HI all. I've been playing about with a little scene and have had some serious issues getting a custom object in and having the effect I want.

Is there an FPE setting to allow the object to ignore being lit by the default light source?

Has anyone had any issues with transparency on a texture being less than 50%?

I spent hours and hours yesterday messing with this and to no avail. The transparency was the biggest issue, but the lighting is important as well. I don't want shadows cast on it at all.

Here's a screenshot of where I am. You can see what I'm trying to do. The transparency issue has driven me mad, completely scuppering my initial thoughts on how to achieve this. I though a simple alpha transparency fade would do the trick, but no try that and the object vanishes. I've tried every FPE transparency settring there is and really not seen a massive difference at all. In fact, even when set to 0 the object is just as transparent anyway, so I guess the settings are only for when inside buildings etc.

I've tried all sorts, even the default shader (which worked quite well for a light, but was ignoring my diffuse texture and I was in no mood to start editing the shader file at that point.

So if anyone has any suggestions, it would be appreciated. Is 50% max opacity correct? Or is there something odd happening here? It doesn't seem right to me, perhaps my system is having issues. It is running a bit grumpy at present when saviung things (to put it mildly). Also if I can disable the object from receiving external light and shadows would be good (apart from if the settings are reduced), as a light shouldn't receive shadows ever

I remember doing something like this in DB not DB Pro, but DB. I had no such issues and had a pretty snazzy effect people loved at the time.

Not sure about your transparency issue since I often find transparency changes with every update but perhaps this may help..

Although it a sprite sheet animation shader use the effect_animate.fx and set rows and columns to '1' to use a single frame. Put your alpha transparency into the _N map diffuse and alpha channel. The object will not use GG lighting and shadows and the _N will illuminate the entity with alpha. You can change the colour of the normal diffuse to colour the light 'beam'. I have never had any transparency problems using this shader which seems to handle gradients far better than entity_basic.fx which appears to clamp the levels. To get a nice beam use a gradient which goes to full black so you don't get an 'edge' at the end.

Thanks for the info, I'll give that a shot. The one thing I never messed with is the normal map, just the diffuse and illumination one. I never thought about using the animation one and limiting the frames. Hopefully will get the fade I want to avoid seeing the obvious end of the model if the transparency works fine.

Another thing, which may not be an issue with the shader above if it works. I had to disable shadows from the object so the light didn't cast a shadow, however in doing that, it also lost the nice light reflection on the water at the same time. It seems the two are connected so disabling the shadow disables the emitted light effect. Hopefully the idea above will fix this anyway.

Had another couple of hours yesterday on it but no luck. I just can't get a transparency to fade the end of the object, or make the light decently transparent. When using the animated shader, all transparency was ignored. I've given up in honesty. Such a simple object and effect should be easy to add. One more reason to put me off making media for GG. I've spent way too much time on this already for what was going to be a very small part of a demo.

If you want to send me your files I will take a look at it.

Thanks Rolfy I've sent you the files as they are at the moment. Much appreciated!

Just to prove I have tried many attempts at this here's a pic of my current recycle bin!

Sent and working

what about trying as a .png? you can use .png as textures right? they tend to save alpha information well in AGK at least.

@ Rolfy, got it and it works. I seem to have lost the lighting effect it had, but at this point I'm just glad to have it at least close to how I imagined. Thanks! Upping the brightness of the _i map has helped a bit but still not doing much to the water. I must admit, I don't fancy playing with it too much now it's working with the transparency!

@ smallg, First thing I tried. I always start with a png and work up to dds once I am happy. In this case I had an invisible object from the start, got it working again with a basic non transparent texture , then spent hours and hours trying to get it to work as wanted. I've never had an issue doing this type of effect in DB, DB Pro or AGK, or even Game Maker Studio, so no idea why GG was being so uncooperative! It doesn't help that to be 100% sure changes are being shown, you have to reboot GG each time. After what must have been 70 attempts or more it had got to the point of me being a little annoyed