Is it possible to reduce alpha flickering in a prim skirt

I've been trying to create a long prim skirt with a solid (non-transparent) fabric with an asymmetrical hemline that I've drawn out using an alpha-channel. Once the skirt is constructed with panels of prims, I get a lot of alpha flickering, even the solid, non-transparent part of the fabric flickers and even looks a little transparent -- is there a way of reducing this effect?
Thanks!
-Milla

No, not really. When you have overlapping panels with alpha, you will always get the sorting problem. Sometimes you can take advantage of it, when you want to create a shimmery effect, but you can't avoid it. Sorry.

If there is an alpha channel, even if it is just used to make a hemline, then the whole texture IS an alpha texture. Even the solid-looking areas will be subject to the alpha-sorting glitch. You can even make a texture that has absolutely no transparent pixels at all, and if you save it as 32-bit, it is subject to the glitch.

One thought, though less than perfect:

Layer a slightly shorter 24-bit skirt over the layer that has the alphaed hemline.

Crop your skirt texture above the alpha hemline, and re-save a copy as 24-bit TGA. Use that to texture the upper and outer layer. Use your original texture for essentially a petticoat with the longer, shaped edge.

Thanks guys, I suppose I'll have to live with it

Thanks for the work-around tip, Ceera; I'm gonna give it a try

Depending on which parts of the skirt are interfering with one another (and depending on the design) you could try it with only texturing the outside facing faces of the skirt and leave the rest of it fully alpha.

I've done that. It seems to help on the shorter skirts but the longer ones still have the sorting problem.....though not quite as evident.

I have noticed a few techniques to *minimize* the glitching, but nothing that is a fullproof fix. Try using diff combos of uncut and/or unhollowed cylinders and create your textures with alphas on the sides. Or sometimes just texturing the front face and using 100% alpha on the back side. Also the relative roundness (as compared to more flatish) and how much each panel overlaps seems to make a difference. There does seem to be a sweet-ish spot of length; super short & longer skirt panels seem to flicker the most in general. Try different things.

I have a theory that if the prim face with the transparent texture has different enough surface normal (the direction it's pointing on a "local" scale) than the others it seems to minimze the glitching the most.

But again, it's just a theory. I'm still cursing and learning and experimenting a lot

The problem with any of those "solutions" is that they are unpredictable. The alpha sorting problem is a client-side effect, so each person's graphics card responds differently from the next person's. You may think that you have the flicker solved becuase it looks fine on your own machine, but there's no guarantee that it looks fixed for anyone else. The only real solution is to simply avoid overlapping 32-bit textures.

Wonderful, more trix! I'm gonna try out all your suggestions -- thank you so much!