Adobe Illustrator

Did a very simple image in AI as an experiment. Saved it as a JPEG in 64x64 in a "how bad can it be" test. Pretty bad! Then I saved it at 256x256 and 512x512 in TGA and tried to upload those. They do not even appear in the upload window in SL. I just get the white-and-gray checkerboard. What's going wrong?

For AI, I've been using PNG-24 export from the Save for Web.... and it's given me what I expected in SL. The preview you get there is handy to make sure you're saving what you think you're saving (crop area and not the whole artboard, opacity masks obeyed or ignored as you intended, etc.)

If you want a fully opaque image, make sure you select 24-bit in the TGA export options dialog, not 32-bit. Opaque images are always 24-bit.

If you want partial transparency, things get a little more complicated. Illustrator's alpha channel generation was broken with CS2, and is still broken in CS3. In older versions, the alpha channel would be generated in accordance with the transparency values of the objects. But now it just turns the whole channel black every time. If there's a setting to revert to the old behavior, I've never found it.

Here's a thread on the subject from two years ago: /109/da/93096/1.html

In post #11 in that thread, I describe in detail how it used to work, and then you can see someone points out how it's broken in CS2. I hadn't yet upgraded when I first posted, but by the end of the thread I had, and I was able to confirm the problem, as were others.

Nowadays, if you want partial transparency with TGA, your best bet is to copy and paste to Photoshop first, and create your alpha channel there. After pasting, it's just a 2-click process to create a perfect alpha channel from the objects. Simply ctrl-click the thumbnail of the layer you pasted them onto, to select everything on the layer, and then on the channels palette, hit the Make New Channel From Selection button. Save as 32-bit TGA, and you're done. It's a little annoying, but it shouldn't take more than 10 seconds.

You could also try going the PNG route, as Viktoria suggested, but I've never done that, so I can't comment on it (and I have to head out the door in about 30 seconds, so I have no time to experiment).

Very valuable! Thank you both. I am off to experiment...

Make whatever you want in illy then smartobject it into CS2..

It may also be your channels as well. From what i know Illustrator uses a four channel imaging system. That being CMYK, which are not web ready. You need a 3 channel RGB for SL.

CMYK in Illo will get you usable transparency too, but it would be an unusual model to pick for SL. The problem really is broken TGA support in the Export menu. Save for Web is a separate plugin, that's why it doesn't share the problem.

Illustrator is both CMYK and RGB capable, just like pretty much all Adobe graphic design programs. To switch between modes, the command sequence is File -> Document Color Mode -> check CMYK or RGB.

In any case, the working document color mode does not affect the TGA export results. If you export a 32-bit TGA from Illustrator CS2 or CS3, you get an all black alpha channel. The export is equally broken whether your working document is in CMYK or RGB.



For opaque images, it's 3-channel RGB, yes. But if you want transparency, it's 4-channel RGBA.