Billboard how to [SOLVED]

[straybullet]

I have searched everywhere and can not find information on how to use billboards, man Shiva really need a documentation update.

I know what billboards are (or at least I think I do) allows you to us 2D images in 3d space by the image always facing the camera.

So I make a PNG 512x512 with transparent background, import it as a texture, then I create a new billboard model. But how do I add the image/texture to the billboard?

Thanks in advance

[Selzier]

If the texture (png) is imported, then you need to make a Material and use your texture as Effect Map 0 on your material.

http://www.stonetrip.com/developer/doc/editor/modules/materialeditor

Once you have a material you can apply this to your billboard face by dragging it from the Material Editor onto your object in the 3d scene viewer.

[straybullet]

Thanks for you reply, I can not drop a created material with the imported texture on the billboard, it has a red minus when I try like its not accepting anything

UPDATE: but the model editor allows me to, but during the preview of the game its all pink, in render mode that is it doesn't show the tree only in the model editor does it show it.

UPDATE 2: it seems it has some sort of default called Tesselation that was set to 2, changing it to one fixed the issue. Does any one know where the documentation for billboard is located?

[Selzier]

Try to select the billboard first by clicking on it, and then try putting the material on it. Use Selection Mode (Esc) and Textured Preview Mode (Num-pad 6)

According to your updates, it sounds like maybe is just wasn't selected the first time.

A billboard is just a pre-built 3d model included in Shiva that is a simple plane shape with "look at the camera" checked. The tessellations would be the number of times the plane is duplicated.

http://www.stonetrip.com/developer/doc/concept/attributes/shape

[Shaderman]

I just ran into the same problem and none of the above steps worked. Here's how I was able to apply a material to a billboard:

- Created the model from Data Explorter -> Create -> Model -> Shape -> Billboard, using default values
- Dragged the model into the scene
- Reset the translation (was 0, 0, 15 after creation) to make the model visible
- Unticked "Look at the camera" in the Shape Attributes (the plane isn't visible anymore)
- Typed in 180 for the Y axis rotation in the back in Common Attributes to see the plane again
- Dragged the material over from the Material Editor
- Reset the rotation
- Ticked "Look at the camera" in the Shape Attributes again

I guess the problem with dragging a material on a billboard simply is, that the mesh rotation is wrong after inserting it into the scene and thus there's no area detected in the editor to allow dropping a material.