Hey all, I'm slowly learning some modding... Currently I'm trying to make part of a vanilla model invisible, to avoid creating a new mesh with that part removed.

I'm struggling with making a .mtl that is completely invisible, there is always some ghosting visible. I'm probably doing it all wrong so can someone here suggest the best way to do it please?

In the .mdl file, I replaced the .mtl I want invisible with a sample transparency .mtl from the modding manual site (transparency_transparent.mtl). I made sure I included the .mtl's referenced files in my test mod (albedo / ao / normal map .tga files).

I've tried various combinations of the following and got some improved level of invisibility, but there is still some ghosting visible:
- changing type from PHYS_TRANSPARENT_NRML_MAP to PHYS_TRANSPARENT to get rid of the normal map;
- changing alphaScale to 0;
- changing the fade_out_range values to 0; and
- removing refs to the albedo / ao / normal maps (set to "" ).
(Note that .mtl file also had alpha_test cutout and two_sided values all set true, which I changed to false.)

I then changed the polygon_offset factor to z-buffer it "out of existence", used 10000 lol. It "worked", I don't see any ghost of that part of the mesh anymore, but I feel dirty about it. I'm worried it's not the cleanest way to do this, especially for performance or avoiding other unwanted effects.

Note when I removed the .tga map file refs from the .mtl, it seems the game substituted other default files in their place (I could see them referenced in-game using debug view, they had "default" in their file names).

It's starting to feel like I need to create my own albedo / ao maps that render invisibly somehow? Or is there a much easier way to do this? I simply want the part of the mesh that has a specific .mtl assigned to disappear, without having to model a new mesh with that part physically removed.

Many thanks!