Celestia Forums

I was making 3DS meshes (of made-up asteroids/nebulae) and I was having a problem. None of my meshes were transparent as I made them, and as far as I know, I can only use one texture.

Can I use 2 or more textures for one mesh object? And is there a way to make the objects as they appear in Celestia transparent? If not, then that should be implemented in the next version.

A nebula would be very cool to have in Celestia.

If your using 3d studio the opaque variable is what you need to adjust in the material editor...To assigm multiple textures assign each invidual texture in the material editor and adj each opaque variable for transparency...You will of course have to keep those meshes seperate in the project file otherwise only 1 texture can be assigned...make sure you assign UVW to each mesh and map it...textures are flipped upside down when loaded in Celestia so make sure to check the V flip value..second one down...

I am using Bryce and exporting the objects as 3DS meshes. When I export I don't have the options you mentioned, but I did make the mesh (a single one) transparent, and I did make one with just one texture. But the areas on my mesh where there is total transparency, there is just total opaque black instead.

Wish I had 3d studio...

Nevermind...I figured it out. Now I can make nebulae!

Now there is another problem...I think this has to do with Celestia itself.

I made an enormous nebula and even though the planets are clearly in the foreground, they appear to be behind the nebula. I am not quite sure why it does this...

Its a 'display' issue in Celestia...suppose well have to deal with it till chris fixes it

In my current neb I am making...I am resorting to planets whch lie outside the boundries of the nebula...If the neb is 20 au radius...make the planets 22 au away or circling a neighbouring star...

Well, I am back to having problems with multiple textures.

I don't quite understand what you say about them in your first post (mainly because I don't have 3d studio). Is there no way otherwise to have multiple textures? Does Celestia read one and only one texture?

Is there a way I can combine all my textures to make one...somehow?

When you make one mesh or object only one texture can be applied...When you seperate a part of the mesh then you can apply another texture to that...Unfortunately I dont know Bryce and you may very well not be able to do more than one object per 3ds file...eg make a sphere then make a cylinder and apply two different textures to each...Thats what I mean...

Also make sure the textures are located in the medres folder or they wont show up...Also when applying to the mesh in a 3d program you do not need to specify them in the ssc file...just the mesh and thats it...

Other than that I cant be much help to you with Bryce...

Okay I have 3DS Max now.

This is a lot tougher to learn than Bryce. Could you help me with something?

I want to import an object with several textures and save it as an object with one texture. Could you help me out?

I don't have much experience (none at all actually) in 3DS Max, but I don't want to let that prevent me from placing complex meshes in Celestia...with textures applied.

This has helped:
http://www.3dlinks.com/owforums/owforums.cfm?siteid=2

As this has as well:
http://web.ionsys.com/~priede/jordan/tips/model/displace/main.htm