Half-Life Transparency Test

as of July, 2003

by NinjaGrinch


NOTE: The numbers on the textures are palette indexes for that section of the texture.

Rendermode(Solid): OpenGL, Direct3D, and Software all looked the same:
-Transparency test - Rendermode: Solid

Rendermode(Texture): OpenGL and Direct3D looked the same, but Software was different:
-Transparency test - Rendermode: Texture - For Hardware Rendering
-Transparency test - Rendermode: Texture - for Software Rendering

 

Conclusions:
  1. The color used for transparency does not matter.
  2. The palette index must be 255.
  3. To ensure consistency between video modes, Rendermode should set to Solid.

NOTE: Some graphics programs number the pallete index starting at 1 through 256 (instead of 0 through 255). To be clear (pun intended), the transparency color should be the LAST color in the palette

 

DECAL TRANSPARENCY AND CUSTOM DECALS

As of November 2003

by NinjaGrinch
This is an experiment to illustrate how decal transparency is based on the palette indexes, with ID0 to ID254 controlling the level of transparency from completely opaque (ID0) to completely transparent (ID254). The color of the decal is determined by palette ID255. The only exception is when a decal has blue (0,0,255) in ID255, in which case, the decal is rendered in full color, with only pixels using the blue in ID255 being transparent.

Unfortunately, use of custom decals like the ones pictured below can only be achieved by making a completely new mod. This is because the decal textures are ONLY loaded from either the valve\decals.wad, or the modname\decals.wad; if the decal is not in one of these two .wads, then it simply doesn't show up. If you're making a single-player map, this is no problem, you can just set up a custom mod just for that map, with your own custom decals.wad. But for multiplayer mods, using custom decals would mean distributing a custom decals.wad with the map, that overwrote the original decals.wad of the mod. Then if someone else distributed a custom decals.wad, then yours would get overwritten, etc. etc.