windows

Greetings and well met;

i am currently attempting to create a window texture yes seems simple enough i know however i am having issues, i do know how to make textures and i do know all about alpha channels, made enough tattooes and clothing with bare skin showing to understand all of this however my windows are another issue

i have the wood texture i desire to use however i can never get my windows to look correct in the exact same texture.. what i would like to have done is for example the following, take my wood paneling that is covering all my walls and put a window smack dab in the center of it however NOT covering the entire wood so that its framed .. now i would figure to do this i would take the same wood texture i have covering most of my walls and cut a window into the middle, follow this up by creating an alpha channel with transparency where the window would be... with me still? okay now... i have tried this omg repeatedly.. however it always ALWAYS looks positively dorky when finally brought into SL... any ideas... helpful hints, possible people willing to hold my hand and do it or tell me how? my house currently sits with no windows because i just can't seem to make it work..

thank you so kindly in advance

Nightshade

Dunno what to tell ya really...why do your windows look "dorky"? You seem to be doing everything correct. What do your windows seem like they're missing?

okay "Dorky" probably didn't necessarily explain the issue enough (duh me lol) what my issue seems to be is

a) i need to watch prim count so can't make "tiny" pieces to fit all over

b) i create the texture in PS and it looks fantab however i transfer it into SL and it stretches it unporportionally to how i had it planned..

i am saving at 256x256 to get a perfect square out of it (even tried a 128x256 still distorted it)

what i am hoping to have the final project look like is a "slit" like you would see in old goth castle where they shot the arrows out of in the wood and then the wood surrounding it.. when the work is in PS it looks wonderful and i have a smile... i put it in SL looks great in the previewer and i have a smile... i then step forward and place it on my wall and my world crumbles because they window is distorted.. the wood still looks fine.. but the window becomes distorted) that there is my problem... i have a piece of work i am proud of.. minus the window.. and granted i doubt i will ever sell this thing.. people may never see it.. but being someone who HATES to fail to a fault, being a near perfectionist even.. (and yea thats a failure there to have a fault) i'm going bononkers

Screenshot?

Save it on a 512X512 square. That should fix the streching problem^^

Just a thought; is the prim you are putting it on square, or is it tapered at the top?

If it's tapered, the texture will distort. If it's square, and you put the texture on it, with 1.0 repeats both horizontally and vertically, it shouldn't.

But, if it's a rectangle, it will also distort, and that distortion won't be as noticable in the wood as in the window.

Try this. Put the texture on a perfect cube, using the largest of the wall dimensions as the cube size, and then disable "Stretch Textures." Resize the cube to the same dimensions as the wall piece. That should get rid of the distortion, assuming the cube isn't tapered at the top.

Then you can enable "Select Texture" and click on the prim face to find the number of repeats used for each face. For example, you might find that the Horizontal repeats were 0.380, while Vertical remained 1.00, if the original largest dimension was the height.

Copy those numbers down, and use them to adjust the texture on the build, and you should eliminate the distortion.

On the other hand, if it is tapered, let me know. I have a solution for that.

You guys are the best.. i got it fixed and i am so happy with it.. i would post a picture of how it turned out except i have no way to do this but i am soooo very happy

i would truly like to thank Robin, your idea on how to do it is what i used and being as it was a rectangular wall piece i made my square 3.5x3.5x3.5 and placed the texture on it with no stretch.... shrunk it down.. checked the repeats which on the building wall were set at 1.0 1.0, on the test wall were .31 1.0 ... inserted these into my building wall and i am smiling again

thank you so very much each and everyone of you for your responses and robin for finding the solution to my window issue

**hugs all around**

~`~@ Night @~`~

Glad you got your problem solved (isn't Robin cool?) but I'm wondering why you have "no way" to post a screenshot. You know you can take snapshots in SL, save them to disk, and upload them here, right? Okay, if you didn't know that, then here's how:

1. In Sl, look at whatever you want to take the picture of (in this case your wall with the window in it) and got File -> Snapshot to Disk... You'll here a little camra snap sound and a dialog will pop up asking you name the new image file. Pick a name, click okay, and it will save on your had drive as a BMP.

2. Use your favorite image editor to open the file, change it from BMP to jpeg, and save.

3. On the forum, reply to this thread, and before you submit your message, scroll down and click the button that says "Manage Attachments". A new browser window will open with a dialog asking you to browse for the file you want to upload. Click "Browse", navigate to your file, select it, and click "upload".

4. Submit your message.

Enjoy.