IFW Lightwave Textures  Tutorial Six - Making a Chain-Link Fence

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Introduction
	This tutorial describes how to make a chain-link fence texture. The main lesson to learn from this is the layering of shaders, particularly those with transparency.   Download the fence scene (2K)

Part 1 - Quick Fence Object

The first thing to do is to make a fence object. So add a box in the modeller and using the numeric dialog set -2m, 0m, 0m for the low XYZ and 2m, 60cm, 0m for the high XYZ. Change the surface name to fence and save the object as Fence.lwo.

Part 2 - First Part of the Chain Link Surface

In layout load the Fence.lwo object. Bring up the Surface panel for the fence surface and add IFW_Linear. In the options dialog box set the size to 0.05, 0.05, 0.05 and set the Rotate to 0,0,45. Now what we want to do is make thin strands of wire with transparent gaps between so set colors 1,2 and 3 to black and color 4 to white. Set the blends points B1, B2, B3, B4 to 0%, 0%, 80%, 100% respectively. Then to make the black parts transparent set the A1, A2 and A3 to 100% and check the Transparency check box in the Affect section. One last thing make the base transparency 100% and in the IFW_Linear uncheck the Force Affects check box. This allows us to layer any following surfaces. Basically, the next shader will also have transparency and we don't want this to remove parts of the existing texture so we do not force it. When this rendered the fence should look like the following:

Part 3 - Finishing the Chain Link

Add to the fence surface a second IFW_Linear and set exactly the same settings as the previous one except make the Rotate to 0,0,-45 so that the links go the other way crossing the previous links. The final thing to complete the surface is to check the Layer check box in the Affect section of the second IFW_Linear. By doing this we are telling the second IFW_Linear not to overwrite the underlying color in the transparent parts. To see why we do this uncheck it and render. You will notice that the first set of links are now darkened. Also, try setting the base transparency back to 0% and unchecking the Force Affects check boxes for both the IFW_Linear textures. You should now notice that the second IFW_Linear forces its transparency on underlying IFW_Linear wiping it out. This is an important point to remember, by setting the base transparency to 100% and stacking textures the transparency can be controlled to give a variety of effects by unchecking the Force Affects check box.