CS4 turning off meshes?

I am working on Robins mesh with the skirt I would like to work on the bootm layer and see it without the skirt in the 3d view is there a way to turn off the skirt mesh in the 3d view temporarily? WHen I shut off the eye I still see the mesh with white and the maps are off.

I usually turn off all layers on the Skirt file, leaving only the transparent background, that way you only see the black outline of the skirt.

Milla's suggestion is what I would do, but here's a quick alternative. How about loading both versions of the model into the same scene? Have the one with the skirt right next to the one without. That way, you won't have to turn anything on or off at all.

I didnt know you could do the transparent layer so I will try that. Chosen how do I load 2 models in?

Two ways:

1. Open both mannequin OBJ files in any 3D modeling program, and then export as a single OBJ.

-OR-

2. Import both OBJ's into Photoshop directly. (3D -> New 3D Layer From File) Each will appear on its own 3D layer. To see the changes made to one reflect on the other, simply copy the texture sublayers from one to the other. It's a bit more of a pain this way, but it works.


As I said, it's much easier just to make the skirt transparent, but these other options also exist if you want to use them.

Ok I must be doing something wrong I made a transparent layer in the skirt file but I still see the flat white on the mesh. WHat am I doing wrong?

It seems certain video cards respond differently to having transparency in the diffuse texture. I just tried it on my laptop, and I get the white skirt, just like you. But on my desktop, it turns transparent. (Unless my memory is faulty. I can't double check right now, because my desktop computer is in pieces. My PSU blew up a few days ago, and I'm waiting for replacement components.)

Here's an alternate procedure that should work, no matter what. Assign an actual opacity texture to the skirt, instead of trying to force fit the transparency into the diffuse texture. Here's how:

1. First we need to adjust PS's render settings, so it will display the opacity texture properly. Click 3D -> Render Settings. In the dialog that pops up, set the Face Style to Raytraced, check the box labeled Remove Backfaces, and click OK.

2. Now click 3D -> 3D Paint Mode -> Opacity

3. Try to paint on the skirt. PS will pop up a dialog, informing you there is currently no opacity material for the object, and it will ask you if you want to create one. Click yes. You'll see a new sub layer called Material_skirt - Opacity appear in the layer stack.

4. Double-click on Material_skirt - Opacity to open it in 2D. Flood the canvas with black, and save. The 3D skirt should now turn transparent.

When the opacity material is visible, the skirt will transparent. When it's turned off, the skirt will be opaque. The opacity map behaves just like an alpha channel. Black means transparent, white means opaque, and shades of gray are everything in between.

Note, you don't have to flood the entire canvas if you don't want to. You can paint any shape you want, to create various skirt hem shapes. When you're done, copy the opacity map to the diffuse texture's alpha channel, before you upload to SL.