Robin or Chip

Can either one of you help me out. I almost got it right. i know how to make alph channel. almost. I do everything righht. intil it saids to detele! them I can't figure it out. make a new layer, paint in gray pr black. Got that part. How do I get it to show up in SL. After I detele it! Its gone! PLEASE HELP!!!

if you delete your alpha layer, you might as well not have made an alpha layer O.o i recommend those replacement TGA files mentioned in here that others will tell you not to get!

/109/8b/48537/1.html

It might be useful for those with questions of this sort to mention clearly and precisely what paint program and what version number they are using, and which set of instructions they are attempting to follow.

What am I, chopped liver?


It sounds like you're getting hung up on the de-haloing step, but from your loose description of what you're doing, I can't be certain. What program are you using? What tutorial are you following? Have you read the transparency guide at the top of this forum?

I can certainly steer you in the right direction (as can Robin, Chip, and others here) but as Suzanne pointed out, a little more information about what you're actually doing is needed.


I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, Fa, but you just hit on my number one petpeave on this forum. There's no such thing as an alpha layer. It's an alpha channel. This forum is the only place in the known universe(s) where people have the unfortunate tendancy to use the words "layer" and "channel" synonymously. They are completely different things, and interchanging their names so carelessly as some people do here often makes it very difficult for new people to learn. For more info on the difference, see this thread.

And my number 2 petpeave. Again, no offense to you personally, Fa, but I cringe every time this comes up. Using that rediculous Photoshop 7 TGA saver is a huge mistake. It was a failed experiment on Adobe's part, and they admitted as much not long after it was released. Most of us in the graphics community wish it had never appeared, and to this day we curse whoever it was at Adobe that dreamed it up. It confuses soooooo many people.

For the umteen millionth time, using that plugin will result in files that are incompatible with most graphics applications. It's only by some miracle that SL can even read those files, and that could change at any time. Also, the automation in the saving process causes artifacts that are 100% impossible to get rid of. It's a bad, bad plugin. Fa, if you choose to continue using it, that's your perogative, but I can't stress enough to everyone else reading this, for your own good, steer clear of that gawd awful plugin.

Sorry Chosen, I didn't see your name. can you help me. i can do mostly everything. i been using paint shop 10.i do also use photo shop. i know how tomakr alph channel. it saids to detele, when i do its gone. what should i do.

I can give you the photoshop instructions, but as Chosen has said before alpha channels will not work properly on photoshop 7 unless you have the latest update that fixes the bug!

Now, here's what ya do:

1.Create your image
2.Create the alpha channel
3.DO NOT DELETE THE ALPHA CHANNEL
4.FLATTEN the image
5. save image as tga at 32 bit, ALWAYS 32 bit if there is an alpha channel
6. Upload image onto SL, use the preview to check you work before paying
7. If it turned out like you wanted it the first time, then pat yourself on the back! Well done!


That's it......


Edit: here is Chosen's definitive guide, lol. This guide is how I learned how to make alpha layers, er channels! hee hee!

/109/32/80851/1.html

Hehe, no worries. Happy to help if I can.


If I'm reading you right, you're using PSP 10, and you're hung up on the step of deleting the mask. Don't worry about it being gone. You don't need it. Its only purpose was to serve as a proxy for creating the alpha channel. Just follow the steps in the tutorial, and everything will work out. Remember, it's the alpha channel that tells SL what is and is not transparent, not the mask.

Perhaps I should explain the why behind the mask, and it might make thing easier for you. For whatever reason, the makers of PSP did not see fit to allow users to edit channels directly (one of the major downsides of PSP, in my opinion). Therefore, creating an alpha channel in PSP is a bit of a round about process. You can't just paint right on the channel itself like you could in other programs like Photoshop. Therefore, you have to paint on something else, and then copy the results onto the channel. That's the only way PSP allows you to do it; don't ask me why.

So why use a mask? Well, masks just happen to be the closest equivilent to channels that PSP will allow you to edit. Making a mask and then copying its contents to a channel is realtively simple process, and it just happens to be how the makers of PSP want you to go about making alpha channels. According to their logic, making a mask, copyng that mask to the alpha channel, and then deleting the mask is the best way to go about it. Again, don't ask me why they think this way; they just do.

So here's what happens. When you make the mask, you'll see it affecting the transparency of the image in real time, WYSIWYG, easy to follow. Okay, next you copy the mask data to the alpha channel, you can still see the transparency, still WYSIWYG, still easy to follow. Now you delete the mask, and BAM!, you can't see the transparency anymore; your background just turned opaque. Now all of a sudden instinct is telling you that you just made a huge mistake. Afterall, how can your image have transparency if everythig looks solid?

Well, the answer is in the nature of TGA file you're about to output. TGA is an inherently flat format, meaning it doesn't support layers. Without layers, it can't support masks since masks are a function of layers. However, it does support alpha channels, and to SL (and many other viewer programs) alpha means transparency. To dedicated grahical editors like PSP and Photoshop, alpha can mean all sorts of things, but to SL, it can ONLY mean transparency. So, what happens is PSP won't show you the alpha channel as a transparency data because to PSP, the data contained in the alpha channel could mean any of a million different things. It's just a data map. However, when you bring the image into SL, SL is pre-programmed to consider all alpha channel data to mean transparency data, so inside SL, your image has transparency.

Hopefully, that explanation made sense to you, but in any case, the bottom line is follow the tutorial to the letter, and it will work. It may seem counter intuitive at first, but it works nonetheless.

The key to understanding this stuff is to let go of your preconceptions. As human beings, we are programmed to trust what we see. To get your head around alpha channels, you have to stop thinking so much about what you see in front of you, and use your "third eye" to envision how the different elements in the image work together. If you've got an alpha channel present, you will have transparency when that image is in SL, regardless of whether you can physically see that transparency in PSP.

You are by far the alpha channel guru so I will gladly defer to you

thanx i got that part. okay when i'm creating the imge. which layer should i use.aplh channel i made, anither one

Heh, not sure how I became the alpha Alpha, but I guess someone had to do it.


Not sure exactly what you're trying to ask, McKinzee. Were you having the same problem as Kylie? A different problem?

If, like Kylie, you're using PSP then can I assume when you said "which layer to use" you were asking to which layer you should apply the mask? If that's the question, then the answer is you should mask all of them. As it says in the tutorial, when you create the mask, a new layer group will appear with the mask automatically applied to the group. Put all your layers in the group, below the mask.

If you're using Photoshop, then I'm even more uncertain what your question might be referring to. There are 4 different Photoshop tutorials in the guide, and countless others all over the web. In Photoshop, there are always a million different ways to acheive any one result, and without knowing which method you're attempting, it's hard to know where you might be having trouble. So what exactly are you doing?

In any case, the wording of your question seems to imply that you might be confusing the terms "layer" and "channel". If so, it's important that you understand the difference before proceding any further.

That about covers it for the possible things I think you might have been trying to ask, but I have the feeling I probably didn't answer whatever it was you really meant. Please help me help you. Please clarify your question by explaining exactly what you're doing, and exactly what part of the process you're having trouble with.

Just lucky I guess

trying to figure out how to get straps, and stuff in sl. straps, cutouts.i do have photoshop
and paint shop 10. i know how to make aplh channel.i save it to alph. i know all that. i follow your steps. when it saids great another layer. I get confuse. i save file as tg. hope i explain it better. i know kylie she is having same problem as me.

I'm getting the sense that English is not your first language. I can empathize with the fact that some of this might be a little hard to follow if that's the case.

If I'm reading you right, it sounds like you're getting stuck at step 5 in the PSP tutorial, the de-haloing step. WHat exactly is holding you up? Are you uncertain how to create a new layer, or are you just not sure of the purpose of putting another layer below your work?

I'll answer both:

To Create a New Layer


The Purpose of the Gray/Black Layer (De-Haloing)


If after all this, you still don't understand Step 5, just skip it. It is not mandatory. Using it will improve the quality of your work, but you can get by without it if you don't mind having a little white fuzz around parts of your images. Some people never notice the fuzz, by the way, no matter how many times it's pointed out to them, so it's your call whether you think it's worth combatting.

Yep, Chosen is the one to ask for this one. I can't give you any help with PSP, because I'm on a Mac, and PSP isn't.

I use PSP 10 alot. i do have photo shop 10. what i'm trying to do is get alpha layer to show up. so i can add texture and stuf to it. when i make alpha layer. i can't figure out how to get it in sl. i know i am doing something wrong. or if i want to add coor to it. in paint shop 10. how do i do that with that alph layer. Or do I paint Raster layer.

Kylie, what exactly are you trying to do? You continue to use the phrase "alpha layer". As I said earlier, there's no such thing as an alpha layer, so I had been working under the assumption that you were talking about alpha channels, and my responses were befitting that assumption. Now, however, I'm really not sure what you mean by it. You say you want the alpha "to show up". Please help me understand what you mean by that, because at face value, that statement really doesn't make sense.

Alpha channels are transparency maps. They dictate what parts of the image you can see through, and what parts you can't. They are not anything that are visible in their own right, so what do you mean by "get alpha layer to show up"?

Further, what do you mean by "so i can add texture and stuf to it"? An alpha channel is a component of a texture, not something you add a texture to. For an analogy, think of the image kind of like a Twinkie for a second. The alpha channel is the cream filling, the last step that puts the finishing touch on the whole thing. You can't very well start with the cream and then bake the cake all around it. You start with the cake first, and then inject the filling into it. By the same token, you don't start with the alpha and then build the texture on top of it. You make the texture first, and then add the transparency map, the alpha channel, as a final touch.

I get the impression that we're talking about at least two different things here, if not more. I'm feeling like what you're referring to as an alpha is something other than what an alpha actually is. Let's start from the beginning. What specifically are you trying to make? Answer that question first, and we'll take it from there.



By the way, what's your native language? As I said before, I gather it's not English (no offense if it is). If you say what language you prefer, maybe we can find someone who speaks it who could translate for you. I'm afraid English is my only language.