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I have downloaded some free plant gfx models from the internet, and they all come as a seperate .gfx file, and a folder of textures. folder of plant texture maps

Following guides online I have tried to apply these textures to the model in order to export an .obj for use in Sketchup and CityEngine. However, I am running into issues where the texture in the guides turns transparent, but not on my screen. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Can somebody check my nodes and help me out? Following the guide, the transparent parts stay blackIf I swap out the shaders, the black parts turn white, but not transparent

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  • $\begingroup$ you will have to use the textures in whatever your destination application is. unless blender is the destination, texturing now is wasting your time. see here for more on that. otherwise, what does the object itself look like? doesnt look like much geometry. $\endgroup$
    – Timaroberts ♦
    Jun 29, 2020 at 23:05
  • $\begingroup$ You don't need a transparent shader. Just plug the alpha output socket from the image to the alpha input socket of the principled shader. $\endgroup$
    – susu
    Jun 29, 2020 at 23:55
  • $\begingroup$ @Timaroberts since I cannot add textures to the 3D models in Sketchup, or in CityEngine, I need to apply the textures to these models before I export them as .obj. Otherwise they'd be untextured geometries. $\endgroup$
    – Neshi
    Jun 30, 2020 at 0:35

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Since I don't have access to your textures, I can't show you how to hook them all up, but I can at least show you the alpha.

Since it seems that your alpha masks come as textures themselves, as opposed to having an alpha component to the basecolor, you need to connect the alpha as a separate map, and use the color output (however the color space should be set to non color - I accidentally left it as sRGB in my image, and it works, but this is bad form because that is not always the case).

While you are correct that mixing A diffuse BSDF with a Transparent BSDF, using the alpha as a mix factor, will achieve transparency in some cases, the fact that your alpha is a separate map won't allow this to work.

Instead, try connecting as shown below. Since you are already using the Principled BSDF, it makes sense that you make use of it's alpha channel.

Also note the blend modes I've highlighted on the right. These are necessary to make transparency work (default is opaque). I think alpha-hashed or alpha-blend would work best for you, but try and see for yourself.

AlphaConnect

Good luck.

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  • $\begingroup$ What is still not working? I just noticed that in my image I set the color space wrong on BOTH my maps - the color map should be sRGB and the Mask should be non-color. I don''t know if that fixes anything. $\endgroup$
    – Christopher Bennett
    Jun 30, 2020 at 0:49
  • $\begingroup$ Bennet Thanks for the explanation. Unfortunately that node layout does not seem to work for me. Not sure if this is allowed, but the model I am trying to use can be found here: sketchfab.com/3d-models/… Basically there are multiple models included in the file, which I want to split up into singular entities for work in CityEngine. I figured blender would help with that, but when I import the fxb into blender the texture seems to lose its transparency. $\endgroup$
    – Neshi
    Jun 30, 2020 at 0:51
  • $\begingroup$ One last thing to try - under the blend modes I highlighted in my image, there's a bar that says "clip threshold". try sliding that around and see if it changes anything with the transparency. $\endgroup$
    – Christopher Bennett
    Jun 30, 2020 at 0:55
  • $\begingroup$ blend mode did the trick! thanks so much! $\endgroup$
    – Neshi
    Jun 30, 2020 at 1:18
  • $\begingroup$ No problem, glad it worked. $\endgroup$
    – Christopher Bennett
    Jun 30, 2020 at 1:19

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