I've placed a flat decal on a flat, but changing the transparency on the Illumination Tab DOES NOT change the transparency of the image. The image is a jpg. How do I get the image to be semi-tranparent, like 50%?
Thanks,
I've placed a flat decal on a flat, but changing the transparency on the Illumination Tab DOES NOT change the transparency of the image. The image is a jpg. How do I get the image to be semi-tranparent, like 50%?
Thanks,
hei'ya Stefan,
I believe only *.tif and *.png images can use alpha channel transparency,
so save out the decal jpg as *.tiff or *.png
You can use masks or images with an
alpha channel to create transparent parts of the decal
you can also select a specific colour of the image to transparent
any further problems you could upload a sample file,
and I'm sure members would willingly help
PS: your SW version and other data helps also
hope this helps - have a good'n kelef
I'm familiar with the png alpha channel transparency function, but what I'm really trying to do is take the decal below and make it all "see-through" like you would make a regular material transparent.
The transparency in illumination settings for the decal should control this. If not you could try opening the image in a photo editor (Photoshop), Setting the background to transparent, setting the image layer to 50%, then saving the image as a png. It should then come into PV with the 50% transparency as long as you have the "use image alpha" selected.
I've tried adjusting that slider, 
but it either makes it solid at 0.00 or completely transparent as soon as I increase it to anything greater than 0.00.
I have never had this actually work on SW2014-SW2016. Have you actually gotten this to work?
Stefan - See the attached part..
All you need to do is open file explorer and click on the picture you want and drag it onto the face you need it in the part, then click on the picture and edit, go to the advanced tab and select the illumination tab and change the transparency there 
Thanks for that, it worked. Apparently this drag/drop method applies the file as an image as part of a texture, and the Transparency slider then works CORRECTLY. But the Transparency slider DOES NOT WORK correctly when you apply the image as Decal. I tried the drag/drop workflow no problem, and I also tried dragging the default Texture from the Appearance folder within SW, and then selected the proper Image path as shown. But is there a way to add the image in one step within SW without having to either have explorer open or apply the default decal and then go to the path?
Not sure why they even need a "Decal" feature, never liked how that feature worked. Drag and drop from explorer is all you need.
Edited:
You can by pass the File Explorer, but there are a lot more clicks. Select a face and add color/appearance feature,
then you can browse for the picture, however you need to select All in the file types
and then search for your picture and select, then abort the save as
The biggest issue doing it this way is all the different steps, plus the mapping command is different, which is a great tool to use when it comes to appearances
Sounds good, thanks again!
Got it, sounds good, yea drag and drop is faster! Thanks again.
It also renders fine
I noticed with color/texture I need to scale the image to match the exact Face dimensions to get rid of the image repeating. Is there another way to make it non-repeat or is that just the nature of texture/color?
It looks like Decal IS non-repeating by nature which is convenient, but the fact that the transparency slider doesn't work is a problem.
Not in the options right now, but in the edit window check the mapping tab, and try different mapping options.
Got it. Thanks!
Did you want to render this or is it just for modeling?
Yes what John said/showed is correct. Applying as a texture rendered just fine.
Stefan - See the attached part..
All you need to do is open file explorer and click on the picture you want and drag it onto the face you need it in the part, then click on the picture and edit, go to the advanced tab and select the illumination tab and change the transparency there