Alpha Maps vs Opacity Maps

Sarish7

Hey guys,

I'm making 3D models for a project in Unreal 4 and texturing them in substance painter. In this instance I have chain male that I want to make transparent. 

My question is what is a better pipeline for adding transparency: using an opacity channel or an alpha channel? Is there a difference between the two? What I've found online mostly says they do the same thing and can be stacked in the same way. 

Thank you!

Froyok

Answered here : https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=13274.0

Eric Chadwick

Yeah you can use any channel of a texture as your opacity map, depends on which shader you create or use.

Typically the alpha channel of the color map is used. Sometimes it's a separate map like Froyok said.

We have some info on our wiki that might help you.

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Transparency_map

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ChannelPacking

Sarish7

Thanks! This is very helpful!

Justo

:B Wait a bit at least for someone to answer the thread before you go making a copy past in another forum!