Transparent textures and framerate

[Amiryu Hosoi]

Hey hey,

I have a question. I am creating a bamboo edge around a pool and the textures I use are transparent but the same texture. When I stand in front of the bamboo and look in the bamboos direction my frame rate drops. When I turn and look away from the bamboo the frame rate climbs back to normal again. Can anybody tell me why this is happening? I think it is weird because the bamboo uses only 1 texture. The only thing I can think of is that the viewer has trouble with the ordering of the transparent layers in the bushes. Anyway, is there a fix at hand for the dropping frame rates>

Ami

[Dot Matrix]

Are they flexi plants? I've found that they can cause frame rates to drop in general.

[Amiryu Hosoi]

Hey Dot, nope, just a few prim stems and sculpt leaves.

Ami

[Handy Low]

Do the textures use 1-bit or 16-bit alpha? As I understand it, if every pixel in the image is either fully opaque or fully transparent (1-bit), it's much easier for the system to display the images in the correct order, and hence more efficient, thus improving your framerate.

Of course, textures that have semi-transparent areas (like glass in a window) cannot use 1-bit alpha, but other than that the only way I know of to test an existing texture is to have several in front of each other and move the cam around to see if they drop in and out of sequence. If they stay in the correct order front-to-back, the texture has 1-bit alpha.