Alpha Channel - texture of polygon goes over polygon that is in front of it.

[Thrasill]

So I have these to clumps of hair. In the first picture, it's like it should be: the polygons of the clump circled in red are actually above the polygons of the second clump. But when I change the angle of the camera a bit... the texture of the second clump goes over the texture of the clump above it. This happens only in Shaded Mode and in Unity it behaves the same. What is the problem?

[PROH]

Hi. Are the 2 objects coplanar, or touching each other? If so, the program can't decide which object to be nearest the camera, and will shift object all the time. Separate the 2 objects with a distance big enough to make the program stop "flipping".

Hope it helps.

[Thrasill]

Nope. It doesn't work. I can separate them as much as I want. The bug is still there Here is a more clear example. The first picture is from a top view. The second picture is fine as the clump in front appears in front. The third picture is take from the other side and the clump in the back appears still in front. The normals are all oriented one way, they are separated. What could be the problem. I even applied a normal modifier and that clump still appears in the front no matter what is the view. What could be the problem. And again that happens only in Shaded mode and in Unity.

[PROH]

Could you upload the file, or part of the file incl. textures, so we can examine it closer?

[Thrasill]

Here. Thanks for having a look. I put the whole hair and cloned the 2 clumps in the screenshots near it, but the whole hair is messed. I sent in psd format, seems I cannot send rar, nor tga format. You'll have to save it TGA.

[PROH]

Hi. We do need the Max file with all your settings to check it properly. Just make an "Archive" as a zip file and upload it.

[Thrasill]

Ups. Didn't notice that zip was available. 🙂 Here.

[Thrasill]

But of course I forgot to replace the psd file with the tga.

[PROH]

Hi. Had a look at your file. I can't recall having seen this problem before, and I honestly don't know what's causing it, but I did find a way to avoid it:

1 - Make a Multi/Sub-Object material with 2 copies of your hair material. The two are equal but must be "unique" - not instanced. Give them different names.

2 - In the objects Modifier Roll Out, scroll down to "Surface Properties" and give the elements in the back Material ID 1, and the elements in front Material ID 2.

3 - Assign your Multimaterial to the object.

Now it should behave as intended (it did here).

Hope it helps 🙂

[Thrasill]

Hi. I thought I'd get a more normal solution. :)) Any way, thanks a lot! This works both in 3ds max and Unity, but **** what a weird thing this is. How did you even thought about this? I'm still curious though, what causes it. Anyway, thank you for helping me. 🙂

[Thrasill]

I said "d.amn". Really? They censor this?

[Thrasill]

I actually managed to fix it in Unity without fixing it in 3ds Max. I changed the material shader of the hair to Transparent>Cutout>Soft Edge Unit and it looks fine.