One Mesh Over Another

[UnkoMan]

Okay, here's the deal.

I'm trying to put two meshes into one. I want the torso of one mesh to be visible, whilst the lower limbs, hands, and head of the other mesh are also visible. So I alpha them both and try it that way. Well, that makes blocks of disappearance happen all over the place. It's no good, I tells ya. No good.

So then I thought I would shrink the limbs on the one down to nothing and try to deal that way... Well when I shrink the limbs of one, the limbs of the other shrink, so that's out, too.

What do you guys think? Had experience doing this? What had I ought to do?

[Tomato]

http://www.mediafire.com/?4jyu131drr75fp4

Clips like a murs, but short of an actual mesh it's the best you're gonna get.

[bevo]

Johnny Patches tips and tricks thread. IT is tedious.....very..very...tedious, but zeroing out the triangles you don't want works pretty well.

[hoss20]

This post from Johnny Patches should help quite a bit:
http://freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=49313.msg672604#msg672604

I used this technique when making my Bushmaster skope, attaching a male_basic torso on top of the snake body from Xcom_snakeman by Jik. If you are using two meshes of the same type (both male_basic or male_heavy), then things should sync up reasonably well. Otherwise, the keyframes are going to send things flying all over. By the way, I had also tried the alpha route and shrinking the bones. Ah, live and learn, I guess. Let us know how things are progressing.

[UnkoMan]

Yeah, the body types are the same. They already link up well on the keyframes.

But, hoss, I will try this Johnny Patches way. He's a fella who knows what he is talking about. And your Bushmaster looks totally awesome, so...
I'll give it a shot! Thank you!

And, Tomato, I will check out what you have posted when I get home tonight. Thanks as well.

[UnkoMan]

So, anyhow... I just decided to go with Tomato's generous mesh. It was a great help.

BUT! I was hoping to be able to lay one mesh over another so that I could skin multiple characters on the same mesh. Example, check out Grase Hopper from AA.
http://heroforce.freedomforceforever.com/afghanant.html (The originals section)

She comes with a helmet and without.

Now I've got it fine for a cape element. Goes away no problem. But I have these gloves that overtake the hands. From certain angles they just end up making the arms go invisible. On the other hand (get it?!), when the forearms are alpha'd and the gloves are visible from certain angles the arm spots show through and make parts of the gloves see through.

Does that make sense? Also, is that something that is fixable, or should I just go look for different glove pieces? One that don't hook up to the skin instance?

[NomadX]

Try changing the value in "Flags" under the NiAlphaProperty to something over 5000.  Or for  example look at the values for a mesh that doesn't clip when alphaed and use that.

[hoss20]

Anytime I have an alpha problem, I do what Nomad suggested and take the values from an aplha enabled piece that I knew worked "normally". I generally use a Flag value of 13037 and a Threshold value of 200.

[UnkoMan]

Tried it. Worked perfect! Ha ha ha!
Thanks so much, guys!