Need alpha help in Paintshop Pro

[Fidcal]

Anyone using PaintShop Pro? I made a scepter icon but got the alpha transparency channel wrong - it shows as all white. Though I selected it in PSP and clicked what I thought made it alpha. Can anyone give me an idiot's guide what to click one the area is a selection in PSP?

[Dram]

I use photoshop and paint shop pro.

 

Anyways, basically to make a simple straight-cut transparency (like for readables etc) you select the area (as you've done) and then go Selection->Save to alpha channel

 

Name it as whatever you want. You'll of course have to save as a Targa (tga) or something equivalent so it save the alpha channel. JPGs don't store alphas.

 

Hope that helps

[Fidcal]

I swear that's what I did! Well, I'll have another go in a while........ thanks Dram

[Fidcal]

Yes - when I reloaded it into PSP and went to do it then it recognized the first alpha channel so it is saved as a tga with an alpha channel but it still shows as white in the inventory.

[oDDity]

why would you need PS and PSP?

[SneaksieDave]

In my case, Photoshop 6 (the one I have) cannot do alphas properly, so I use PSP to handle that part. I tried the gimp, didn't much like it... maybe will give it another go some day.

[oDDity]

I'd consider it wiser to get a newer version of PS than get another program.

[Fidcal]

Sneaksie - if I upload this icon will you take a look at it to see where I've gone wrong? If I load it into PSP then it clearly seems to have an alpha channel. If I set a selection from the alpha channel then it correctly outlines the area I previously set. Yet that area of the icon shows as white in-game?????

 

[EDIT] No wait - it's probably just that I need some sort of material file definition?

[SneaksieDave]

@oDDity: Sure, but both were given to me for free, years ago. I don't have a lot of interest in such progs outside of TDM, and wouldn't buy one, as I'm not an artist (would just use gimp if nothing else existed).

 

@Fidcal: Hm, I'm not sure, but it sounds like what you said - the image may be fine and you might be lacking the proper alpha keywords in the material. I've only assembled one set of these that I can think of (mikebart's ivies), but IIRC I ran into the same problem and that was it.

[sparhawk]

Get GIMP. It can also do what you need, and it's free.

[Dram]

It might actually be the gui code. Would you mind posting your readable gui file?

[Fidcal]

I never had a gui file I had about 15 versions of a material file and none of them worked. This is now sorted in another thread. Neither file was needed. One can directly reference an 8-bit tga file with alpha channel. The alpha channel must define the area that is NOT to be transparent. That was the problem. I had it defining the transparent area.