Hey gang!

I've noticed several times lately that people post screenshots where their foliage is not working as intended. Mainly you get transparency glitches obscuring objects directly behind the barks/leaves of trees or bushes. There are a few simple and quick things you need to adjust to fix your media.

1. step: Make sure you have the line "Transparency = 5" in your .fpe file. If not, add it.
2. step: If the error persists, make sure to change the shader assigned in the .fpe . Replace "entitybasic.fx" with "apbr_tree.fx" (or the foliage counter part for other vegetation.)
3. step: If the above has not fixed your problem: Use paint.net or your preferred art program to make sure that the transparent part of the texture is NOT touching the borders of the texture. Meaning there should be a pixel or 2 of pure transparency from every border of the image. No branch or leaflet should touch the border of the texture. I do not know why this works, but it does and fixes even the more stubborn ones.

I'd also like to add: Whenever you edit the .fpe files of your foliage you can also make sure that the material index for your trees is set to "3" for wood. It will make sure it does not have any unwanted reflections or metallic sheen.

You can also set collision mode to 11 for something to not have collision

Thats the whole run down! Let me know if you have any questions.

Not sure if I understand. Why would I ever want to add a transparency command to a FPE file of a tree? I create my own trees so maybe that is why I don't observe the problem you refer. If you have time, would take a look at the attached image and let me know if you feel the trees in the image have what you refer. I always use the apbr_tree.fx shader but never use "transparency" on a tree

When I have transparent window glass in my models that FPE file always uses transparency = 2. If the model is to be placed in the water then the FPE file must contain Transparency = 8

I admit I use transparency commands in my grasses and bush FPE files for effect (Again please reference the screen shot.)

Thanks for this tip Wolf, after importing a tree i did notice shiny spots on leaves.
I'll set it and see if this is the cure.

It depends on how you make your trees, the common way to make trees is to use a plane for a clump or bush of leave, that plane will be a flat square with a texture of the leaves on it, the texture will be transparent wherever it doesn't have leaves, those need to have transparency set.

The transparency "command" (it's not a command it's a setting) tells the engine which layer to render the transparency.

@m2design: It depends on how you design your trees. In the attachment you can see trees where the issue is present

@Wolf
Understood, thanks for taking the time to illustrate the issue with the attachment. I certainly agree that how the tree is created and using the correct shader will impact the model. Again thanks for the clarification.

Just to add: Another reason to use the correct shaders like "apbr_tree.fx" , is that the draw call optimizer will then work on your non animated foliage and give you a huge fps increase.

it is the fourth time that I have fixed some models, and they become non-transparent again, this happens when they update gameguru. Absurd!

I tried all the solutions and they don't work, I just have to add the pixels in the border as a last resort..

(edit : sorry, I thought it was for the transparencies of any model, not just the foliage)