alpha issue #2

[fLUnKnhaXYU]

as this is my second post concerning an alpha issue (I guess) , causing a slightly distractive , not exactly pretty result . I dont understand it , The issue is related to the use of a volumetric fog . Ive tried different settings and images and as with the last issue , which was about seeing through the water color through the transparent areas of the foam images , I cant resolve it . Any ideas or comments ? thanks

the scene without the volumetric fog .

the scene with the volumetric fog . I used the volumetric fog because of the nice resulting fog height compared to the atmosheric height setting .

a closer look at the fire/smoke particles against the volumetric fog

a closer look at the larger smoke particle against the volumetric fog

[Duion]

What exactly is your issue here now? I cannot see anything obviously ugly. Having multiple effects with some kind of alpha transparency tends to be a problem depending on the algorithm used.

Ist it with volumetric fog only, or also with regular fog? I tend to use just a regular fog with a very slight setting, it makes the scene look a bit more realistic when you have a bit of fog in the background, but when the fog is close it can get a bit ugly, because it will intersect with other items.

I would just try to make the fog less dense so the issue is not that bad or whatever the issue is.

[fLUnKnhaXYU]

Duion , I wish I could really explain better . In the picture see the line where the trees meet the sky and see that the fire images disappear . That seems to be the symptom . So , I have no diagnosis which would help anyone knowledgeable in graphics . Also , the normal levelInfo fog does not have this problem but the straight line atmospheric height doesnt look good to me . In my case its only with the volumetric fog and scatter sky . I did use a basic clouds object and haven't yet checked with it removed or with a skybox . Ive tried jpg png tga bmp dds , black and white backgrounds , all of the blend modes available in the particle editor . I guess to summarize Id say that without the volumetric fog its great but thats an impossible trade-off considering the atmosphericHeight straight line . And another thing , I kinda meticulously adjusted the density and texture mod to suit me and these settings gave no different results concerning the Issue thank you .

[Duion]

So the issue is just with volumetric fog? I have not used that yet. Regarding the regular fog atmosphericHeight stuff, yes indeed that is ugly, but to counter that I just make the atmosphereicHeight very high and the fog relatively low, so that the line where the fog ends blends nicely, i usually have it end where the highest point in my level is, you can also just make it 0, so it will be disabed I think.

Another suggestion, I encountered a similar problem when having dark maps and in the particles there is a value called ambientFactor = "0.5"; for example, this makes it so the particle gets dark when the light is also dark by like 50%, ambient factor 0 will keep it bright like your fire and ambient factor 1 will make the fire as dark as the rest is. Check it out in Uebergame, every particle has its own value, particles that emit light have low ambient factor and others a high one.

But no idea how it behaves with volumetric fog. The volumetric fog was later added and was not part of the regular engine, so things may not be as balanced out. What version are you using? 3.10 or 4? If you are using the old version of Torque you can assume with the new update they will screw the visuals over again anyway, so prepare to adjust everything again or encounter new errors.

[fLUnKnhaXYU]

The ambient factor , though pretty nifty , did not cure the problem . I also tried scattrersky with no cloud layer and a skyBox with no cloud layer . Im sorta out of ideas . It happens . Thank you for your time and help Duion . Im left with some strange conclusion that the images will only render against some solid object within the volumetric fog ,

[Duion]

You can try look through the code of the volumetric fog and compare it to the other fog and see what is different or ask an expert on programming, he may quickly find the difference.

[fLUnKnhaXYU]

That level of programming s a bit out of my range Duion . Maybe im wanting too much . Seems Im taking something quite nice but, mis-using it a bit , maybe , anyway , thank you .