I'm not sure about the exporter you are using but It happens often when I import .3ds models that the models usualy DO have groups and materials assigned to them. Much of the time too the alpha will be set below 100 ( usualy at 0)

here is an example I'll show you

I downloaded a model of the spaceship from the Planet of the Apes movie (Charlton Heston version) that was in .3ds format

Imported it into MED.



Has many groups and materials already in it.



All the groups materials Alpha is set to 0 from the importing, so I would have to go through and manualy reset all the alpha values.


Your importer is probably doing the same thing, assigning an alpha value to each material/skin/group that is below 100

I'm using malabar exporter too and having the same
problem all the time, the workaround is set the flare
flag to off :

action myModel
{
my.flare = off;
}

has to be a transparency issue then someplace. since my.flare=on sets transparency to 50%

got one of them imported models that is got problems that you can upoload? can look at it then

First I will say thanks to you Grimber and you vlau.
Thank you JCL, moving my thread to the beginners forum, thanks for your bad doing!
Ok Grimber, it's not a problem of the malabar exporter, the Alpha is still 100% after exporting. In earlier version of A6 the exporter form malabar makes no problems. So something must be changed in the engine, that this happens with the mdl models.
So vlau I will try your workaround. Thanks to both of you.
Bernd

Hi vlau...
I used your workaround, but it changed nothing. The problem still exists and also, my models have no shadows.
Bernd

Mmmm.... First, it works for me. To settle the problem,
I suggest you draw a simple cube in Max, assign a diffuse
map to your model then export it again.

Sure I will do it, at the weekend I have time enough to test something.
We will see what happens and I will report you what I find out.
Bernd

I have made a model with my.flare = off, and reproduce
the transparent problem similar to yours like the following
picture :



Fortunately, I found the following codes that was posted by
other forum member (sorry, forgot his name) and solve the
z-order problem.



Code:

---

material right_alpha_mat
{
  effect =
  "
    technique right_alpha1
    {
      pass p0
      {
          zWriteEnable=true;
          alphaTestEnable=true;
      }
    }
  ";
}

action right_alpha_acc
{
  my.material = right_alpha_mat;
  my.shadow = on;
}

---

If it still doesn't solve your problem, send your model
to MALABAR, may be he has a solution.

Good luck!

Hi vlau...thank you for your help!
I found out what the problem is. It's easy when you knew it, but until now I used only an older version of my A6 Prof. engine. So I did one export with the malabar export plugin and the same model again with an older export plugin for max. The goal was, that the export with the older exporter makes no prblems. So I'm searching the differens between these both models and found out, that malabar exporter sets the skin to 32 Bit by default. In MED you can open the skin settings now and change them to 16 Bit. 32 Bit skin A6 reads as a skin with Alpha.
So at the screens you can see my prototype actor with shadow and no transparency.Also the other MDL's are shown with shadows and in right sorting now.
Bernd

Ah, thats great!! its much better
than writing codes.