TG4 Beta - 2D image alpha has rough edges

[jamesgrote]

I'm adding a 2d image in my scene that has alpha transparency. I could never get this to work right in TG3 and TG4 seems to be the same. I can render the png in the scene but the edges are abrupt and have no transparency to them. The question: in the Default Shader, is the Opacity using an image alpha channel just on/off or capable of smooth alpha levels?

Test project attached.

Interestingly, RTP mode correctly previews the alpha edges but the render doesn't.
[attachimg=1]

I'm really hoping this can work in TG4. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[Matt]

I hope to get this working some time during 4.x. But for now it only works in RTP, or for shadows in full renders. From the change log:

Partial-opacity shadows. The renderer can now render partially-opaque shadows of non-displaceable objects. Partial opacity is achieved with the Default Shader by using opacity less than 1 or using an opacity texture or opacity functon (many vegetation models already do this, with partial opacity occurring on anti-aliased edges in the texture). For now, this only works for shadows, while opacity visible to the camera still works as before: it can only be either 0 or 1 and each pixel will jump to whichever value is closest. The RTP has an extra capability that's not in the main render: the RTP can render these partial opacities visible to the camera as well, but we'll change this in future to match the capabilities of the main renderer. Please note: Partial opacity is not the same as refractive transparency in the Glass Shader and Water Shader. If you want to use this new feature to render semi-transparent shadows of glass-like objects, we recommend that you use a separate INVISIBLE object for casting shadows with reduced opacity, while keeping the visible object fully opaque (opacity 1) with shadows turned off. This will avoid surprises in future versions of Terragen that can render partial opacity visible to the camera.

Matt