Fading objects to transparent - Apply shader with a script?

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Hi,

I have a cube which has its box collider set to 'is Trigger' and a Rigidbody component (to make the Trigger work) which moves forward towards some stationary objects which also have box collider components.

I am going to have a camera moving towards these objects and want the objects to fade to transparent when they approach. For this, I have created a trigger that will cause any objects that collide with it to gradually become transparent. So far, the trigger detects the objects fine and on doing so creates a temporary renderer object to reference each object's renderer. I then create a Color object with transparency to apply to their renderer.

Now, the objects change colour just fine but their alpha does not change. I have a suspicion that I have to use a shader for this, but am not sure how to apply one if this is the case.

Also, if anyone can suggest a more elegant method for fading objects approaching the camera then that would be great too. I would like to try to avoid using iTween as am trying to learn the ropes.

Thanks in advance.

  void OnTriggerEnter(Collider theCollision)

      if (theCollision.gameObject.tag == "Obstacle")

          Debug.Log("Trigger collided with an Obstacle");

          Color transparencyColor = new Color(1, 1, 1, 0.01f);

          Renderer tempRenderer;

          tempRenderer = theCollision.renderer;

          Debug.Log("tempRenderer.name = " + tempRenderer.name);

          tempRenderer.material.color = transparencyColor;

      if (theCollision.gameObject.tag == "Player")

          Debug.Log("Trigger collided with the Player");

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by kevinseligmann · Apr 17, 2012 at 08:13 PM

Try changing

 tempRenderer.material.color = transparencyColor;

to

 tempRenderer.material.color.a = 0.01f;

Does it work?

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Lo0NuhtiK · Apr 17, 2012 at 08:17 PM 0

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if not, try

tempRenderer.materials[0].color = whatever ;

renderer materials is an array

^{Edited : (I didn't read your question until after I read the posted answer and commented) ... some shaders don't have alpha or allow it's alpha to be accessed through '.color.a' etc ; if you're getting colors to change, but not alpha values, try a different shader and see if that's the problem.}

syclamoth · Apr 18, 2012 at 02:28 AM 0

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Yeah you need to use a transparent shader. Either switch materials at the beginning of the fade, or render transparent the whole time. I don't recommend using a transparent shader the whole time, though, because you can sometimes get weird and frustrating z-sorting issues.

Answer 2

Answer by asimov · Apr 17, 2012 at 11:39 PM

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your suggestion, they both work which is great.

The main problem appeared to be that I needed to have a Transparent Shader type for the material applied to the Obstacles in order to change the Alpha value. I was using the default Diffuse Shader.

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kevinseligmann · Apr 18, 2012 at 02:22 AM 0

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Yes, I forgot to tell you that! It happened to me a few weeks ago, and I also realized that I need to use a shader with transparency, otherwise it doesn't work.

Glad to help!

Fading objects to transparent - Apply shader with a script?

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