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[josem75]

Hello. I am testing a lot of trees which i am preparing, and testing ALL the options in photoshop and dds photoshop plugin output values to get the best result posible.

One thing i am trying hard is make edges of the trees softer/blur and even a bit more "transparent", so the fit with the engine would be much better (as we do normally after merge two layers with the blur paint tool  in all the edges).
But do this manually in complex trees would be a real pain. And the benefit will be humble as long as the tree is not yet merged with Outerra engine of course. So you only blur a bit the edges alone.

So i found a PERFECT tool aparently to do this in selection options, REFINE EDGE/ FEATHER.   
I apply like 1,5 or 2, and the result i see in the screen is perfect for the purpose. I apply in a new layer with mask, then i apply mask to this new layer. (result is a layer with this effect applied).
The selection go to the shit with this.. But i save the selection before doing it.
So as i said, i can see the result in my screen, and if i take this layer and move to other document, i can see how the edges fit perfect in any document (like the edges are very soft, blur and even transparent fit with any color or enviroment.

But then.. I save DDS (with the original selection saved in channel, for alpha channel), Go to outerra, and those edges REMAIN SAME. No changes inside outerra. And i cant understand why. Because visually i have this layer with the effect already and if i move to other documents edges are softer and fit anywhere.. Why this information blur and transparency edges are not there after dds saving??

Its so frustrating.. Because the result in the engine would be amazing.. actually the main problem i want to get is the  hard edges of the trees which make them very false inside outerra.

Anybody who has experience in those things and have installed DDS plugin for photoshop, can test it? And lets see if we can reach this solution. If we can apply inside outerra, result in trees would improve a lot.


I will show a image of the result in photoshop with effect already applied (i applied before, but made picture after for show the menu, so you see value is Zero but its applied).
You all can see how amazing is the effect, and in one click.   
(my menu is in Spanish, calar = FEATHER

[josem75]

I am able to get the effect inside Outerra, using the selection created by the effect too as alpha channel (instead keep the old selection as alpha). But the result is not similar compared with the effect i see in 2d image in photoshop (which is so perfect).
I will put the two examples so you can compare.
One is merged in photoshop with a blue uniform enviroment, result is perfect.
Then, how result looks inside Outerra. sadly, Its nothing the same. Its not this increment transparency while you are near the edges, making tree and outerra enviroment fit perfectly (as in 2d image photoshop do). IN fact we never si this blur or transparency near the edges at all.  Its more like a dark color near the edges (and more if you go far and mipmaps appear).

Any way to get this transition as we see in 2d image photoshop, but inside Outerra? Gods of the engine, Cameni what do you think?
Its the only cons i see in the trees at the moment. Looks like dds make a poor fit with this kind of layers with this feather effect.
Do you think there is something to do for make a better fit?
With this blur/transparent transition from edges of the trees to Outerra enviroment, 2d trees would gain a lot of quality. And more now that you will put the option to increase pixels.
 

[cameni]

Trees use alpha to coverage, which is not the same as alpha blending (that would be too slow).
Also you'd need to fill transparent areas to avoid having bad transitions. It can be done with nvcompress like

    nvcompress -color -alpha -fillholes -bc3 file.png