item transparency rubbish

[Legacy_Roddish]

               okay, so i'm making item icons for existing items, and i leave the background pure black as instructed, yet my items never have transparency.

what am i doing wrong, other than breathing?
 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               Have you set the alpha property of the object to less than 1.0, as in 0.8 in the .mdl file?

Are you using a xxx.TXI file to specify the alpha setting for that particular texture?

Is the texture a 24bit or 32bit?

Beyond that, I wouldn't have a real clue, as I have never worked on the icon settings at all.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               If you want transparency with your item inventory icons, be sure to:

1. Make sure your image is a flat (1 layer) image with an extra "alpha" layer.  Anything white in this alpha layer will be solid, black will be transparent/invisible, and shades of grey will give partially transparent results.
2. Save as a 32-bit targa (.tga) image.  24-bit won't hold the alpha layer ,and will just appear solid (as if with an all-white alpha layer).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Roddish]

               ok, in a nutshell;


making a hello kitty backpack via iit_bigbox_. made me sprite in psp8, added a layer mask, looked like it was good in the software. the 24bit uncompressed tgas i have been restricted to in psp were good until that point, no matter how many times i try it doesnt save the transparency right, it just comes up with a white border where the transparency should be, and when you re-open the file the mask is gone and here once was transparent s white.  realising the 24bit save was a no-no, i copied my sprite into photoshop cs8 instead, applied the layer mask as before, this time i was able to save it as a 32 bit uncompressed, and as before the software liked it. nwn did not however . still no mask, still white border.

this is how it should be done, ne?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Post your icon and I'll take a look. I use PSP 7 and have never had a problem with 24 bit storing the alpha channel.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

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                     Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 20 août 2011 - 05:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               

Pstemarie wrote...

Post your icon and I'll take a look. I use PSP 7 and have never had a problem with 24 bit storing the alpha channel.

It is "adding" the other 8 bits of the alpha during save.

To the best of my knowledge. you can't have Alpha without having a 32bit data format.  8 bits for red, 8 bits for green, 8 bits for blue, with the additional 8 bits assigned to the alpha channel per pixel. So you end up with 32 bits per pixel. 

If you check your files, I am sure you will find that they are actually 32 bit format in size.  You will of course have to do the pixel math to determine how large a 24bit vs 32 bit file would end up being, but I have NEVER seen a 24bit format file work as an alpha. 

Unless you are doing something that the rest of us don't know anything about?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               

Roddish wrote...

ok, in a nutshell;


making a hello kitty backpack via iit_bigbox_. made me sprite in psp8, added a layer mask, looked like it was good in the software. the 24bit uncompressed tgas i have been restricted to in psp were good until that point, no matter how many times i try it doesnt save the transparency right, it just comes up with a white border where the transparency should be, and when you re-open the file the mask is gone and here once was transparent s white.  realising the 24bit save was a no-no, i copied my sprite into photoshop cs8 instead, applied the layer mask as before, this time i was able to save it as a 32 bit uncompressed, and as before the software liked it. nwn did not however . still no mask, still white border.

this is how it should be done, ne?

Ne.

You want the mask as a colour channel, not a layer.

Basically: this

               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 20 août 2011 - 05:45 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...

Pstemarie wrote...

Post your icon and I'll take a look. I use PSP 7 and have never had a problem with 24 bit storing the alpha channel.

It is "adding" the other 8 bits of the alpha during save.

To the best of my knowledge. you can't have Alpha without having a 32bit data format.  8 bits for red, 8 bits for green, 8 bits for blue, with the additional 8 bits assigned to the alpha channel per pixel. So you end up with 32 bits per pixel. 

If you check your files, I am sure you will find that they are actually 32 bit format in size.  You will of course have to do the pixel math to determine how large a 24bit vs 32 bit file would end up being, but I have NEVER seen a 24bit format file work as an alpha. 

Unless you are doing something that the rest of us don't know anything about?

Wow, you're right Bannor. Just looked over a few of my icons in PSP 7.0 and even though its set to save them as 24-bit uncompressed, the ones with the alpha are all 32-bit. Must be an override setting in PSP that I wasn't aware of.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               ...shucks... I was hoping you had "found" something new to try out... oh well, at least we are all on the same page now!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Roddish]

               

_six wrote...


Ne.

You want the mask as a colour channel, not a layer.

Basically: this

arigato gozaimasu _six-chan. i'd figured that out by the time i read this, but i had other problems too. so check this;


if i make the image and apply the alpha layer in adobe, it apppears as a semi-solid static noise box in the inventory. if i make the image and apply the alpha in psp, the item appears ith a white border.


now  this is the funny bit;
if i make the image in psp and apply the aplha in psp, then open the file IMMEDIATELY in adobe, only to save it again, it shows up perfect in the inventory.


so problem solved, ii think '>

thanks again guys. i promise my queries ill be increasingly less noobish soon.