Render Issue With Xfrog .tgo Files

[RichTwo]

I've been away for some time due to a winter storm here in North Texas having knocked out my internet (and TV) services, but now all is good!

I had recently purchased an Xfrog volume pack, Oceania 1.  Lots of really nicely detailed foliage, but only one specie (all 9 variations) of them that I've found so far does not render properly.  Instead of rendering leaves, they come out as black polygons.  I checked the image files associated with the colour images and they all look normal.  I tried adjusting the translucency and it has no effect.  I compared the Default shader settings against one that I know will render and there's no difference. So it must be something with the Object Part nodes, which have no adjustable settings that I can see.  I have contacted Xfrog support, but as I now know they are a tad slow in responding.  So in the meantime, maybe one of you would have some insight.

[Nala1977]

it looks like you didnt plug in the opacity mask on the card leaves object, so its not using the alpha channel to isolate the leaves. there should be an alpha channel image black and white you need to plug on the opacity input in the material

[RichTwo]

That certainly makes sense, though I'm unsure why the opacity wasn't already plugged in with the image.  So far everything else in the pack works perfectly.

So here's what I did.  I found corresponding the alpha image and plugged it in and rendered.  No change at all.  I set opacity to zero and rendered - something I'd never normally do.  All the polygons went away, but there were no leaves.  For some reason, between the setting of 0.5 and 0.4 it's either 100% or 0% opacity.  But it seems the the RTP preview shows the detail (). And every detail. trunk, branches, twig, leaves are all solid black.  I'm pretty sure it isn't something I am (or not) doing.

[WAS]

Xfrog opacity maps often need invert mapped checked.

[RichTwo]

Xfrog opacity maps often need invert mapped checked.

Thanks, Jordan - That fixed it.  But the question lingers: Why should extra effort be needed when the files should be (almost) ready to use as-is?

Well, at least I can make the changes and save them into the files.  I'm going to go through all 20 species, each with 9 variations.  It'll give me something to do for a few hours...

[Nala1977]

Xfrog opacity maps often need invert mapped checked.

Thanks, Jordan - That fixed it.  But the question lingers: Why should extra effort be needed when the files should be (almost) ready to use as-is?

Well, at least I can make the changes and save them into the files.  I'm going to go through all 20 species, each with 9 variations.  It'll give me something to do for a few hours...

did you import the TGO or the obj?

[RichTwo]

@ Nala. Didn't import anything. Just opened the box. Some of the files are showing them lying flat so I have to rotate minus 90 degrees so they are upright. All of them need adjustments to translucency. It's gonna be a little work on my part. That opacity thing blew my mind. I mean do I have to be a mind reader? Cmon. Just need some love.

[WAS]

The old OBJ species will need rotating. The TGO species should import fine, if the opacity map isn't loading inverted something has changed in TGs reader, or the map names have changed on disk so they can't be found, so must be reloaded manually and checking inverted map wasn't known about.

[Dune]

TG asks whether it's XFrog for objects, and indeed then rotates. I always make an RGB file with an alpha layer (white for leaf), to keep the number of files low, so that might be an idea for you; copy the extra opacity texture into a new alpha channel in PS or so (and invert it if needed), save as LZW Tif. Then when importing a texture in default shader you can easily copy the color to the opacity slot and check alpha.
But not all obj's can be saved as tgo's I think.

[WAS]

TG can also just read alpha, so you can use the alpha mask to simply cut out the texture into a blank document and save as alpha png/tiff (not alpha channel, alpha alpha)

[raymoh]

Well, I understand RichTwo: you don't expect purchased plant packs to still have any corrections applied anywhere. That would annoy me quite a bit. That's what comes to mind: "Master, the work is done, should I fix it now?". This is where I think XFrog was a bit "inattentive", to put it mildly....

[RichTwo]

Not meaning to beat the proverbial dead horse but I have been two days editing the files. Just over halfway through. After a few hours I become brain dead. 

I found that none few had an opacity image plugged into the ones associated with trunks and branches. The displacement factor any of them wasn't even close. Translucency on leaf and flowers was nearly see-through. A few were rotated to appear flat to the terrain. I even found one that didn't have a default shader connected to the part. This has become a learning experience for sure. 

Wow. I'm glad it wasn't a really important thing like a house or vehicle that I bought.

[WAS]

I honestly haven't experienced this. I have all of their current assets besides the HD potted flowers and stuff, and only the OBJ which weren't meant for TG load on Z for up. The TGO's all seem to load fine besides the opacity.

I'll check the Oceana pack.

PS I actually use the OBJ versions, and run them through poseray, flip them, assign materials to groups under groups tab, and then with some models I disabled leaves and subdiv trunks. THen I setup them up in TG and save as TGO for modern use.

[RichTwo]

I honestly haven't experienced this. I have all of their current assets besides the HD potted flowers and stuff, and only the OBJ which weren't meant for TG load on Z for up. The TGO's all seem to load fine besides the opacity.

I'll check the Oceana pack.

Well I finally got through with fixing all of things that should be. There were only two out of 180 files that weren't oriented right. No problem there. And I found one other specie that I could not do anything to fix. All nine variants have the same problem of rendering the card with the leaf or flower. And inverting the opacity images didn't do anything. Nor my randomly checking or unchecking anything related.
In my former job I was a quality control inspector. Under my scrutiny I would have rejected this whole package before it got released. It's all up to spec or it's not. I'm not upset about it, just saying.

[WAS]

Yeah there seems to be some off models in some of the packs. I wanted to do something African like and a few models in a single species were rotated 90 degrees while the rest aren't. Was strange.