Making Tattoos

I followed the directions here: https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417

But how do I make the clothing clear so that you only see the tattoo and not the undershirt????

You need to choose a color, not a color that makes up the design of the tatoo, as "alpha". Alpha shows up as transparent. Then save the image as a .tga

Kate,
If you need help with alpha channels, I know I found this site to be very helpful.
http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLTutSet.html

Ghosty - you said "choose a color" can other colors be determined to cause Alpha? I thought it was always white?

To the OP- if u use the avatar templates and Photoshop or Gimp- you can choose not to "see" the other layers- then when you save as tga only the transparency will come in if you painted on a transparent layer.

alpha is always black.

The one tutorial that made me see the light on alpha channels was this one: http://nicolaescher.com/tutorials/alpha-channel-primer.php

Totally over my head

I can soooo relate! I just tried to read the avatar mesh thing on the building forum!

Here is some easy ways to get started- it helps if you start real easy and then find your level as you go:

http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=158462

Having "mastered" that - I moved on to:

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Now I find I go back and forth between the two- though I am nowhere near calling Gimp mastered as evidenced by my post above. I only know there is this huge need to grow and learn more as I go.

Good luck

I may be misunderstanding you here.. but transparancy on an image doesn't remain transparent when uploaded to SL - unless alpha is used.


As for choosing a color, the way I read Ghostly I figured he meant selecting the color that is "around" the tattoo design and making this the alpha (meaning that section will show as black on the alpha layer). Anyways I'm new to this, so I may not make sense..

Right- you need to have set to alpha and then save as tga in order to retain the transparency. As for what color it originates as- if i have say a picture of - a pencil on a white background and say- color to alpha- the resulting tga is a yellow pencil on a transparent layer. Now - if the back ground is black and the pencil is white - choosing Color to Alpha renders the white pencil "invisible" and the background remains black. I think- now will need to verify... I did however have a photo of some black beads on a white background - when i Colored to Alpha- the beads remained and the background went transparent.

Ok, so just a matter of misinterpreting the terminology then. I use psp and don't really know what I'm doing, I'm just doing it. *cough* (And been drooling over av-painter for a while.. So totally worth it, yeah?)

Absolutely- great learning tool and great touch up too- also - it is less than$12.00 US so- what's not to love