How to get rid of the border ?

When building an object, I found there's an obvious border between the 2 linked prims if I set them a little transparent. Why don't the 2 linked prims look like one prim? How to get rid of the border and make the 2 linked prims look like one prim ?

before dragging them together, tick 'select textures' then set the two surfaces that join and set them to a pure alpha (invisible) texture.

I think you're seeing the mating surfaces of the prims; with the other surfaces partially transparent, those mating faces are exposed. So, the trick is to make those mating surfaces *completely* transparent.

A common (but not the best) way to do that is to texture the whole prim with a full-alpha texture, and then re-texture as visible just the sides you want to see (that is, excluding the mating faces). A better way (very slightly less laggy) is to run a tiny script in the prims that sets to zero the alpha value of every face as currently textured (after which the script removes itself), and then in the Editor change the desired faces back to a visible level of transparency. That tiny script looks like:

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetAlpha(0.0, ALL_SIDES);
        llRemoveInventory(llGetScriptName());
    }
}

*looks sidelong at Qie*

Umm.....Yeah, that works, but you know you can simply texture the prim as Nina said without any script or lag? I'm not saying your way won't work, it will, but why so complex over a simple issue?

If you don't want to de-link, nor compeltely alpha texture a single prim of a complex build, you can use camera adjsutements to look inside the build and texture sides. Slightly more clumbsy, but you only effect one side at a time.

Use of that script may be handy if an inteiger is set to only change one side at a time. Though most don't know which intiger number a side of a prim is after build. I doubt most know which is which on a freshly rezzed prim lol

I'm not cracking on you Qie. I'm honestly wondering what I'm missing. Your ideas usually get me thinking and this one has me stumped. Now I'm gonna be up all night thinking *snickers*

~Jessy

Qie's script only sets the prim alpha, then deletes itself. It's a simple drop in and forget operation, and there is no lag unless you count the moment when the script exists.

And the "lag" comment of mine was only in reply to Qie's stating that the script was slightly less laggy than retexturing the prim with edit mode. Which is what I didn't understand on that point.

I understood how the script functions, and that it is self-removing. Not how it is "less laggy" than the normal edit fuction. Even if that script lag is negligable to the point of near non-existant.

~Jessy

Sorry... off on another thread for way too long.

The "lagginess" of the alpha-textured approach is not during Edit, but during display, and is because the alpha texture has to be downloaded to any viewers and referenced as an attribute in each prim that uses it. (Remember, I did say the difference was "very slight"! But while we're on the subject, is *your* full-alpha texture a single pixel? And even if it is, it's another texture to download--just once for the whole build, but referenced as another attribute of every prim where it's used--albeit again only very slightly more complex than the floating point number specifying the individual face transparency.)

What I don't know is whether it also has an effect on rendering--I've heard contradictory claims about that. Transparent surfaces always add to rendering complexity, and I've seen claims that transparency by alpha value has less of an effect than transparency by alpha texture, but I don't know why that should be, and I don't know enough OpenGL internals to begin to explore it. So the rendering advantage, if any, is just "speculative superstition" to me.

I use a 32x32 for my clear textures. The texture only has to be downloaded once, no matter how many faces of an object it appears on. And remember, even if the alpha is set to 0 via a script, it'll still download whatever the texture is anyways.

All things considered, I doubt the difference in rendering between a transparent texture and a script-set alpha is beyond the "barely measurable."

the easy way to texture the adjoining sides of a build already linked is to go into edit linked parts mode, then move out on of the pieces, then use select texture, click the sides you want to texture (with the alpha texture) (hold shift to click multiple sides) then apply texture.

then use ctrl Z to undo the movement of the prim, putting it back into it's proper position.
(make sure that the prim is the selected prim (that the focus is on the prim you moved) before you use ctrl z to place it back.

practice that on a couple or 3 prims, link them, then do that a couple times, to get familiar with the process, then do it on your build.

Possibly so, but I generally defer to my elders in such matters--in this case a discussion between Osgeld and Chosen in Texturing Tips (/109/70/214665/1.html). (Bobbyb30's comment in that thread is the one place where I've seen a claim that the rendering process itself is affected.)

Besides Osgeld's concern about the downloading effect of many different alpha textures, I think a greater impact is the tiny added complexity of the prim attributes that then have to be converted to different texture references before rendering. If it's just a couple of glass prims, it won't ever be noticed, but if it's a whole build with transparent hidden faces, I think it will matter.

Even though this is a question that isn't too sophisticated, this question best belongs in Texturing Tips or Building Tips.

you forgot 'ill lock this thread'.

I'll follow Nina' suggestion since it seems simplest. But I'm not sure what the alpha texture Nina means. How to use it on my this issue?

Textures that have any level of transparency contain an alpha channel. If you go to the texturing tips forum that I mentioned, there is a sticky there that explains what it is, how it's created, etc. Most window textures contain alpha transparency and when you put two prims side by side, an edge will appear at certain angles from an adjacent side of the prim. What many builders do is make the adjacent sides transparent, so that the edge does not appear when viewed at different angles.

This is an inartful explanation but I hope you get the drift. Your best resource, however, is the texturing tips forum and the building tips forum.

How about a simple easy to understand explaination instead of all this mumbo jumbo you guys are spatting out. How do you expect someone just coming in to understand all that. Looks more like a college math. Then throwing in scripts too?

If you're going to take time to answer then explain what you're talking about instead of talking like you would to someone who knows what it is you're talking about.

Exactly.

What I do:

1) make the whole object have the transparent texture by just dragging the clear texture into the texture menu.

2) Hightlight transparent so you can see the thing (alt-ctl-T)

3) Use "select texture" to re-texture the sides you don't want transparent. You can shift-click and do multiple sides.

I'll drop a clear texture on you in-world.

Not sure if this was answered...didn't seem to be a few posts down.

I think what Jolly is saying is that when two transparent textures overlap, they produce an overlay that isn't fully transparent...am I correct?

However, I think it was mentioned, the actual faces with the texture--although they seem to be transparent--may actually have a little color information on them...so, when overlayed with another just like it...there will be a noticeable line there where they overlap.

This is only solved (in my experience) by making the two alphas not overlay...lol. line them up, and hope the alpha textures stretch where you want them without stretching the prims into each other.

A complex answer on the subject is still better than just griping about other peoples answers, without giving any advice or answer yourself....

---------------------

To clarify the issue. With a 'totally clear' or 'transparent' texture, is meant a texture with no texture information at all, which makes your object or side complete invisible.
I sent you one called 'transparent' in world. (Probably seeing it, will clarify this immediately)

You apply this texture to the joining sides of the two prims.
You probably need to move them a little out of eachother first:
- check'edit linked parts',
- select one of the prims, move it away from the other.
- check 'Select texture'
- select both of the joining sides on the prims (hold shift)
- apply the 'transparent' texture, using the texture tab
- uncheck 'select texture' (switch back to 'position')
- select the one prim you moved
- press 'ctrl-z' (it will jump back to join the other one)

There shouldn't be a 'line' inbetween anymore.

If you still see a line. this is probably because the used texture has an ('alpha') fringe.
To fix this,:
- select all sides that show the line
- go to the texture tab
- change the 'repeats per face' (U and V) from 1.0 to 0.990 (or 0.980 if it still shows)

Good luck

I am overcome with remorse for trying to actually help, rather than bitching out the people trying to help without providing anything useful to the conversation, which seems to be what you would prefer.

Goddamn it.

I thought we were going to discuss how we could keep out those conniving Canadians while opening things up for more Mexican workers to come in and support their families back home.

Unless the OP is from Europe, in which case we need to find a way to keep the French from sneaking into Spain. It's really a problem.

heh - conniving Canadians. I made an alliteration.

/me crosses one eye and looks simultaneously supremely stupid and extraordinarily pleased with himself.

Thanks for your help. Yes. Damanios Thetan's understanding is correct. There's no texture, but the transparent color of the prims. But there's still a line observed there even with the suggestion applied.

It's not my field of expertise so I don't volunteer information. But, if I knew I would certainly do a better job explaining. Even scripts were thrown in the mix and then to a new person at that.

If you're taking the time to answer a question don't go from O to Z. Start at A then B and so on so what you're explaining is understood. As you can see the person still didn't understand after all that so how helpful were you?

So because you tried to answer means you did a good job of helping this person understand what you're saying?

What good is it to give a whole lot of nothing which is exactly what was offered? You're talking a good game but you're not saying anything. Not anything that would be understood by someone just coming in. It's not to hard to see the person in question is new therefore a simpler term is what's needed. Duh!

Or don't you know?

(Knowing full-well that whatever I say here will engender yet more heckling from the cheap seats, I'll try again, since the OP is still having problems.)

There are three common causes of a visible "seam" between semi-transparent prims. Most of the replies have been focusing on the fact that the *mating* surfaces are exposed when you can see through the other surfaces. But it must be one of the other causes at fault if the seam is still visible after those mating surfaces are completely transparent ("full-alpha" one way or another). (Michael's post touched on these other causes, too.)

Just to get it out of the way: the less likely remaining cause is that the other (non-mating) surfaces themselves have a "seamed" texture, where the texture itself has a faint outline border. From the description, it sounds as if the prims are just the "blank" texture, which doesn't have such a border.

That leaves the possibility that the prims are overlapping slightly, causing both textures to be visible where they join, creating a darker seam where the textures "add" together. Linking doesn't cause the prims to "meld" into each other or anything--they still have to be perfectly aligned, and when the surfaces are semi-transparent, any overlap will appear as a seam.

If that's the problem, then one just has to either "build on the grid" or "build by the numbers" to make sure the prims' dimensions and locations put their edges at exactly the same place. (One can use a "Local" Ruler in the editor to make the "grid" match the dimensions of an object, which makes this much easier and quicker.)

There are subtleties that will make even the best seams visible under certain viewing conditions, but that's almost surely not the problem here, and involves such advanced topics as LoD and hardware anti-aliasing which surely belong in another forum, if it comes to that.

Good thought, Qie, or the texture itself isn't truly seamless.