertex alpha. Imagine you have 2 layers of the mesh. Let us assume the bottom layer is visible, and the top layer is invisible because all of its vertices alpha parameters are zero.

Now you can make some of the vertices of the top layer visible, this will result in smoothly faded edges.

An other way is to use a texture with alpha. Use Gimp or Photoshop. Save as 32Bit TGA with additional alpha channel, or as 24bit PNG or DDS DXT3/5 with alpha. This texture is then applied to a quad or so that covers the floor.

Example: when you want to add a path to a landscape, use a texture that tiles horizontally and is faded to transparency at the bottom and top edge.

Then load the texture with the flag 2.

That said, using alpha is something tricky. You'll experience all kinds of troubles (z-fighting etc.). I suggest: avoid alpha as much as possible.

A further way for smooth texture transitions would be multitexturing, that fixes the z-sorting issue, but has only limited possibilities.