What the!?.....

Hello fellow SL-ers..

I am trying my hand at clothe making, as we all have one time or another. I am familier with photoshop's older edition and have recently upgraded to the CS3. I have made my texture and it looks like its in transparent form until I try and save the sucker! I have tried every file, saved I know .tga is best but wanted to see, and nope nothing. I swear there is a step I am forgetting so what is it!??? HELP

uterly confused Percila Paine

If u save in .tga, u should create an alpha layer and save in 32 bits but the easy way is delete th background and save in png24

Save as PNG.

Please read the transparency sticky at the top of this forum.

Make sure you are creating a layer mask before you save it as a .tga.

And make sure it's 32 bit.

My method has been to Flatten the image at the last moment prior to saving as .TGA

If the texture has an Alpha channel then yes save as a 32 bit, otherwise save as 24 bit.

With regards to the OP's question of "transparent form" I am not sure I quite understand this example or question.

Perhaps, he/she could be a little more detailed in what they are describing to pinpoint what the possible cause maybe.

From the desciption (correct me if I am wrong) but it sounds like that the OP has not actually added an Alpha Channel to enable what should be transparent when uploaded to SL.

Exactly. That's why I told the OP to make sure they made a layer mask before saving it as a targa.

I think the OP is missing that key step.

Thank you thank you! I knew there was some simple step I was missing!

Percila, yes, you need an alpha channel for transparency with TGA. Read the guide at the top of the forum to learn how to make one.

It sounds like you were using Photoshop 7.0 previously, which was broken, and prevented you from being able to create proper TGA's. Now that you have a correctly functioning version of Photoshop, it might be a little confusing at first. Don't worry, you'll get it. The guide also contains an explanation of what was wrong with 7.0, so be sure and read that part.

Alternatively, as others have mentioned, you can use PNG fomat instead of TGA for simple transparency. Simple transparency is not as powerful as alpha transparency, but it will allow you to work the way you've been used to working.


Oh and Larrie, in regard to this:

Just so you know, flattening your working document doesn't change anything in regard to your TGA output. TGA's are inherently layerless. They have no idea that layers even exist. So, whether your source image has 1 layer or 1 million layers, the TGA will turn out exactly the same every time. Don't flatten.

Well its not true PNG isnt powerful, u can do the same transparencys than in tga, I did glasses with pngs, the trick is, make a background layer of some color, the one that makes more constrast with the texture u are working, then add layers, do as many opacitys as u want (i remember u can set up the opacity of the brush and also u can set up the opacity of the layer), put transparent gradients, or gradients seting up the opacity lower than 100%, well do as many things u want.
Then delete the background layer u created (the background should be empty, u should see the squares of photoshop), save in png and done, u had the transparency with all the opacitys u wanted.

Of course every thing has their advantatges and disavantatges, with time u learn what is better or faster for what u want to do.

So for example u wanna do a tatoo is so simple like download any free brush (thre is lots of tribal), doesnt matter if the brush has opacitys, create a new layer, paint it where u want (i recomend white to then colorize in SL), delete the background, save in png and done, u have the tatoo, so easy so fast.

I didn't say PNG is not as powerful as TGA. I said simple transparency is not as powerful is alpha transparency. If it were, it would have replaced alpha transparency long ago as the preferred industry standard. But it's not, so it hasn't. Keeping the transparency information as a separate map from the color information affords you a lot of freedoms you wouldn't otherwise have.

Check some of the most recent posts on the Transparency Guide thread for an interesting discussion on some of the things alpha transparency offers that simple transparency does not. If you want to use a ton of layer masks in your work flow, like the person with whom I was having that discussion, then you'll get very close alpha-like power levels. However, if you're doing that, you're basically using alpha methodology anyway all along, so there's really no reason not to complete the process by adding one more mask (the alpha channel itself) at the end.

By comparison, if you're taking your overall image transparency values directly from layer opacity settings and from brush settings (purely WYSIWYG), which would be the typical simple transparency style work flow, then you're missing out on a lot of power and flexibility. If you know what you're missing and you've made the informed decision that you really don't mind, then by all means use simple transparency all day long. There's nothing wrong with it. Just don't fall into the trap of assuming it's giving you the same kind of control as alpha transparency. That's all.

Yeah choosen I agree, as i said every method has their advantatges and disavantatges, I didn't say png is better than tga, everyone is for some purpose, the best thing is think what u wanna do and what is ur need, then think wich is the best way to do fast with an accetable quality.

With time i learnt how to equilibrate each texture i do in terms of time, lag and quality.
I puted the example of tatoos but for example for hair textures i choosed tga, cos i can do many alphas, choose the one i need for the hair i do at that moment and i never loose the base texture, then i can change the color base easy and quick, this way i can do fast diferent colors for hair and diferent alphas for bottoms with the security that the opaque texture of the hair will fit with the transparent texture.

Also secondlife is not only a program for profesionals, lot of people dont wanna waste lot of time to do a perfect alpha texture, just something that works without expend lot of time, so for this people i would recomend png, is more easy for them, but if people wanna go deep in textures in SL and experiment, of course they need how it works both types of formats.

But more important for people that wanna go in textures is know how it works SL , how many times i saw wonderful buildings with so detailed textures but at the end useless, useless in terms of design cos when in the building goes a few avatars the lag is unsuportable.
Yeah lots of shop owners should know this, its useless has the most beutiful shop if customers cant stay due to lag and finally they leave without buying anything, and lot of times is cos shop owners used textures of 1024x1024 or higher to make the shop more bautiful.