{"id":2099,"date":"2024-04-11T17:53:51","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T16:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2024-04-17T15:23:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T14:23:32","slug":"imvu-opacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/imvu-opacity\/","title":{"rendered":"Opacity &#038; Transparency in IMVU"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_80 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/imvu-opacity\/#How_Does_Transparency_Work_In_IMVU\" >How Does Transparency Work In IMVU?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/imvu-opacity\/#Opacity_Maps_Setting_Up_Opacity\" >Opacity Maps &amp; Setting Up Opacity<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>Transparency, or more correctly for IMVU, &quot;<b>opacity<\/b>&quot;, is relatively straightforward to set up because it relies on a simple technique that creates transparent materials in IMVU through use of two separate images.<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"background-color: #fc0; color: #000;\"><p><strong>Important<\/strong>: the following is an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/make-opacity-maps-and-texture-masks\/\" title=\"OBSOLETE: transparency and XRF files\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">update of what is now an obsolete system<\/a> that had Creators manually edit IMVU&#8217;s XRF material files.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_Does_Transparency_Work_In_IMVU\"><\/span>How Does Transparency Work In IMVU?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Because IMVU makes heavy use of JPG formatted images, transparency has to be handled in a way that it can essentially be &#8216;added&#8217; to an already existing image. This approach is useful as it allows for third, fourth, fifth etc. parties the ability to alter the appearance of a material well after-the-fact, and in way the items author might not have thought. To facilitate this IMVU uses TWO images; <i>one visible to the User<\/i>, and <i>another to create the transparency<\/i>. IMVU refers to theses as &quot;<b>Texture<\/b>&quot; and &quot;<b>Opacity Map<\/b>&quot;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"content_images\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu_opacity_masks\/transparency-settings.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu_opacity_masks\/transparency-settings_sml.jpg\" alt=\"Transparency in IMVU uses a separate image\" title=\"Transparency in IMVU uses a separate image\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The two &#8216;slots&#8217; IMVU uses to create transparent material in the Client, &quot;Texture&quot; is visible to the User, &quot;Opacity Map&quot; is not, except for the effect it has on the underlying image. This approach make it easy for inexperienced Creators to make items appear fully or partially transparent<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Opacity_Maps_Setting_Up_Opacity\"><\/span>Opacity Maps &amp; Setting Up Opacity<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>In IMVU the &quot;<b>Opacity Map<\/b>&quot; controls the degree to which a image appears fully or partially transparent. To create a <b>&#8216;uniform&#8217; transparency<\/b> across an entire material the &quot;<b>Opacity Map<\/b>&quot; needs to be of a single grey-scale value. <b>White is 100% opaque<\/b> (NOT transparent). <b>Black is 0% opaque<\/b> (or 100% transparent). Using a mid-grey for example produces a semi-transparent material that will likely be 50% transparent. On the other hand, to create a <b>&#8216;clip mask&#8217; or &#8216;stencil&#8217; like effect<\/b> the &quot;Opacity Map&quot; should contain ostensibly black and white tones only &#8211; anything &#8216;black&#8217; is made fully transparent and effectively invisible leaving only the white areas.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><b>Design note<\/b>: for best results the bitmap image used for the Opacity Map should be a PNG rather than JPG, although both can be compressed, JPG&#8217;s tend to cause artifacts in the final material because of the aggressive compression used to reduce file size. The image can be 24bit RGB but should contain no &#8216;colour&#8217;, i.e. should only contain &#8216;grey-scale&#8217; tones between black and white (if available use a &#8216;desaturation&#8217; filter before saving).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To create the transparent material load the item on Create Mode and select the material to be changed from the &quot;<b>Materials<\/b>&quot; list (dark grey section to the immediate right of the main window containing the avatar and product). On the right under &quot;<b>Texture Assets<\/b>&quot; click the &quot;<b>Add<\/b>&quot; button. In the window that appears, browse to and select the grey-scale image to be used as the Opacity Map, then click &quot;<b>Open<\/b>&quot;. The image will load into the available slot. Click the yellow &quot;<b>Apply Changes<\/b>&quot; button to apply and check before saving\/uploading as needed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"content_images\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu_opacity_masks\/transparency-uniform.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu_opacity_masks\/transparency-uniform_sml.jpg\" alt=\"A 'uniform' transparent material in IMVU\" title=\"A 'uniform' transparent material in IMVU\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For uniform transparency use an image with a consistent tone, mid-grey will product a semi-transparent material&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu_opacity_masks\/transparency-clip-mask.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu_opacity_masks\/transparency-clip-mask_sml.jpg\" alt=\"Creating a 'clip' mask\" title=\"Creating a 'clip' mask\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, for &#8216;clip mask&#8217; opacity, stick to using black or white, white is fully opaque (visible), black fully transparent (invisible).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[278,21,531,154,25,532,156,24,374,533],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tutorials","tag-blender-2-7x","tag-imvu","tag-imvu-creating","tag-jpg","tag-materials","tag-opacity-map","tag-png","tag-textures","tag-transparency","tag-xrf"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2102,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions\/2102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}