Transparent Sprite/Clear Glass

digitalgigalow's picture

hello again. this basically 3 questions.

  1. Can a Sprite be made transparent?
  2. How can i make a sprite look like glass, or shinny?
  3. Can both these be used together?

example: Tron: Legacy, light bike scenes. want the glassy/transparent look of that.

thanks for your help.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: Transparent Sprite/Clear Glass

Would you mind sending me your email? gtoledo3@gmail.com

cybero's picture
Re: Transparent Sprite/Clear Glass

Maybe have a look at this previously posted example Iterator Transparency - a Developers example. [thanks to Lee for that upload].

Glass or shiny - sounds like GLSL.

I have found that you can get some great glassy, transparent and shiny effects with Mesh Renderers.

Hope that helps or points you in a useful direction.

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Semi-Transparent-Mesh.qtz19.55 KB

gtoledo3's picture
Re: Transparent Sprite/Clear Glass

Here are some thoughts, in addition to Cybero's very helpful points:

-Christopher Wright has posted an extremely useful GLSL refraction shader example that can work "as is" in Leopard. At the end of the thread, I posted a substitute that works around one of the patches not working the same in Snow Leopard. This can be a nice technique for getting a glassy look.

-toneburst's Machines Don't Care ( http://machinesdontcare.wordpress.com/ ) has many excellent compositions, but I want to point out one titled GLSL Lighting Models. In that composition, you will find GLSL shaders that are going to be useful for you; look for Thin Film, Glossy Wet, and give a flip through the others as well).

-You should be able to place whatever models you're using inside of these shaders, or use the stock lighting patch with a model that is already smooth and popping to get some decent kind of "shiny" textures.

-In addition, much of that look comes from glowing light auras, so you may want to consider compositing layers of glow, bloom, blur, etc., on top of your main image.

digitalgigalow's picture
Re: Transparent Sprite/Clear Glass

sent you an email the other day, with no reply.