Applying Materials in Gmax and setting their opacity The following information is based on techniques used to apply material to an object in Gmax that needs to be rendered semi transparent in FS2002. For this tutorial I will be using the Teapot and a simple texture. It is by no means the only way to do this. **NOTE** This tutorial assumes that you have a basic understanding of the Gmax GUI and know how to apply UVW Maps. It also assumes you are familiar with FS2002 folder /file structure. Example files included for review are: Gmax source file (teapot.gmax) Texture map used in Gmax (teapot.bmp 24-bit) FS2002 (teapot.mdl) FS2002 ready texture (teapot.bmp 16-bit extend) I hope that you find use in the following information to be helpful. For questions or comments please email them to: fsedge@fsalpha.com FSAlpha Design Group FSAlpha Design Group Copyright 2001, 2002 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
To start, create the teapot available in the create Geometry section. Next, create the texture that you would like on the teapot however you normally develop a texture. When the texture is ready for applying to the teapot open the material editor in Gmax. Shortcut it "M". A new material will need to be created for the teapot. See Image One below "double click to open". Select the new button. Don't worry about naming the material for this tutorial. Press the apply button just right of the copy button. After the new material has been created and applied select the Diffuse tab to make it active if it's not already. . Now select open Diffuse Map and brows to the location of the texture you want to apply See Image Two below "double click to open". Once the texture has been opened you will see it displayed on the teapot. Now you can set the opacity of the object using the material editors opacity factors. You will need to move down to the Opacity tab in the Material editor and select it. When you do this the opacity factors adjustment will become available. This is the place to set the transparency. A value of 0 = almost invisible and a value of 100 = totally non transparent. See Image Three for the location of the opacity adjustment. Play with the adjustment and watch what happens.
Image One New Material Creation | Image Two Selecting the Texture | Image Three Adjusting Opacity
This type of technique works really well when you want a canopy to be see through. All you need do is create a new material and apply it to the polygons you want to be transparent. Here is what the teapot looks like in FS. There are three three teapots to show how it looks at the start of the tutorial and what the finished teapot looks like. The opacity on the transparent teapot has been set to 35. Well that should just about cover it. Good luck.