"alpha texture file" in skin settings?

Hello!

I'm trying to get alpha channels working. I'm using paintshop pro. So far, using alpha channels in .tga files is proving to be a bit tricky. I decided to take another approach and split out the alpha channel into its own grayscale file. It seems like a more "portable" approach anyhow. I noticed that under Skin Settings / Texture File, there's an area called "Alpha Texture File", but it's always disabled. How can I merge in my grayscale alpha channel with my main skin?

Thanks!
- Bret

I wish I knew, sorry. I think the only way is to write a shader that calls on that texture for alpha testing. Alas, I cannot do shaders.

Hello! Hmm.... I know that it's somehow possible. I figured part of it out, but I'm still not successful. Here's what I've done so far:

1. Created the plant image with the background removed.

2. In Med, selected the texture file in the Skin Settings menu.

3. In the Skin Settings menu, under "Texture Format", I selected 32bit + Alpha.


Since my .tga file has a built in alpha map, I really expected it to work without any other steps -- but it didn't. Maybe there's still a problem with the paintshop pro style alpha maps? I continued by doing:

4. Created a separate image with the alpha map in blacks and grays.

5. After checking the "Alpha" checkbox in the Texture Format section under "Skin Settings", I was able to select the "Alpha Texture File". I thought that might work, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Any ideas?

Thanks!
- Bret

if you are using a tga with alpha, head over to the wiki and look for a vegitation shader..it should help.

I think I figured it out. Paintshop pro seems to be a bit deficient in how it saves transparencies. I saved out the file from Paintshop pro as a .tga, loaded it in to Paint.Net, and resaved it. That seems to have fixed the problem.

- Bret

Actually, I was incorrect. I'm still having problems. Could someone explain to me how I can use my .bmp file of a plant plus my .bmp of its alpha channel in MED (v7) to get the transparencies correct?

Thanks!
- Bret

in your main script set d3d_autotransparenby to on. then make the areas you want transparent an off color from the rest of the image(if it is grass set this color to R+8, G+8,B+8...lighter or darker.) also paint the very top left pixel of the image this color, and you should be set, I recomend reading the manual about this setting, as it may explain it better than me. By using it you can use 24 bit images as opposed to 32.

Paint Shop Pro saves the file as a 24 bit tga. The file must be a 32 tga to work as you want. I use Photoshop for tga textures as you can save them as 32 bit textures thereby preserving the transparency. You don't need shaders or alpha maps. Hope this helps.

Sorry FG, but it does not.
read the manual about "d3d_autotransparency ".

Hi Everyone,

I've been trying for hours to get my models to show up with the proper transparencies in MED. What a pain!! I got my model working fine in MilkShape, but now I'm having trouble converting it properly to MDL. Would someone be willing to try to convert my milkshape model to MDL for me?

I tried to circumvent my issues with Paintshop Pro's TGA strangeness by saving the skin as .pcx. This worked great for MilkShape.

Here's a link to the milkshape model: http://www.indiegamejobs.com/temp/plant1.zip

Thanks!
- Bret

Yay!! I think I've got it! I need to get it down to a science, then maybe I'll make a tutorial on the subject.

Thanks!
- Bret

I will look at it tonight and create a small video tutorial for it....nothing fancy, but to help you and others get the job done...I had similar troubles when I started messing with these things in 3dgs.

I'm running behind, but I will get this tut out soon.

I have a link in the tutorials section to the "overlay tutorial", it's in the scattered pixel thread(submission).