Re: Newbie Q: creating a billboard rectangle with texture and alpha transparency

Hi Philip. I hope you haven't become completely disenchanted with
Blender. I found that once I had mastered a few basic principles it
was deceptively simple.

I will try to walk you through what you asked:

First, start Blender, and tap the "x" key to delete the default cube.

Now, [space] Add > Mesh > Plane

The corner vertices should appear as yellow dots, meaning they are
selected, so [s] and drag with the mouse will scale your plane as
large (or small) as you want.

To change the sky color;

[tab] to switch from Edit mode to Object mode

then, locate the globe button on your control panel (typically at the
bottom of the screen unless you have changed your setup), and click on
the globe button. Your control panel should show World settings,
typically a dark blue preview panel, with [Real], [Blend] and [Paper]
buttons next to it.

Start by setting the HoR, HoG and HoG sliders to 1.0 for a light
horizon value, then leave ZeR and ZeG at 0.10, but slide ZeB up to 1.0
for a deep blue sky directly overhead.

Now locate the "leopardskin" button, to the left of the "globe" button
and click it.

On the "Texture" panel, click [Add new]

Click on the listbox for Texture type and select "Clouds"

In the listbox that says "TE:Tex.001" you can click to change the
texture name to something meaningful, for clarity and [Enter].

Clicking on the "Globe" button again, you should find that your
"Texture and input" panel tab (righthand side of control panel) now
includes your cloud texture, with whatever name you gave it. Click the
"Map to" tab, and you will see the default color preview for the
texture, a hideous magenta. Use the sliders to change the color to
something more acceptable for clouds, i.e. R 0.890, G 0.885, B 1.000
and click the [Blend] and [ZenDo] buttons, to blend the texture from
the zenith down.

Finally, click the [Blend] and [Real] buttons next to the preview
panel (left of control panel) to preview the result.

Finally, [f12] will show a preview from the default camera angle,
looking down onto your plane, with the sky behind.

--- In [email protected], "staigermanus" <philip@...> wrote:
>
> I can't believe how non-intuitive and difficult Blender is for
> starters. I've spent the better part of an hour trying this, and have
> failed. Bryce took me 5 minutes. Ok, maybe 8.
> 
> Can someone guide me? All I am interested in doin at this time  is
> 
> - place a large or infinite ground polygon, perhaps a terrain, but a
> simple square will do
> 
> - set the sky top half of the background to a blue color, or even a
> gradient that fades to white near the horizon (also known as Los
> Angeles grey, or Phosphor yellow)
> 
> - place a distant light for the Sun up there in the Sky.
> 
> - a great sky with clouds and sunset would do even better. Can the
> distant light be matched with the Sun in the sky so the shadows
> correlate automatically? (like in Carrara)
> 
> - place a rectangle into the scene, standing upright on the floor
> 
> - map a texture on it, from an image file in Targa format, or tiff,
> with 32-bit depth, alpha included for transparency mask
> 
> - render it and see 'through' the mask where it's not opaque.
> 
> - and make sure it's casting a shadow that shows the opaque mask only,
> not the whole billboard rectangle.
> 
> I want to show some results of particle brush based foliage rendered
> in Blender, coming from PD Particles. Perhaps put it into a tutorial -
> http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials - anyone can give me a pointer
> to the above steps?
> 
> 
> Thanks. I know it can be done, I just am flabergasted as to why I
> can't figure it out on my own. I'm not seeing that challenge with
> Cinema4D GO or other apps so far.
>