Alpha channels (for texture blending)… how?

[Clueless Newbie]

Simple question (I hope): How do I make texture with alpha channels like those in the data20090403.pk3/texture/terrain_data folder?

I know how to make alpha channels for transparent textures, but that technique only works for textures that are transparent. The tools I have are Photoshop Elements 6, Gimp 2.6.6, and Graphic Converter (probably not useful for this, other than to verify that the alpha channel is present).

Is there a recipe online, somewhere?

[Ben878]

Simple question (I hope): How do I make texture with alpha channels like those in the data20090403.pk3/texture/terrain_data folder?

I know how to make alpha channels for transparent textures, but that technique only works for textures that are transparent. The tools I have are Photoshop Elements 6, Gimp 2.6.6, and Graphic Converter (probably not useful for this, other than to verify that the alpha channel is present).

Is there a recipe online, somewhere?

I have a slightly different setup to you, But Anywho I use paint shop pro 7 to make my transparent texture, I save it as a PNG with alpha transparency. I'm sure your graphics program is capable of this. I then open the PNG in Gimp and save as a TGA with RLE compression off and origin set to top left. You could make the entire texture in Gimp and save it as a TGA with RLE Compression off though. Thats how I make transparent textures. Whether it works or not for you is another thing altogether. =P

Anyway thats the only suggestion I can give.

[Clueless Newbie]

Simple question (I hope): How do I make texture with alpha channels like those in the data20090403.pk3/texture/terrain_data folder?

I have a slightly different setup to you, But Anywho I use paint shop pro 7 to make my transparent texture, I save it as a PNG with alpha transparency. I'm sure your graphics program is capable of this. I then open the PNG in Gimp and save as a TGA with RLE compression off and origin set to top left. You could make the entire texture in Gimp and save it as a TGA with RLE Compression off though. Thats how I make transparent textures. Whether it works or not for you is another thing altogether. =P

Anyway thats the only suggestion I can give.

That's how to make textures with transparencies. I can do that with PSE6 + Gimp (I just open the .psd in Gimp and save as .tga. done). The textures I'm talking about don't have any transparent sections at all. The alpha channel functions more like a bumpmap or something.

But thanks, anyway.

[Clueless Newbie]

I have a slightly different setup to you, But Anywho I use paint shop pro 7 to make my transparent texture, I save it as a PNG with alpha transparency. I'm sure your graphics program is capable of this. I then open the PNG in Gimp and save as a TGA with RLE compression off and origin set to top left. You could make the entire texture in Gimp and save it as a TGA with RLE Compression off though. Thats how I make transparent textures. Whether it works or not for you is another thing altogether.

I figured it out; instead of messing with alpha channels, I have to add the "alpha" as a mask in gimp (not sure PSE6 will let me do that). It makes the texture transparent when viewed in some apps, but it works the way it should in Nex. So I'm good.