How do you Photoshop gurus get your .tga files transparent for ToEE? Every time I try, Photoshop (Elements I'm using) converts the transparent sections to white when saved as a .tga. :angry:
Re: Transparency and .tgas I had that problem too, specially with monk's robes. Tbh, i don't have a clue why . In my case, now it doesn't happens anymore. Just a few ideas: - Are you saving in 32 bits/pixel? you should. - Go to "image/mode" and you should have setted to "RGB color" and "8 bits/channel". I'm not sure, but that last one could be the problem or part of it (it gave me problems with portraits) - Do all the changes you want, save, and don't open the image with photoshop imediately, instead open the image with another program ( i personally use Nero photosnap viewer, it will show the modified image not the normal one), then close and open in photoshop. Honestly, i can't think of anything else. that problem fixed by himself for me. But i recall having something to do with the 8/16 bit channel.
Re: Transparency and .tgas Thanks, HK. I believe I'm already doing the things you suggest. Incoming Adobe rant ---------- I'm hard-pressed to think of any more patently ridiculous situation than what I've come up against with this. Since the first post I've tried an absurd variety of different approaches to get a simple transparent .tga file, all of it essentially boiling down to random hammering on the keyboard. And in return I've got an equally absurd and utterly unpredictable bunch of differing results. Everything from transparency in areas that I wanted to be opaque to white areas that are supposed to be opaque and still no transparency to wacky outlines around intended transparent areas to total transparency - everything but the seemingly equally random outcome of the transparency I actually wanted. I even tried doing things the exact same way twice, and still got different results. Seriously. This is voodoo software at it's best, I take it. :roll: Really, Adobe should be ashamed at such a farce, and they should be held accountable. But of course nothing will ever change. They are The Monolith, after all. Oh, and their documentation is the worst I've ever seen anywhere, period. Just another prime example of a vendor who sees their customer sitting there but doesn't have a clue who they are. I've never seen so many 300 page manuals devoid of even the most basic information. No one has ever done so little with so much. :no: One other thing: their saving scheme is just plain stupid. They automatically change the name of any document you're saving to [name]- copy? Is that so you can be sure to have to click and type in the name field every time you want to save something? Ridiculous. And yet, there it is. Let this now become the official Photoshop beat down thread. Invoking name-change ...
This is exactly what I was saying in the KotB thread! I can't get it working either. Gaear - I'm in worse shape, I have Photoshop Elements vs 2, about 5 years old :sadblinky
Well, another glitch: I was fiddling with Cuch's MM pics. They're jpg, and i wanted some torches. I've found some via image search, and they where gif files (they have "indexed" color). I simply copypasted them in Cuch's MM pic...and bang, now i wasn't able to change any brush/eraser/clone/stamp tools size. When right clicking to reduce the brush i only got a funny effect on the screen and nothing else. i had to save the pic as psd, close the program and launch again. So, when you're using diferent files, remeber to change them to the same type; this can be done thru image/mode. Another thing for Ted and Gaear. -when you finish to fiddle with alpha channels, remeber to deselect it, click again the rgb channels, and then save. That could be the cause of problems too.
Unfortunately Elements doesn't deal with channels; instead they call them 'save selections.' (I'm sure this makes perfect sense somewhere in the halls of Photoshop expertise. For Average Joe user though it's a major hassle, because there's no documentation anywhere on how to work with them.) Save Selections are of a mystical quality in Elements: you blindly do random undocumented things with them like 'select inverse' or 'add to selection' or 'subtract from selection' and hope these maneuvers work. They never do. All this said, you can of course still do wonderful things with Photoshop. I just wish they'd get it all together, but no one ever does anymore, so why should Adobe? I'm sure that in the minds of Adobe, you're a pathetic software dinosaur loser. Apparently everyone is supposed to drop $100 a year on upgrades so you can be using the latest. Otherwise you're just plain out of the loop. :roll:
Humm, that sounds like masks. Example: You have a white square, with a black disk on the center. You select the wand mask tool (W), and click on the disk. Now your disk is slected to be modified. (it displays a slim line of points on the borders.) If you use select inverse , then the area to work changes to the background, the white square. If you use add to selection, you can select a new area from the background, and you'll be able to work with it along with the disk. If you use substract from selection, you can crop part of the selected area, say you crop a triangle from the disk to make a packman. You still have to select inverse, and paint the unselected portion of the disk to white. I dunno if you already know all that, but maybe can give you some clues... can you post a screenshot of the channel tools? Mine looks something like this
Alas, as I said there are no channel tools in Elements. I'm aware of what you're talking about re: masks and whatnot (figured it out through trial and error rather than reading it anywhere, of course; Adobe is mum on the topic :bored. The problem is none of it actually works as it's supposed to with .tgas. Instead, it works as I described above - something different every time, and never what you wanted or actually told it to do.
Okay, thanks to a helpful fellow by the name of Burt Chadbourne on the 'SL Exchange' forums, I now know how to do transparencies properly in PS Elements. Here are the steps for anyone else who may seek to endure this torture down the line: Apparently the missing link was the gray layer. Would never, ever have thought to do that. Nor would Adobe think to tell us. Tried it out in ToEE and it works. :joy: Thanks, Burt.
I use Paint.net, it's free, user friendly, and decently powerful with editing options. It's easy to get transparency in it, I've done so with multiple .tga files already.
Paint.net is great. I made a bunch of mods to external meshes I could get to without delving into the .dat files and found Paint.net didn't run into any snags other than making sure you save as an UNCOMPRESSED.tga.
