I've got a little disapointed trying to figure out how to do alpha transparency for model skins with the paint program I currently use ( Photoshop Lite) So I Started learning How to use GIMP today

Thought I'd post a flame iamge I created from starting to learn GIMP



I have figured out how to make part of a skin totaly transparent using GIMP but i havn;t figured out yet how to do a gradient transparency.

So far I havn't had to use the transparency sort material script on what I've tested.


Any suggestions, pointers or point in direction of a GIMP tutorial on making gradient transparents in a skin?

use grey in the alpha channel? i dunno :/

That is a really nice fire.

Concerning the transparency:
1) You can create a new picture and set the default background to transparent.
2) Then you can click the gradient tool from the tool box
3) change the parameters of this tool so that it fills from Foreground to Transparent
4) now you can make your desired gradient

Frank

Hi Grimber

I'm not sure how you would get a gradient transparency with the gimp, a suggestion is to set the foreground color to black and use the gradient tool (FG to transparency), then all the black appears instead of transparency, so that's a problem :S Unless there is a way to get an image to transparency option using the gradient tool.

been trying to mak a sprite of the fire to cotnribute. hasn't been going so well as hard to get it to look good under animation

10 frame fire sprite



Workign a bit more with GIMP and transparancy I can get some good transparent gradients now

What Ive been finding so far is the transparancy sort issue seems to be with surfaces with opaque textures behind transparent ones that cause the sorting issue.

Surfaces with transparency to them behind other transparent surfaces don't seem to have a sort issue



using the material script off the boards here fixes the sort issue with opaque surfaces, but then kills any semi transparencies.



Im guessing that the only solution then for models with both solid opaque surfaces and semi transpaernt surfaces ( like for glass) is to build 2 seperate meshs and vertex attach them. At least untill the sorting issue can be worked out.

Very nice work Thanks

Hey Grimber. You did a great job with the fire. The animation is very good as well. I think the only thing that might help is if you 'anchor' the base of the fire and use a twist, warp, wave type filter to rotate around the base in addition to oscillating the flame heights -right now the fire seems to have horizontal movement. I whipped up a quick example here at work during my break to show what I mean. It's not perfect as the top of the flame should move horizontally and I exaggerated the side to side movement but best I could do in a minute (wouldn't do to have the boss think I draw during work ).

Animated gif ...

http://bfenter.com/burtstuff/Animation1.gif

Screenshot of the frames ...

http://bfenter.com/burtstuff/ss_fire.jpg

Hope it helps.

thanks burt ill have to look into how to anchor an image ( i know gimp has that ability just never looked at it)

I also was thinking it might help to mabey try a morph tool to create frames between each existing frame to get better transitions

I am not sure if I understood here everything right, because making a gradient transparenty is very simple. It´s creating a gradient image in the alpha channel, using gaussian blur or a gradient fill tool.
The sorting problem has only somthing to do with the number of the vertices. Vertices created with lower numbers are rendered behind vertices with higher numbers in transparent mode. The sorting script sounds very interesting.