I’m playing around with a teleport game idea and ran into a problem right out of the box.
How do you set the transparency of a model? I’m using Ethan as a placeholder model for now. Setting the alpha of the material didn’t seem to do anything. My goal is have the model fade in and out. The x-ray effect of a basic fade will not an issue. Is this a shader thing? If so, are shaders available for this already? Is it time for me to delve into custom shaders?
I don’t think you need a custom shader. You might need to pick a different shader, though. Most any of the “transparent” shaders should work (if you then adjust the alpha of the main color).
If you change the rendering mode of the standard shader from “Opaque” to “Transparent” or “Fade” then the Alpha value of the Albedo texture will affect the transparency.
You find the rendering mode in the inspector when selecting Ethans material. It is the first listed property.
Thank you for the info, but I’ve already done that. Maybe it’s the Ethan model. Changing to the standard shader with fade or transparent renderer causes a lot of issues. Ethan is rendered at about 50% when alpha is 100%, his glasses ( a second mesh) shows through head without transparency, and some weird artifacts. Ethan has five shaders for the body and two more for the glasses. I’ve also tried the mobile and legacy transparency options too. Many had various different issues but all were not acceptable.
Maybe all these issues would go away using a different model. So far what I have is a proof of concept and trying to work out the portal effect before fleshing out a game from it. I might have to go a different approach on this. I guess I can mask out the player with some particle effects and simply disable. Really would like to stick with my original plan but i’ve spent a fair amount of time so far. I need to come up with an acceptable portal sequence or move on to another project.
Definitely test with a model more like what you actually intend to use. There is no need for most character models to be as complex as Ethan.
I downloaded a ‘Bot’ from Mixamo for a substitution model and now using as my placeholder. I haven’t even decided on a theme for the game yet, just playing around with a teleport idea I have. I’m concerned that once I decide on a theme and select an appropriate model, I’ll run into the same or other issues.
I’ve wandered a bit from topic as I’ve been constructing a mockup of my teleporter. Because I needed a plan B, I’ve also been investigating some other options. The asset store has a couple of shaders to do a dissolve effect, one was using Ethan as an example. Initially I liked that. I also spent most of yesterdays time tinkering with the particle system and I’ve finely come up with an effect that I like a lot. I’m no longer concerned with fiddling with transparency. I’ll probably test to see what results I get with the new model and before I ditch my test script to do this.
I may decide to go back to this, who knows, there is a lot to be decided yet. And, if I don’t use on this project, there’ll probably be a time when I do, so thanks for the assist everyone.