I Googled my problem and could not find an answer to this issue. Finishing up model and textures, everything looking good. But when I apply my alpha map Maya's view port and hardware render the area I have mapped out just fine, but also turns the rest of the model and diffuse texture semi-transparent. And it does it for all my alpha mapped items. Odd thing is it renders just fine in Maya software.

I'm turn this in for an art test at a small golf simulation company so I'm going to be presenting these renders and the actual file itself in, and I don't want to turn in a half see through project.

This is what I have before I apply my alpha channel to the transparency attribute.


This is what I get when the alpha channel is in the transparency attribute.


Is this normal? I've found a few posts saying this is a bug in Maya. Here is my diffuse.

It's alpha sorting, and not the greatest in Maya.

As far as having this look right in Maya for now I would say make 2 materials one with transparency enabled, and one without. Then apply the shader with transparency only to the objects that need it and vice versa. If the wind vane is the only thing using an alpha, probably make it a separate object too.

in 2013 there is a depth peeling... thats much better now...

Depth Peeling: Depth peeling transparency renders per-pixel transparency via multiple passes. At each pass, the next transparent layer in each pixel is peeled and composited behind previous layers. After the set number of peeled layers, all remaining layers are handled in a single pass using the weighted average algorithm. This helps to balance transparency quality versus performance, as depth peeling provides very high quality transparency but with a performance cost.

can that peeling get activated in maya right now? or is it only in maya 2013 ?

i agree that you should make 2 materials
1x all opaque and than
1x all transparent stuff (have as little as possible of that ! )

also what might help a little (but no guarantee that the guys were you send in your art test will have it activated) is this setting on the view-port: shading > polygone transparency sorting

thats a new feature in 2013...

Thanks for the response guys, yeah I just remade the model and texture sheet without the alpha channel. I was well below the poly limit for the test, so I was ok there. Now I'm just nervous they may think I'm not sure how to take advantage of the alpha channel capabilities.