Offering basic PSP alpha creation walkthru

I currently use PSP 8.0, and would be happy to arrange a voice chat walk-thru session for any new SL designers using this application. My current availability to host a session is Friday nights (except for 11/26). If you are interested, please let me know - either by responding to this thread or IM me in-game.

Peas and gouda wheel on earth...

What a great idea Inari!
I'd love to learn how to use PSP for alphas properly. I usually just save as psd, then open in Photoshop and do it there (my bf's copy of photoshop, i don't like it/don't know how to use it)

It'd be great to see more people offering Voice-chat classes in SL. I'd give some voice scripting lessons to anyone who's interested.

Thank for the offer Inari and I will IM you in game. I am desperately in need of help in my quest for learning how to design clothes.

I am very interested , however I can never leave SL up while I'm working in 8 as its a resource snarfer... any suggestions?

this is what i need and would love to get to together with you on this and make my time yours my laptop is in the shop and will be out soon woot cant wait when i get it i would love to sit down with you and design away would love to learn how to and how to upload in game my wife and i enjoy all the wonderful and new things we see daily and would love to add to those wulfs erato leave me a message anytime thanks

Hi all,

I am hoping to plan a walkthrough next weekend the 18th/19th. I was going to try for this Saturday, but I have an urgent medical issue I need to address, and depending on what doc says today might need surgery. (Risk of losing vision in one eye)

I know folks are from different time zones and want to be as accommodating as possible. I am in Central Time Zone, and on weekends have good flexibility around my time. So if there isn't one time that works for everyone, I can schedule multiple sessions.

If you'd like the walk-through, please send me a personal message with the time(s) that would work best for you, and your yahoo name so I can add you. If I am able, I plan to hold at least one yahoo chat session NEXT Saturday, December 18. If you wish, please also include your e-mail address, as I can send you the clothing templates I have modified.

I know that folks are very busy with the holidays right now, so if next weekend isn't optimal, I can schedule sessions for after the end of the year.

Take care everyone...I look forward to talking with you soon

I am all for this yahoo class as I am a PSP 8 user myself Good Luck at your Eye doc today. Wishes all is well.....

Inari -

I'm curious what technique you're using for generating the alpha channel. I've seen many people suggest creating a normal layer with PSP's transparency functionality for partially transparent areas, and then creating a mask from the image's opacity. This does generate the alpha channel correctly, but I've discovered that there's no foolproof method of avoiding the "halo" effect that comes from mixing the transparent areas of the layer into the background.

In fact, the only true solution I've found with PSP is to save it as a PNG using image transparency and convert to a TGA using ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org). As far as I understand PSP (and I've been using it for years) there isn't really any method to generate a correct transparent TGA file from a layer's transparency information.

I'll try to listen in on one of your chats, but until then... have you found a technique that works correctly every time?

Hi Lex & Misbehavin

TY, i found out that I won't need eye surgery (WHEW! panic over!) The doc said my optic nerve was inflamed and pressing on the retina, so that was causing the dark spot in my vision.

Lex, to answer your question. For clothing I do use the LL templates. For objects, I start with a black background layer and I paste as new layer the image I want. For clothes as well as objects, I do all my editing on the image/working layer. When I have finished making my edits - for clothing I delete the additional 'outline' layers of the template but keep the background - I check the image by viewing it against the background and without. Sometimes you get a few little outlying spots you can see in one view that you can't in the other. Then while the working layer is active, I go to Layer, Mask, From Image. If you're going to get that halo you mentioned, this is where you would see it show up. To correct it, select the Mask layer, use the eyedropper tool to select black from the swatch panel, and then paint over those spots. You may need to go over the spots 2 or 3 times to completely cover them. Once you're happy with how that looks, then go to Layer, Load/Save Mask, Save to Alpha Channel. My last step is to delete the black background layer, and then I save the file as .tga.

)

Finally, whew....

January 8 (Saturday) at 2:00 pm CST . Please PM/IM me with your Yahoo ID if it is not public in your SL profile so I can conference you in.

If there are specific questions you want to make sure I cover, it'd be great if you could send me those ahead of time, too.

Also, I do have a notecard or two in-game i can share if I haven't given you one already. Thanks for all your patience. I'm looking forward to chatting with you!

Happy New Year!