hey everyone i am new to game studio... but i ran into some small problems that i think in theory can be fixed with shaders...

first is tga alpha... when used in certain situations.. for example a model of some hair... if there is layers in the hair.. like finial fantasy X.. that overlap both using the same alpha channel.. there is some problem with the z axis.. mixing up what goes in front.. almost as if the normals were flipped... could a shader with transparency handle this better???

the other main problem is the engine rendering the inside of the model... i can fake it by copying the faces and flipping them.. but this is bad for poly count and doubles the the count of the model... can shaders be written to render double sided polies???

those are my two questions please help...

I don't understand your first question, but the second one can be answered with shaders. The important thing would be to set Cullmode=none so that backsided triangles get rendered; not sure what else needs to be in the effects file though.

I think your first question has to do with the engine not doing depth tests for alpha enabled polies. I believe it can be fixed with an effect script (not a shader per se), that does a ZEnable=true (but i think there is another instruction that is needed as well)

A search on the forum regarding alpha sort order should come up with something.

you have to enable alpha-testing. here is an example -> http://conitecserver.com/wiki/index.php/ImprovedOverlay

awesome!! i look at the example.. i dont understand how to make it work with cull mode... has anyone broken it down anymore?? i am sure i can figure it out if i play with it some.... thanks for all the info!!