Luxus Problem: Alpha for Ivy Leaves in Stonemason's Streets of the Mediterranean Not Working

Bryson Jack

I just purchased Stonemason's Streets of the Mediterranean and I am rendering out the scene to LuxRender using Luxus in DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro. I didn't find any way of contacting Spheric Labs, I have read the Luxus manual completely and I have also tried to find my answer by using Google. I also apologize if I am in the wrong forum.

So the ivy leaves aren't rendering the alpha in LuxRender. Has anyone else had a similar problem and can you tell me what you did you fix it? I applied the Luxus LuxRender Material to the leaves shader and chose "All with switcher". I have scanned through all the specific LuxRender settings as well as the Leaf_1 shader and I am not seeing anything that can help me.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Bryson

Szark

I find setting up the Lux mats manually better. Anyway look in the surfaces Pane and see if the Transpareny (Opacity) map is in the Lux Opacity channel to start with. If it isn't load it in to the channel.

Bryson Jack

Well, thanks to you, I finally found the LuxRender Opacity setting. I had to click directly on the LuxRender channel to find it since it doesn't seem to show up in any of the LuxRender sub-channel groups. I set the LuxRender Opacity channel to use the proper alpha map and turned the opacity all the way up and I still don't have transparency rendering in LuxRender. I turned the LuxRender Opacity setting all the way down and it still looks the same too. The Opacity channel for the leaf shader is set up with the same alpha map and turned up all the way too. Any other ideas?

Szark

I am doing a test now and I will take some screenshots to guide you through, just give me some time to get it all together...won't be long. :)

Szark

Here we go from the top.

I find doing most materials this way gets the best results than letting the plug-in do it conversion. Sometimes it does a good job but Lux gives back better results when materials have time spent on them. But it all depends on what you want personally.

Hopefully you can follow the images. Don't hesitate to ask if you gte stuck.

Szark

Oh the render was a quickie in Lux via Luxus and DS4.6

Bryson Jack

Wow Sark! I am blown away that you would go to so much effort to help someone else out. That was so kind of you. Thank you very much.

Okay, so I followed your instructions meticulously and I still couldn't render the leaves properly (same problem). I then tried switching different settings for the RenderEngine that I had changed from default settings (only a few did I ever change from default mind you) back to default. I had "Collected Texture Type" set to "tif" because from some reason, after reading the manual, I got the impression that would be the best setting. When I switched that back to the default "png" setting, low and behold my transparency issue is gone.

It wasn't all wasted effort on your part because I did learn a few things about optimizing settings but now I have to ask... Tif doesn't support alpha? So hopefully anyone else that ever has this problem will know to keep it off of "tif" for the "Collected Texture Type" if you want alpha to work.

Thanks again for your help!

Bryson

Szark

Hey no problem I was chilling out after a long day anyway and look at the time codes it only took 31minutes. LOL Oh and that Ivy is from the Streets of the Med too. ;)

My next place to go to was the render settings. If I get a chance tomorrow I will see what my render setting are and post a screen of them.

I am not sure about TIF's with Luxus/Lux, there is a lux thread...brb....

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/21492/ Perhaps asking there might get you the answers I cannot help with, I am still leanring Luxus/Lux too. ;)

Bryson Jack

Well thanks again for your help. I did make a post in the thread that you suggested. Maybe someone there can shed some light on the situation.