first,please forgive my poor english..

I made a new hair mesh, have two same part, one is inside normal.one is outside normal.

I imported them to SimPE as alpha_3 and alpha_5, matched opacity.

but in Bodyshop they are showing wrong.

in front, the hair look normal,like this:



but in back, It look just like this:




I fight with it two days.but I can't find the reason and how solve it !

please help me~ thank very much~

Are the alpha and texture lined up exactly? That's the only thing I can think of.

Have you tried it in the game? Does it look the same as in Body Shop?

It looks like you basically have three sets of layers there in the back - the lowest one, right up against the neck, then one in the middle, and one on top. When it comes to hair layering, those parts should generally be separate groups. That is, something like:

alpha3, opacity 3 - Lowest, inside
alpha5, opacity 5 - Lowest, outside
alpha7, opacity 7 - Middle, inside
alpha9, opacity 9 - Middle, outside
alpha11, opacity 11 - Top, inside and front, inside
alpha13, opacity 13 - Top, outside, and front, outside

There is another way to do that where you have duplicate names of groups which can share textures, and you just change their opacity settings rather than have them be treated as separate groups. So that'd go something like:

alpha3, opacity 3 - Lowest, inside
alpha5, opacity 5 - Lowest, outside
alpha3, opacity 7 - Middle, inside
alpha5, opacity 9 - Middle, outside
alpha3, opacity 11 - Top, inside and front, inside
alpha5, opacity 13 - Top, outside, and front, outside

I'm not 100% sure on the above, but I know that's the basic gist of how to do it: multiple copies of the alpha groups, but with opacities set as if you had more alpha groups.

Nouk has some more information on it here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=280447

In SimPE, look at your TXMT for the hair mesh groups, the ones on the back of the head.
Did you make sure alpha blend mode is set to blend?
These settings have worked correctly for me. What settings do you have?
I think maybe you have yours set to "none" and "true", instead of "blend" and "false"?

stdMatAlphaBlendMode: blend <-- this is the really important one
stdMatAlphaMultiplier: 1
stdMatAlphaRefValue: 0x0000007f
stdMatAlphaTestEnabled: False <-- also important

Also, make sure in the cMaterialDefinition subtab, that you check the material type:

Type: SimStandardMaterial <-- very important!

If yours is set to SimSkin, you will see skin where it is transparent.
Maybe you have it set to SimSkin since we're seeing some skin color in the hair?

Thank you hyster,I'll try this.

Thank you cat,my PE set is exactly like your advice.

I found a strange thing.after I edited my mesh, the situation of transparent edge have changed. Maybe this problem is related for mesh? I'm trying to find out the rule.
It's too strange!

If Cat's suggestion works to fix it, then you don't need to follow my advice.

Layering is not so much related to which mesh you use as a base, but how your mesh is laid out. If the original just has one part on top of another part, your mesh has to be basically done the same way (though exactly how you do it can vary) if you want it to work right. Otherwise, you have to do the opacity trick that I mentioned, or add additional groups. Or use a hair mesh as a base which has enough groups to do the layering that you need.

You said the transparency problem changed after you edited the mesh. What change did you make to the mesh? How did the transparency change?

Did you make sure all the vertices in your hair mesh have bone weights that sum to 100%?

Did you try HP's layer opacity suggestion?

Hi cat

After I edited the mesh, the transparency area changed. somewhere isn't transparency, and somewhere still transparency.

Then, I tryed HP's suggestion. I set six layers, adjusted opacity follow HP'S suggestion.
the end, there are no transparency between layers.
But ! Single layer transparent to itself! When I rotate angle in BS to observe the hair,I find that parts of same layer will transparent itself!

So I made a test. I made a mesh just include three simple piece,let them overlap each ohter, merged them to a one mesh. Then copy it and invert Normals. I imported
them to SimPE as alpha3 and alpha5. Just this two layer.

They are showing very very normal in BS. Between This test mesh and my problem hair,just one different : I made test mesh by Polygon, but I made hair mesh by Nurbs!

I guess, If Nurbs mesh result in transparency problem?

It shouldn't matter whether you built the mesh with polygons or nurbs surfaces, since nurbs surfaces are written out as polygons eventually. But maybe there is a problem with the program that makes nurbs surfaces? Maybe it creates some bad vertices or bad normals or something bad? Are you using Blender? I don't use Blender, so can't really help with it. However, if you upload your two meshes, the one that works and the one with the problem, people could take a look and maybe find out exactly what's different.

Hey there, Cat asked me to weigh in here since we were discussing hair mesh groups and TXMT's elsewhere. Much of what you guys have covered is outside my experience, but this jumps out at me:

When I rotate angle in BS to observe the hair,I find that parts of same layer will transparent itself!

Any time I have had this happen with hair in BodyShop, it has turned out to be an alpha problem--usually where the outside and inside surfaces of the layer each have a separate alpha, and only one of them has been edited to match the mesh.

That, combined with the weird edge effect, makes it look very much like an alpha problem to me.

Thank you Amber,you are right.

I finally solved it. I reorder these layers, set 8 layers, then the hair showing normal.

Thanks cat and HP and you all~ I learned a lot!