Viewing the Sample Project

• Open B3DS
• Select Alpha Lighting under the Blaze 3D Extras to open the Blaze 3D project (loads up the .bla file). This may take a little while to load as it has to import the 3D model’s geometry and textures.
• Click the Publish Preview button on the bottom as can be seen in the above image.
• The finished presentation will be shown within Blaze 3D Studio.

When viewing this Blaze 3D presentation, you will notice that the numbers 1 and 2 have alternative lighting from the rest of the model. This is achieved through the use of alpha lighting and alpha transparency in Blaze 3D Studio.

How to Include Alpha Lighting and Transparency in a 3D model

In order to apply alpha lighting to a 3D model in Blaze 3D Studio, do the following:

• Create alpha maps of the texture. (Refer to tex1_alpha and tex2_alpha in the 3D Source Files directory)
  
  
• Create a material called number1 using tex1.jpeg as the texture (this will be used for alpha lighting). Apply tex1_alpha.jpg to the ambient colour channel of the number1 material (for Maya users), self illumination channel (for 3DS Max users) or luminosity channel (for Lightwave users) within the material attributes dialogue in the 3D software application.
  
  
• Create a material called number2 using text2.jpg as the texture (this will be used for alpha transparency). Apply tex2_alpha.jpg to the transparency channel of the number two materal (for Maya users), opacity channel (for 3DS max users) or the transparency channel (for Lightwave users) within the material attributes dialogue in the 3D software application.
  
  
• Open Blaze 3D Studio > Create new project > Import 3D file or double click on cube.bla
  
  
• Note that an additional surface (Alternative Surface: number1) of the material has been created to which the alpha lighting was applied in the 3D software application. (Refer to Figure 1) This additional surface can now be lit independently from Surface: Number1.

Figure 1: Note that alternative surface for number 1 has been created.