Problem with Opacity

brettmarshalltucker

Hello, everyone!

I'm fairly new to Substance Painter but have a pretty firm grasp on PBR materials so far. I'm working on a scene and need a glass material on part of a bookcase I made. I've watched a few tutorials on Opacity and have it set up correctly (as far as those tutorials are concerned) to display in the viewport as I edit the Opacity channel. 

Unfortunately, the alpha-blending shader is acting a lot like the alpha-test shader insofar as it is clipping the opacity as if it were a 0-1, on/off value. In the Allegorithmic tutorial series, the opacity is showing a gradient of value as the slider is adjusted, showing a wide range of values that let you really dial in just how opaque or transparent something is. This isn't happening for me and I'm wondering what I'm doing incorrectly as it seems very simple in these videos. As soon as the slider value goes below 1, it seems to turn completely to 0. I've tried opening and closing, reloading and re-texturing but nothing will let me adjust the opacity like I see done in these examples.

The goal here is to create some dirty glass with grime buildup in the edges and roughness painted throughout as I see fit so a believable glass material would be amazing! I believe what I have would act as such if I could just dial in the opacity correctly.

Aside from this issue, the shader is doing some weird things like creating a random hard edge as if the grime layers are creating some AO weirdness, though they have no normal maps to make AO from to create this edge. Also, when I paint over this edge, it doesn't disappear. Could just be a viewport bug as it comes and goes based on the camera.

Attached are some images of the issue. Thanks in advance!

Jerc

Do the doors have only one transparent surface or does the glass have a thickness? It may be a transaprency sorting issue. 

brettmarshalltucker

Jerc said:

Do the doors have only one transparent surface or does the glass have a thickness? It may be a transaprency sorting issue. 

Hey, Jerc.

The windows are a separate material from the doors. Basically, the wood, the glass and the metal are each separate. The glass does have a thickness map assigned but, physically, are just a flat plane as I knew backface culling wouldn't be an issue due to the viewer not being able to see out from inside the bookcase. I might not be answering your question effectively so let me know if you need more info. Thank you!

brettmarshalltucker

I just tried adding an opacity channel to the wood to see how that acted when the opacity is reduced. It seems to be acting the way I expected the glass to act. I must need the have a physical thickness to the geometry in order for it to work correctly. Am I right in assuming that?

Jerc

Could you try assigning an opaque material to the texture sets that don't need opacity instead of having the same shader for everything?
Click on the "main shader" button right to the texture set name in the texture set list and choose to create a new shader instance.

brettmarshalltucker

Jerc said:

Could you try assigning an opaque material to the texture sets that don't need opacity instead of having the same shader for everything?
Click on the "main shader" button right to the texture set name in the texture set list and choose to create a new shader instance.

You're a saint! Weird how that was causing this issue (or at the least not helping it.) It's working how I want it to now. I figured it was something small stumping me and I appreciate your simple solution!