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

Hi Myscha, thanks. That's a good start, a really good start. I think I might
incorporate some of these steps into a tutorial, with screenshots and
highlights.

So, in same way, how to select a picture from file to map onto the plane?
It's still showing grey at this point.

I have two pictures actually, for my texture which I want to map planar or
cube to the plane. One picture contains the colors, the other a transparency
mask in form of greyscale image. I'll need to dig around to see where to
access or create a shader for the plane, similar to the sky's I guess?

Can Blender use a single file that has the transparency mask in the alpha
channel, for example from a 32-bit Tiff or Targa image file?

-Philip

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> Message
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> 1. Re: Newbie Q: creating a billboard rectangle with texture and alpha
>    Posted by: "Myscha" [email protected] womankindeternal
>    Date: Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:29 am (PDT)
>
> 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.
>>
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