In earlier versions glass shader (windows in interior) was automatically empty/alpha channel if rendered as psd. Now in 7 it’s white/not transparent. Is there a certain trick to do that or am I doing something wrong?
Velma
Thats changed since ATL 6 engine update and hasn’t been fixed. You are right.
How is this in version 2019? Is glass transparent there?
Hello,
Unfortunately no, it is a limitation of the engine used since version 6, it won’t be fixed.
But, as a workaround, you can uncheck the Visible flag of the window pane material:
png_and_psd.zip (1.26 MB)
I have attached the psd in a zipped folder, I could not attach it by itself…
Hope this helps.
Thank You, Camille, for the quick answer. I guess it’s possible to do like that but it’s not the same. It’s more like a hole in the wall, in real window visibility is not perfect (possible to do the effect in photoshop, of course…) and there can be reflections, which is quite difficult to post-process. In some cases maybe this works well.
Velma
As I said, it is a work around, I understand it does not work in all situations, but there is nothing we can do to fix this issue. Sorry.
I also consider this issue with transparent background a big flaw in Artlantis new engine.
I used it a lot in postproduction and I consider Camille workaround a very poor solution.
You can obtain a much better result putting a panel outside of the window and adding a picture to it. This way you can preserve the reflections on the glass.
Remember to disable all shadows on the panel material!
Of course you have to experiment a bit with lighting and panel distance from the window, but I think you will like the result.
That’s interesting, but how does it differ from 2d image in the background…? Or what is the benefit in Photoshop? Transparent background has always be ok, but non-transparent glass in PS channel is not so much…
There is no difference at all in Photoshop post production.
But (as is the case in my example) you can use an HDRI sky and a cityscape image as fake background outside the window.
This way you can have glass reflection that you would loose hiding the glass material as suggested by Camille’s trick.
Is this same problem / reason? Today I was using original Artlantis 7 tree. Sky between leaves is rendered to background sky colour, but is not transparent in photoshop. Impossible to try different skies there…
Hello,
Yes it is the same reason.
I managed to fix this tree issue, somehow:
- colour range mask from zbuffer or object layer (sky)
- with that mask (layer mask active!) in colour layer, paint with white colour > sky between leaves disappears
Simple delete will not work or I couldn’t do it like that.
All trees are not similar, some don’t have this semi-transparent thing between leaves.
Hello,
Thanks for the workaround.
Trees are effectively not all similar because they come from different origins.
Some have rectangular geometry leafs with an alpha channel texture and some have leaf shape geometry and UV-mapped texture.