I am currently writing an FBX exporter for an inhouse tool so we can use D5 for rendering. It worked mostly great, but I’m struggling a bit with passing on transparency information correctly. Maybe you can help me with some information?
a) Which settings in FBX can be used to control the material template which D5 will be using? I found out so far that for diffuse materials it seems to use “custom” or “transparent” template based on the alpha value. Which is good. But for textures it seems to use “custom” or “custom alpha” which seems to be based on pixel values inside the texture? Maybe the lowest alpha pixel in the texture? Or is it the difference between alpha values? Can you tell me what exactly it is which causes textures to chose one template or the other? And is there any way I can control this further/better? For example I’d really like to have “transparency” template with some textures.
b) Is there any way to set the transparency mask texture via FBX? Like for example a layer texture with specific blend mode and alpha source? Or some specific names?
Any help would be welcome 
Hi there. I am here to assist you with your queries. Do you mean inserting a custom pattern material into a transparent material and individually adjusting the objects in the imported .fbx file?
It’s not about doing this manually in D5, that works. The question is if I can do it automatic via fbx.
So the first question is which exact parameters in a fbx file decide which material template you get from them in D5.
And yes, the second one is about transparent patterns. If there is any way to get a “Custom alpha” material template + the opacity mask parameter directly from a fbx file. As in which fbx parameters have to be exactly set in the fbxsdk for this to work.
(edit: For example one solution I had hoped might work was using a layer texture, setting the first one to opaque, second one to translucent and then using an rgb intensity alpha source for the second one. But I get the feeling layer textures are probably in general not yet used)
The nicest solution would be if I could see the fbx loader code in D5, then I could figure it out myself 
But I guess that’s unlikely to happen.
What would also help me is if anyone has a working workflow with any tool which exports fbx files to D5 which does generate the “custom alpha” material + opacity map. Or a material with texture ending up with the “transparency” material template. Because once I know a tool which can do that I can try to get an example made with it and analyse the resulting fbx.
Hi there, you mentioned that you had trouble passing on transparency information correctly. May I know if this problem occurs in other DCCs? If it does work in other DCCs and the latter for D5, may we collect the file and test it on our end? What software are you using for the 3D model of your project?
As for the “Custom alpha” material that you wish to set up in the FBX file, alpha materials are usually associated with ‘opacity maps’(creating hollow effects); hence, you will need a png texture (image) or something similar for d5 to read it as a ‘Custom Alpha automatically’
You can also check on this link for further information regarding materials. Hope any of this helps. Thank you! https://docs.d5render.com/user-guide/material
What does DCC mean in this context?
The software is as I wrote above an inhouse tool for which I am writing a fbx exporter so we can use D5.
And if there is any other software which can solve the 2 specific problems I mentioned and can produce a fbx I can analyse I’ll be glad to hear about it.
And I know I need this texture. As mentioned I can set it manually. But that is not what I am asking. I am asking if there are parameters in the fbx format to pass this through.
I think this really needs the person who wrote the D5 fbx importer to answer. I had hoped maybe he/she reads the forum.
Hi, I apologize for not being able to give you a satisfactory answer on this matter, I have forwarded your queries to our team. Can you send us your .fbx file so we can test it on our end? Please send it to support@d5techs.com and have it titled ‘Clov-Forum’
If I could make an example it would mean I’d have the answer to my questions already.