Translucent materials: How to get perfect alpha blending on dark backgrounds?

Hi svv3dUDN, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply to my question and apologies for getting back to you so late.

In the mean time, I have done more testing and have reached the conclusion below.

As I am new here, I don’t know if this is a known issue - or whether I am doing something wrong…

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
32-bit textures are too bright and exhibit alpha artifacts when used in translucent materials whereas a 24-bit + an 8-bit texture look correct (see the attached screenshots).

HOW TO REPLICATE THE PROBLEM

  1. Download AlphaTest.zip via this link: Cahoots — Ann Arbor tech coworking
  2. Load AlphaTestLevel.umap
  3. Observe the difference between the two sprites, and compare the two materials.
  4. The material with the 32-bit texture exhibits alpha artifacts and is brighter than the material with the 24 + 8-bit textures.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

  • PNG textures with transparency are affected the same way as 32-bit textures.
  • Turning *sRGB *off in the texture settings only seems to make the 24+8-bit textures brighter (despite the fact that the tooltip says that it should be turned off when using “alpha channels individually as masks”).
  • The texture sample type in the 24+8-bit material needs to be set to ‘Color’ as opposed to ‘Linear Color’ in order to look correct.