Face mask

[element11 0]

Hey, guys, i was wondering how oyu would go about making the texture for a facemask like this one.

I know how to model it and everything, but how could i make it translucent, without making it totally invisible. How would i texture it, is it an alpha channel? Also, would i tag it as headgear??

[CommandoCrazy 0]

You should ask the makers of the 22nd SAS equipment mod, Pyro_Monty and El Patricio.

They have made an attachment like this one and maybe they can help ya.

[cobaka 0]

You would use an alpha channel tagged for alpha blending. Your alpha channel would have pure white for solid areas like the shield frame, and somewhere in the grey area for the shield. Darker grey would be more transparent assuming you use the Inverse Source (default) setting. Try a cloudy or "noisy" grey instead of solid/one tone. Also make sure you save it using a file format with more than one bit for the alpha channel.

[element11 0]

Thanks alot cobacka, i suspected it was an alpha channel, but i didnt know which colors to use tomake it transparent or solid. (i am very new to PS, but im getting kinda good).

I just dont know what i should tag the face shield as. As of now, i atatched it to head_gear and put a seperate texture on it. will this work in game? or do i need to tag it something else, or somehow put it into the body rsb texture?

Heres the finished product! My demo chr.

Edited July 5, 2005 by element11

[cobaka 0]

You have a couple options. You can attach it to the character model and export everything as one chr model, or make it an attachment - this may be good if you want some actors with and some without the face shield.

If you attach it to the model, the best bet may be to use a multi/sub-object material - one map for the body, one for the head, and one for the face shield. For an attachment, if you have the character already boned, merge the shield into that scene and line it up the way you want it. Add a helper point, name it ^HeadPoint (the capital letters are important), align the helper point with the head bone (x,y,z axes as well as rotation), then select the shield and link it to the helper point. Group the two together. With the group selected, select Save Selected and save the group on it's own. Then go to that scene, select the helper point and align it to the origin (should face up), and export.

Check the pinned topics for how to set up the actor file to include your attachment.

[element11 0]

Okay, thanks cobacka, i got it to work perfectly in game. What i did was add an alpha channel, coloured the frame white, and the mask a greyish colour, then coloured it and added lighing effects to make the blue on the mask better. I saved that as a seperate texture, facemask.rsb. Then i modelled it in 3ds, named it MASK, and attatched the texture to it. Worked fine when i attatched all the pieces together as one mesh to get ready for the export. This is just in case anyones interested . Anyways, thanks again.