The box in my scene is being rendered partially transparent. I’m sure the mistake is in my Node settings. It’s like there needs to be an intermediate step in between my “Cardboard” Node & the “Box Logos” Node, but I don’t know what that would be. Can someone please point out what I’m missing here?
Render (note the tracking markers are visible through the box)
This is my first blender project (in a long time), so I thought I’d start with something easy: 1) motion track some video 2) model a box (put various textures and labels onto the box 3) composite the box into the scene. First thing I learned was this was not a 101 level project…but WOW have I learned a lot
You’re using the TransparentBSDF in a wrong way. Transparent means really transparent (light passing from one side of the surface to the other side).
Using the Transparent shader in this situation requires you to have the logos and the tape as separated object. This way the light passes the logo alpha and hits the box mesh…
In your case, your logos and tape are just changing the properties of the box material, so the alpha should be used to mixing the logos shaders with the box shader, and the tape with the latter output.
thanks, Secrop! I think I got it. I moved the Node connectors around for Cardboard+Logos (1) to make sure the transparency just punches out the alpha for the box logo, then connected the desired alpha transparency of the tape (2) to the output of (1) like you suggested!
If there’s a different method I should be using (and I just got lucky here…) , please let me know.
The alphas from your textures make the switch. You can modify the shaders inside those frames, i.e. add glossy to the tape, add a bump to the logos, etc. but you should use the alphas directly in the mix shaders to overlap the differents materials.
oOOOooooo i get it. so i was over-complicating it huh. thanks for taking the time to explain that.
I’m experimenting with the tape now to add some gloss and fix the color as didn’t really look right. I don’t completely get how all the nodes work so i guess it’s time to rtfm and experiment.
