Grrr! Help for a newbie builder, please? :)

Hi all!

Okay, I've figured out the shaping. I've figured out the placement. I've figured out the textures. But what I CAN'T figure out is why my pieces overlap.

Basically, I was building a fireplace. The fireplace consisted of a single hollow box with a dark texture. I then tried to make an arch piece that would fit against the top of the box, on the inside.

After lining up my new piece inside the box, I changed the texture to a light marble. Then, swinging my camera angle, I saw that from the side, the new inserted piece was showing through the outside box wall. Someone told me that there can often be problems when two edges share the same space, so I shrunk the arch...and it's still there.

The insertion is now much, much smaller than the width of the box, and still shows through the wall of the fireplace when I look from the side.

My question is: How do I fix this?! I know there has to be a way to make the pieces flush together with different textures. It's probably very simple and very easy...but I can't figure it out.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!

~Nephelle Stardust

Hi<

It sounds like the texture you are using for the box has been saved as a 32bit alpha texture. Try a different texture to see if this cure the problem. It may also be the marble texture as I have had lots of problems with those

That doesn't sound right. What kind of textures did you use? Were they transparent at all? I'll be in world in the next few hours....If you want, I can swing by and take a look.

ah ha! I noticed that everything was fine until I added the textures...I was able to line up the seperate pieces flush with no problems, but as soon as I textured, disaster.

I'm using textures out of a freebie box, for practice, so it's very possible that I've picked textures that won't work together.

And thank you for the offer to stop by!! But I'm sneaking onto the forums from work right now, and won't be home until much later.

I will give it a shot using the different textures, and let you know how it goes!

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good store to purchase textures from? I'm not quite to the point of uploading my own, would like to get a few working builds under my belt before I take on the next step.

Thanks for all the help! Really really. I was 10 seconds away from a big tantrum yesterday. hehehe

~Neph

Wow, those messed up freebie marble textures are still floating around? If they're the ones I'm thinking of, and it sounds like they are, I first encountered them nearly three years ago. Amazing how things continue to circulate.

What you're seeing is due to the fact that the textures were improperly saved; the whole bunch is 32-bit when they should all be 24. See the transparency guide on the texturing forum if you don't know what that means.

What you're experiencing is a glitch in OpenGL that affects nearly all 3D applications. When two 32-bit textures overlap in close proximity in 3D space, the renderer has trouble determining which one to draw first. As a result, part or all of either or both textures will appear to poof in and out of existence as you change the camera angle. The problem is commonly referred to as the alpha sorting glitch.

The solution, as others have mentioned, is to make sure you're using 24-bit textures. Never use a texture that contains an alpha channel (the extra 8 bits) unless it actually needs transparency in it, and when you do use transparency, make sure you build with enough distance between the transparent surfaces is enough that they don't affect eachother.

Whoever saved all those marble textures as 32-bit must have been on crack that day. They should absolutely be 24-bit. If you've got full perms on them, you might want to save them to your local hard disk, re-save them as 24-bit, and then re-upload them. If you don't have or if you don't plan to buy Photoshop or PSP, there are lots of freebie programs that can do the conversion. See the texturing forum for more info.

Glad you got it straightened out.

Lately, I've been going to Textures R Us for my textures. HUGE selection. Theres another place thats supposed to be good , but i can't remember right now.

Textures R Us...cute I will head there tonight!

Thank you everyone for responding. You have restored faith in my building abilities. hehehe

See you all ingame!

you could also try textures unlimited

or for an off the wall solution try typing textures in search and visiting some of the places it throws up. Its a great way to explore SL