Sculpty: 8 Panel Object, Torn Alpha Textures

heyas;

i am trying to make a simple sculpty that replicates 4 flat panels that cross in the middle -- ie a typical alpha plant object. so all i did was shrink every other vertex in my 8x8 cylinder down to the center to make a star shape. very easy, works fine.

and it looks fine, when i put a texture map on it, repeated 8 times, offset .5. EXCEPT if it is an alpha texture. when it is an alpha texture, the sides of the 'panels' that you see when going counterclockwise around the object all have long triangular 'tears' in the texture. (the ones going clockwise tend to be fine).

i cannot figure out what is causing this, let alone how to fix it. i thought perhaps it was that alpha layering bug, but i did an experimental shape that had very fat panels, making sure the 'front' and 'back' sides of each panel didnt even touch, but that showed the same anomalies as well.

has anybody done this successfully? and is willing to share the 'trick' of how? thanks!

It could still be the alpha layering problem, perhaps... I'm not entirely sure I'm visualizing what you describe properly (Pic?), but sounds like it still could be. The issue is that the alpha layering is even worse than usual when dealing with sculpties. It can be iffy with normal prims, but introduce a sculpt and it can behave in ways that you absolutely didn't expect (Unless you understand the way it works very, very well, in which case you might anticipate the weirdness).

If it's only happening with alpha textures, then it seems to me that that's probably the issue. BUT....perhaps not. A pic of what you're describing would be a great help.

i just tried to reproduce your problem. i made a sculptie exactly as you described and uploaded it to SL. for me it looks great. i can use alpha or non alpha textures and nothing unexpected happens... (i also tried full bright, transparency and glow, everything works perfect)

Maybe looking at a a picture (as keira already asked for would clearify what your problem is ?

If I am understanding this correctly you took a sculpty cylinder and converted it into an asterisk? My guess is that the alpha channel isnt mapped correctly. I agree, we need a pic. and also what program you are using to make sculpties as well.

The only real way to do this is to take a plane and fold it several times.

Awful, awful thing to try and make though, you don't have my sympathies!

until we get to use the texture type LL uses for some of their plants this will be always be a problem. Such as a 1-bit alpha channel which does not suffer from this problem which I remember using back in unreal 2
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/UnrealTexturing.html

this was great for things like a chain link fences which might have particles behind it. not to mention the 1-bit alpha renders much fast than a 8-bit alpha.

ok, here is my 2 prim plant (could also be done with one prim only ...) The upper part is one sculptie bended to a "flat cross prim shape". The lower part is just a bended sculptie sphere. As i said before, there where no elementary problems about making it. almost too simple...

Maybe it is still worthwhile to make a little tutorial about how it is done ?

Yes very worthwhile Gaia! Did you also use a cylinder and move the vertices to center?

and an example of a 16 plant/1 prim sculpt.

I have to say, Gearsawe, I rather like the multi-plant single prim. It's not something I've seen (Or at least noticed) done before, though it seems like it should have been thought of long ago.

Lovely work ^-^

Cool idea Have you done it with a standard sculptie or with an oblong ? And what about LOD ? Is that clean ? That would indeed be very cool ...

I did it exactly like Bloodsong Termagant has described it. yes, i took an 8 faces cylinder and moved every secnd vertex row down to the 0 in x and y. it is a 5 secnds task with domino's scripts.

yes did with oblongs good for 3 lods.