Net material?

[solodesign]

Hello everybody,
I need a net material.
Is there a way to place a map (i.e.: a black and white bitmap) and say: "white bitmap areas are transparent and blacks are opaque"?
If it is possible, what have I to do?
Where is this map to be loaded?
Do I need a particular format?

Thank you.

Marco

P.S.: Please note I' m not talking about wireframe material, unless you don' t explain me how to manage number and position of the frame.

[neilr]

Check out the circular mesh thread, it should be near this one...

[solodesign]

Maybe you' re referring to this topic?
http://keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=1174.0

If so that' s not properly what I' m looking for and it' s not clear to me how to proceed.
I tried loading a tiff image with transparency in an advanced materials, but it comes out just all dark black without transparency.

You can find attached 2 images: I need the net to be shown and to see through the holes.
What have I to do?

Marco

[solodesign]

Well, I finally made it myself.
So, if anyone will need similar material in future, this is how should he/she do.

First we need a tiff with transparency and an alpha channel.
I used Photoshop.
I opened original net map, selected the net (magical wand), copied it, opened a new file with transparent background and pasted it.
Then I re-selected the net, opened selection menu and saved the selection (bottom voice in the menu).
I pressed enter, leaving default options.
This way we create the alpha channel; we can check it in che channel window where we see a black and white preview.
Black part is where we see through.
At this point we save a tiff image preserving transparency and channels.

In Keyshot we will have to use a general material, then load the tiff as a texture in material' s parameters tab, but it will not take effect until we check texture modulate box.
Now we can scale and rotate it as we like.
Note that if you need a particular map, you will have to save it in the tiff file, otherwise, you could just save a black and white tiff with transparency and alpha channel, then change color and effects using material properties.
Beware: using labels and other textures could vanify the transparency effect.

Marco

P.S.: I don' t want to create arguments, but this should be the kind of answer I would expect in a support forum.

[br3ttman]

Hey Marco!

Intrigued by your question yesterday, and having experimented with transparent meshes back when Keyshot was still Hypershot 1.9, I tried creating a quick basketball net while experimenting with materials and textures in general to see if I could realize some better FX and pass along the insight.  However, I wasn’t fully satisfied with my results, so I didn’t immediately post them.  Here are my results and some of the issues I found.  Maybe others have had better mesh results they could post.

Keyshot’s General Material â€" Unfortunately, this is one of Keyshot’s earlier materials and isn’t very intuitive or user friendly, especially if you have an older PC and slow FPS.  In particular, you don’t know by looking at the material window itself which file you’ve loaded for the Texturemap, Normalmap, or Specularmap, and then if want to remove or deactivate one of those maps, it’s almost easier starting over.  Moreover, you don’t have the ability to automatically sync the maps like with other materials, so then you might be stuck waiting for realtime rendering to rez up sufficiently to confirm you’ve got the right maps and have them correctly positioned --> ultimately a slow workflow!  

General Material Improvement Suggestions - There’s a lot of room for improvement on this material, especially if you want to create see-thru mesh FX.  One suggestion for improvement would be to create a truly transparent material, where the material itself wouldn’t have any refractive, diffuse or specular properties.  Only the texture, normal, bump maps and/or decals applied to that material would take on those properties.

Textures with Transparency or Alpha Channels â€"  A couple additional notes to keep in mind to when creating .tiff files with Alpha Channels:  In your Photoshop file, make sure you’re also in 8bit color and in RGB mode.  16 bit or higher or CYMK, and your Alpha channel won’t work in Keyshot.  Personally, I’ve been creating .png files in Photoshop for transparency in textures and decals.  You just need to create a file with a transparent background and export as a .png.  A lot faster!  Unfortunately, the General Material won’t accept .png files for the maps like many of the other materials do.

Transparent meshes don’t show a material thickness â€" When applying a transparent mesh material to a part with thickness or solid part wall (i.e. front and back surface), the texture is repeated with a visual gap in between.  For this model, I just revolved a spline to create a single surface for the “net”.  I was trying to add bump maps to help create some illusion of thickness, but couldn’t cheat that effect.  Maybe others have had more success at this.  This mesh material works best on small speaker grills or parts in the distance where you visually don’t miss the thickness.

So based on your last entry, it appears you were able to create the material you wanted.  Could you post a rendering showing how it turned out for you?  

And finally, as for “I don’t want to create arguments” . . . then don’t say you don’t want to.  There are a lot of great contributors on here trying to share their techniques and guide improvements.

Sorry for the bizarre rendering.  I was trying to meet a few different goals with one throw, pun intended.  Hopefully these comments and the rendering are of some help.  Cheers!

[solodesign]

Hi Br3ttman,
I' m sorry but the workstation I saved my renderings in just crashed two fridays ago and probably it won' t be possible to rescue any data, so I won' t be able to post any image.
Anyway I did experiment the same problem you mentionend: rendering shows an empty gap between the faces and I was not able to fill it in any way.
Just, as it was a net, it was thin and working on distance and angle, the gap was masked.
Still I wasn' t able to give different materials to diffuse and transparency, so I had to merge them together in the same map and put it as transparency.

I know there are lot of good contributors in this forum, but, because it is an official forum for this program, I expect a bit more professionality.
A step by step explanation of what is needed to do to solve a problem is required if someone could not manage to solve it by him/herself.
I can' t read answer like "put a map there and the job' s done" because the job' s not done if it isn' t explained if a particular map is needed, how to create that particular map, which kind of material to use to reach aimed result, in which tab is needed to load that map and if there are any settings to take care of.
Even if answer seems simple to the writer, it is needed to make it simple even to the reader, and if the question is not clear is better ask more question to understand it than giving unuseful answers.

I have to say I never found a solution to my needs in this forum, by now, and I' m sad about that.

Marco

[rkulshrestha]

Here is some Net matterial

Shivani

[rkulshrestha]

Here is some Net material - Zip 2

Shivani

[rkulshrestha]

oops

[solodesign]

Thank you for your effort, Rkulshrestha, but how should I use them in Keyshot?

+

[rkulshrestha]

Erk, hey I'm just a kid, but love KS. I know where to get the materials from so I posted them. But I also found a mesh material in KS itself. Here is a picture.

[rkulshrestha]

And some more

[solodesign]

Looks pretty what we were talking about.
I just don' t know how can I use the materials you posted with Keyshot.
Is Keyshot able to "read" them?
Is it needed to convert them?
If so, how is that possible?
Which is the process?
I' m using version 2.0.46, which version are you using?
Was that material already in the standard package?
Thank you for answering.

Marco

[rkulshrestha]

You need to upgrade to 2.2.52 and I think you will get the mesh material with it. Or try and add the following bip to your materials group. Dont try to import  or open it in Ks cos it wont open directly. You should see a group called Mesh in materials and the n choose the mesh you want.

[solodesign]

Ok!
Thank you.
I will try.

Marco