Making models semi-transparent and internally glowing

[Smoggylamb]

Let's see ... There is a cloaking script out in the workshop that makes models "cloak", but I want something different. How do I make a model partially transparent?

Also, how do I make models glow from the inside out without wasting one of my eight lights? I'm using a color script that turns them different colors and it makes them dark!

[Pte Jack]

Add a $alpha element to the materials you want to make transparent, then assign a control to it to make a slider.

That's how I did this.. http://imgur.com/8DyMFmg

Here's how...

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=211768170

As for Glow... I want to know as well... You can add as many lights as you want, just disable shadows on lights that don't need them.

[Smoggylamb]

What did they mean by add $alpha? Every time I go into the Element Viewer I am overwhelmed by stuff.

[Pte Jack]

Grimoire, Click the link with the TARDIS, it is a guide showing you how to add the $alpha to the override materials. If you're going to use SFM, you're going to have to learn to love the element viewer. Dispite the warnings "Don't Go There" it is one of the most powerful tools in SFM.

[R234]

Source does not support translucent models too well, adding alpha to them will cause a lot of awful looking z-sorting issues, so be warned.

Making a model look like it's glowing from within is best done by making its materials selfilluminated, and adding fresnel ranges that make the selfillumination less pronounced at grazing angles.

About selfillumination: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$selfillum
About phong fresnel, which works much the same as selfillum fresnel: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Phong#Phong_Fresnel_ranges

[Zappy]

If you want a transparent model, and don't mind it looking a bit wonky, and you are working on a still image, you can try rendering the scene twice. Once with the model(s) visible, and once without. Then you can use an image editor to merge the images together.

[niar]

Is there really no way to do this internally, without having to fiddle with vmt parameters?

[raptornx01]

phong can be adjusted with override materials like the the link jack showed with alpha, but i dunno about fresnel.

[Luigio]

you can actually have infinite lights. any light that has shadows disabled is not considered a light. so you can only have 8 shadow lights. but infinite other lights, if that makes any sense

[episoder]

those are spotlights tho. they are rather awful to create point lights. there's a directer way. flares do that in asw or the general deferred build of it does it. this would be nice to have. shaders too.

yeh. i forgot that asw game shader still don't compile a working plugin dll. i tried again. waste of time. damn sh*t. i wish i could code alil better and shove all the leaked 'sfm' code into this mod to get something, but... well.... i'm no good will old coding. i got them shaders compiled tho. /rant

for the sake of clean air throw the corpse back into the hole and cover it. pls ;)

[76561199370028260]

1- add override materials to object
2- go to elements viewer for object and click model
3- go to materials
4- choose the thing you want to transparent
5- add attribute then choose float and name it $alpha
6- go to alpha and change the number as you like

[rufaanimations]

https://steamcommunity.com/id/FitGgz i have cameraman shield and very transparented with no color at top how can i add color on top of it?