as the post says, i am currently converting some models to mdl 5 format, the tree models natuarly require an alpha channel, however it won`t work at all. the tga file says it has an alpha channel, and i have checked it in both cs2 and psp. can anyone think of any reason why this will not work? here is the mdl 5 file.
http://www.4shared.com/file/17979193/f9d9fef3/fan_tree2.html

u have to be sure that the invisible part it really the right dark but i have tried it too with a week ago to set a alpha channel to a model of mine but it didn' work.
sam

well the black is blacl it is set to 0 0 0, can`t get any blacker than this can you?

You are not doing the alpha map properly you have a 16 or 24 bits skin in your model, i made a new tga 32 bits alpha map and it works ok.

If you want i can upload it to you but my advice to you is make it yourself.

A simple example video here

sorry mate but your wrong, the tga file does have an alpha channel i loaded the tga as a sprite and the alpha channel works just fine it is only when i export as mdl 5 from ultimate unwrap 3d that this problem occurs. i imported in med and saved as mdl7 and it works ok, however the mdl 5 export from med seems to be different from the unwrap one, as unwrap says the file has an error?

not sure who is wrong, but i converted the mdl7 model i have to mdl5 and it works fine. Besides, you didnt mentioned above about U3D thing.

Dont know if the u3d exporter have problems so i cant help you on that matter.
I just changed the skin you had in your file with a new one with alpha chanel.

did you convert it with med? i`m sure that the export from med to mdl5 has changed somehow so that unwrap can no longer read it. has the mdl5 format been changed?

hey, just change in Preferences -> gxl object -> gxl2basdx9.dll to gxl2basdx9a.dll for 2d and 3d views and then let me know.

i changed the dll like you said but after building the wmb the alpha channel stil will not work with the mdl5 mesh exported from unwrap. i think i`m going to have to give up on this, no matter what i try it refuses to work.

I dont understand why you should give up on this it works for me, i´ll tell what i´ve done:

1 - opened your mdl5 file and for some reason you have a 16 bits skin texture, so this way it will not work;

2 - after a while MED wont open no skin editor even for others mdl7 files;

3 - so i changed the gxl object, now it opens the unwrap for all files (mdl5 and mdl7);

4 - exported your skin as bmp and created the alpha channel map in PS like said above and exported as tga 32 bits;

5 - imported the new skin to your model and overriding the old one and save the file as mdl5;

6 - now you have the tree with alpha working.

Still not understand why you are using the old mdl5 file format, but if you want i´ll upload the files, do you want it?