Question about degrees of transparency

Last night I created a texture in photoshop that was not 100% Transparent but 50% transparent. The idea was to have a wood frame window with glass and I wanted only the glass portion to be partially transparent, which is why I did not want use the transparency setting on the prim, but to use it in only portions of the texture.

When I uploaded the texture, it turned solid, but when I look at it in PS, it is 50% transparent.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? Do I need to set the partially transparent texture to an alpha?

Thanks - Rose

You need to make an alpha channel, and save the image as 32 bit TGA. Select the areas you want to be semi-transparent, and then got to the Channels Palette, and click "Make New Channel". The screen will turn black, but you'll still see the marching ants selection path around the areas you selected. Paint everything inside the selection gray, and everything else white. Now save the image as 32-bit TGA.

What's happening is the alpha channel governs transparency in the same way as the red, green, and blue channels govern color. Anything white on the alpha will end up 100% opaque, anything black will be 100% transparent, and anything gray will be semi-transparent. If you need further instruction, read the help file in Photoshop for "alpha channel," and search this forum for tutorials. I've written several, and so have many others. There are dozens of them here, and thousands more on the web.

If you have any trouble following any of the tutorials, or if you have more questions, fire away. Always happy to help.

Thanks Chosen - I did create an alpha channel but I did not use the palette and everything that I wanted semi-transparent was white, which came out solid. From reading your post, I think that I need to turn it to grey and that should solve my problem.

Thank you for the help!