Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I couldnt find it...

Im trying to use a single-skin terrain, loaded via ent_create.
Its texture is a 32-bit TGA with an alpha channel.

I cannot get it to 'ignore' the alpha channel for displaying.
I dont want any shaders involved, as that will interfere with me later.

I know I can turn the alpha off in med/skin/textire settings, but
that turns the alpha channel values to all 100's, but I need to be able
to access the original alpha values. (done using pixel_to_vec).

Any ideas anyone?

Hello!

Perhaps the PASS_SOLID material flag is what you're looking for? I've never used this flag, so I'm not sure.
The flag "enforces rendering on the solid pass".

Tried that, I found it in the manual too.
But when I pushed it onto the material with
my.material.flags |= PASS_SOLID or set(my.material,PASS_SOLID)
it made no difference.

But I am unsure if this is the correct usage.

FYI:: the terrain object s a standard HMP file wearing a single 32bit TGA skin,
and is using the default material (mat_terrain?).

Why don't you use a second skin for your purpose? Don't know whether its possible with an hmp file, though.
You don't need the alpha for transparency, right?

No, the alpha isnt for trancparency, I wish to use it as "spawn-rate" information.
I tried a second skin before, but the mere existance of a second skin
instantly changed the texture into, what appears to be, some form of
multi-tex terrain skinning. The second skin was being tiled on somehow.
Ive never played with multi-tex terrains at all, so I dropped the
second skin idea like a hot potato.