Setting up a transparent shader for a scenery model. Using the materials overview guide in the HEK tutorial I set # and ! in the material name in the materials editor in 3DS to define double sided (#) and render only (!) properties. The object will eventually be a tumbleweed.

Now I know from experience that I do not have to add those symbols to the .shader tag's filename. However - when I run tool to compile the model I get the 'please select shader to use for..' error - the looping annoying error that has to be shut down via task manager and has the potential for wrecking my hard drive!

I have made a shader tag for my texture - 'weed' and the bitmap tag has compiled successfully via tools 'bitmaps' function as a 32 bit image with transparency.

But I still get the 'please select shader to use for..' error.

If I change the name of 'weed.shader_environment' to 'weed#!.shader_environment' the model compiles happily, which I don't understand how - as far as I know you do not put the special shader symbols in the shader's filename.

So, the model compiles (against expectations) but the model doesn't appear consistently in Sapien (bounding radii have been set to 10 and 7 respectively), and I get another error when panning around the location of the scenery object which reads...

### ERROR model effect type #2 can't render opaque shader

I'm stuck. annoyed. frustrated. Can anyone help?
Edited by Black Crypt on Sep 1, 2011 at 07:59 AM

You're not typing the file extension into the material name, are you? Basically the sub-material name tumbleweed would go to tumbleweed.shader_whatever.
Since it's a scenery, you don't need those symbols, btw. A scenery jms would be "tool model"'ed into a gbxmodel, which doesn't need sealed meshed like collision does.

TLDR Use a shader_model and don't use those symbols.

Ah, I see my mistake. Ok, I removed the shader symbols from the material editor, but I still have the rendering problem in Sapien - The object is difficult to locate. I've tried different values for the render bounding radius and bounding radius. No joy tho.

It's like I can't view the scenery from a horizontal perspective. I can view them from above, but as soon as I move the camera to the same vertical elevation as the scenery, they disappear. Mmm, a better description would be that I can only view them from above.

Also, my transparent texture is not transparent, the transparency is showing as black but Sapien seems to have stopped spurting ''### ERROR model effect type #2 can't render opaque shader'' all the time.

EDIT:

Got the transparency to show but now the actual image is one colour.
Edited by Black Crypt on Sep 1, 2011 at 03:02 PM