saving .tga with alpha channel in photoshop?

I have a color file, and a alpha file (b/w), how can i save them to be used in SL?
(Im on photoshop CS).
thanx

Be sure to save as 32 bit .tga to preserve transparency. That seems to be the most common problem people have. A dialog box will pop up after you save and select targa as the file type asking you to choose 16, 24 or 32 bit. Hope that helps! If not, maybe you could post more information about the problem you're experiencing?

that helps a lot dude, about adding an the alpha tho, I create a new channel on channels, its called alpha 1 by default, Do i put the alpha image on that channel and than save?

Yup. The alpha channel is a grayscale image in which black represents transparency, white represents opacity, and shades of gray represent anything inbetween (translucency). When you make a new channel in PS, it is by default called Alpha 1. Just put the grayscale image on it, and it will become your transparency channel (alpha channel).

Be mindful though. Always consider does the image actually need transparency? It's common for people new to texturing to assume that every image needs an alpha or that more bits must somehow be better than less bits. NEVER save as 32 bit unless you actually need to have part or all of the image be transparent.

I made a tutorial, maybe this will help...



http://www.sluniverse.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10199

The link is dead?

comes up with an error and i really wanted to check it out too

Can you double check it for us ?
Thanks in advance

I am having the site owner look into it. It worked when I linked it I swear!



It is Fixed !

I have a video tutorial on my site, here.

And please, could a Linden make a sticky for all the links with tutorials about this particular topic? It's answered several times every week on this forum. Thanks!

We have a user editable help wiki which we residents can both edit to suit ourselves and to which we could be referring folks for help. The wiki can hold any relevant information, such as how to use alpha channels in photoshop, as well as links to such sources as Eboni Khan's excellent tutorial.

The help wiki is available at the easy to remember url secondlife.com/help.

Suzanne, all that is great, but none of it seems to deter people from coming here and posting the exact same question 50 times a week. Obviously there is a certain percentage of people who will not go to the wiki or any third party website on their own. For whatever reason, they feel the need to come here. Were there a sticky with the answer, a lot of those people would never have to ask.

Remember what it was like before they stickied the answer to the perms question? Every other thread was, "How do I set the perms if I want to sell my shiny new T-shirt I just made?" Since they put up that sticky, we almost never get perms questions anymore. Obviously it worked. Now instead we have every other thread asking, "How do I make the alpha channel for that shiny new T-shirt I'd like to make?" There's no reason not to sticky that answer too.

Please take a look at the Design and Textures Forum FAQ in the Second Life help website, linked in my sig; edit it or add comments.

There will always be a percentage of folks who simply won't seek out their own answers even if you spell it out for them.

There are others, however (and I include myself here) who may feel overwhelmed when they first start out and honestly don't know where to find the information or even what questions to ask. I discovered Wiki on Day Two of my Second Life, and it's great but it can't answer all of my questions. I'm proud (and saddened) to note that I've already outgrown some of its answers.

I'm actually a little surprised there aren't more stickies in this section, and even a sticky on helpful URL resources where those of us (like myself) who do like finding our own answers can be pointed toward a solution.

There are still a million questions I want to ask, but most of them feel so rudimentary to me that I'm afraid to ask and will probably just suffer in silence as I go about accumulating my own resources. Some of you folks have been especially great, and I thank you for your patience answering the same question for the 481st time. But whoever is running this section needs to get a little more sticky-happy, IMO.

You know, it's not an either/or kind of thing.

No reason in all the world not to have stickies, and the WIKI, and in-world tutorials, and tutorials on websites, and everything else that anyone can think of. The more place to get information, and the more ways that information is presented, the more people will be able to find it when they need it.

It's like the tutorials. Mine are quite different from Eboni's, and that's fine. IMHO we need them both, (and Chosen's List, and everything else.) Different people learn in different ways. For some the "penny will drop" when they are looking at one tut, and others will suddenly see when they are going through a different one.

The more the merrier! Let's have all the information possible!

Well said, Robin.