Looking for workarounds for alpha sorting issue with prim skirts

I make medieval-style gowns with long flexi skirts which are made up of multiple panels to create natural-looking folds. Usually I do 2-3 skirt layers and then wear them over top of each other, so it gives the illusion of fullness and so I can do an underskirt in a different texture. On occasion, I'd like to use a scalloped lace hem or semi-transparent fabric on one or more of the layers. The problem is the alpha sorting bug, which then makes the various skirt layers and/or panels switch places at random moments and view angles.

Recently, though, I saw a skirt using an alpha texture that didn't seem to have this problem. It seemed to use a lace texture on the skirt, and then the COLOR of the skirt was set to a light grey in the Appearance Dialog. This gave the skirt the appearance of being made of multiple layers of a semi-transparent chiffon, with lace accents near the hem.

Is it possible to circumvent the alpha transparency issue by doing this? Or perhaps the designer used a semi-transparent texture in their original texture file, and then shaded it in SL's appearance dialog...would that perhaps get around the sorting problem?

If any of you out there have techniques for getting around the alpha-sorting issue to achieve the effect I'm talking about, I'd really appreciate your insight.

- Rachel Darling

I'd be interested in what more experienced prim skirt makers have to say. But a thought popped into my head as I read your question. You might get good results by alternating transparent and non-transparent panels. Your transparent could be perhaps every forth panel as you work around the circle of panels and it would not overlap with another transparent or at least minimize the overlap as the flexis move around.

I'd rez a bunch of the skirts and play with it and see what happens - that's my best advice. The farther apart you can space the overlapping objects, the less flicker/problems you'll get.

I recently ran into something similiar where I had a scalloped edge on the skirt - when rezzed on the ground, the lines/images on the skirt lines up beautifully. But when I wore the skirt, the lines were completely off and everything flickered. My solution was finally to ditch the alpha on the skirt (the scallop) and everything lined back up.

For research purposes, I went around to several popular clothing shops and checked out the new releases, by and large, most designers have ditched the alphas. I did notice some mini skirts with 2 layers tho (at Artilleri) that seemed to be free of flicker.