What's wrong with this material?

Support Materials and Textures
1

Yesterday, I started modeling this control panel. It’s basically flat, so I imported this image as a plane.

As I started modeling, I noticed that it didn’t look right. I could see through it, but only from certain angles. At first I thought it looked like the normals weren’t pointing in the right direction, but I check that, and it’s fine. It looks fine in solid shade mode. I looked for problems with the alpha channel, or transmission. I can find nothing wrong with this material, yet, it’s wrong. I finally gave it a new material with the same image and UV mapping, and it’s fine, but I really want to know what’s going on here because it’s perplexing. I can see no difference in the two materials, except one is not behaving normally and I don’t know why.

The cube now has the bad material. The corrected material is on my control panel.

Thanks!
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Als1Uu9jn9B7gWsOjlR5fQLOhDPy?e=Wkaga0

2

https://i.gyazo.com/2b8a34a6837b10abffdef4a2bd58cbf4.mp4 Is this the problem?

1 Like
3

No. I packed the image into the Blend file, but it must not have worked right.
Here’s the image. Sorry.
It’s the cube that has the bad material.

NASM-A19710887000-NASM2014-03565-000001
NASM-A19710887000-NASM2014-03565-0000012375×3150 1.6 MB

4

There’s two images missing, NASM-A19710887000-NASM2014-03565-000001.tif that one material’s looking for and 4952977306_189869b73b_o.jpg that the other material’s looking for – which one’s that? Also, “The cube now has the bad material” isn’t as helpful as you intend when there’s no cube – which thing has the good material and which thing has the bad one?

5

Sorry! wrong file

Alright, this should be right.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Als1Uu9jn9B7gWsOjlR5fQLOhDPy?e=Wkaga0

6

Yep, that’d do it. :rofl:

Good news is the file seems fine, nicely packed and has a cube. Bad news is I’m getting the same problem on the cube, and can’t tell what’s causing it. Hope someone can figure this out, 'cause I’m baffled. :scream:

1 Like
7

Thanks for looking at it anyway!

Something like this happens every time I use Blender.

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8

I was pretty sure @joseph had it right, and he did. He was just a bit too terse, and the video was too fast, so you thought he was just talking about the missing textures.

This is what you have:

alpha blend
alpha blend902×927 94.5 KB

That texture is in Alpha Blend mode.

This is what it would be like if it were like the material on the plane (Opaque Blend Mode):

opaque
opaque892×932 89 KB

3 Likes
9

Ah. I see. I had no idea that existed. That must have been in the settings when I imported images as planes.

Thanks!

2 Likes
10

Very frequently, I’m right but too concise, and you come along and provide an expanded, more helpful, answer. I should just start tagging you when I answer things :wink:

3 Likes
11

Once you’ve seen and identified this alpha blend thing, you’ll probably remember it, because it has a very specific look to it. That had me once stumped for more than a day.

As an aside, that is a very cool control panel. I’m looking forward to your model; hope you’ll show it off.

2 Likes
12

Yeah, I didn’t see that, just the purple. Thanks.

1 Like
13

Thanks! yeah, I’ve never used that for anything that I can remember, so I didn’t know that existed. I guess it’s for cutouts, flat images with alpha channels.

This is part of the engine for the U.S.S. Shenandoah. I got a little bit done tonight, but it’s slow going.

1 Like