~Texture Help Please~

I am rather confused on how certain textures look the way they do and would appreciate some help heh. I need a single feather texture that when put on a prim, looks like a single feather, like how most flowers and railing in SL look. Basically I'm making a pimp hat as a joke for a friend and need a feather heh. How do railings and flowers look the way they do, being the shape and being able to see through certain parts, and not just a texture on a box.

Another example of what I mean is, how do texture wings look like wings and not like a block of texture.

If anyone understands what I'm trying to say please let me know how to do this lol.

Hi Zsu, I think I know what you are saying and if you contact me in game I think i have one i can drop to you when I get home if that will help.

Well if Drift didn't help, which I doubt she is great with textures, but I can tell you how to do it here.

First you need to make a prim and flatten so only 2 sides are showing.
You need to make the entire prim transparent. I have the texture if you need it.
Then what you need to do is take your feather texture and just place that on each side of the prim that will be showing.
After that, if you want it to have the 3D effect then you will need to make a copy of the prim and adjust it as an X to make look like it has dimension.

I'll be in world later tonight if you have questions too

I think what you're asking is how do you make certain parts of a texture transparent while the rest is opaque. The answer is you need to give your image an alpha channel, which will serve as a transparency map. Let me explain the principle.

Color Theory & Channels
Images designed to be shown on a color screen are comprised three colors (red, green, & blue). The relative brightness of each of these primary colors in each pixel determines each pixel's actual color. For example, a pixel comprised of equal values of red and blue without any green would appear to be purple.

When taken seperately, the individual values for red, green, or blue are represented by a grayscale image called a channel. In an individual channel, white represents the maximum possible concentration of color and black represents the absense of color. Shades of gray represent amounts of color that are less than the maximum. The darker the gray, the lesser the concentration of color. The lighter the gray, the more color is present.

Channels & Transparency (Alpha Channels)
Images that have transparency have, in addition to the three primary color channels, a fourth channel, called Alpha, which represents opacity. In the alpha channel, white represents complete opacity and black represents the absense of opacity (transparency). Shades of gray represent semi-transparency. The darker the gray, the more transparent. The lighter the gray, the more opaque.

So, to go with your example of a feather, the alpha channel would be white in the shape of the feather, and black everywhere else. The white part makes the feather 100% opaque so that you won't be able to see through it, and the black part makes the rest of the image invisible so that there appears to be nothing surrounding it. In other words, you won't be able to see the cube the feather is on, all you'll see is the feather itself. You might want to consider usig a shade of very light gray for the barbs of the feather since many feathers are slightly translucent, but that's optional, depending on how mugh realism you need.

How to Create an Alpha Channel in Photoshop
You didn't specify what image prgram you're using, but I'm assuming Photoshop. If you're using PSP or GIMP, the steps will be a little different, but the principle is the same. This forum is filled with tons of alpha channel tutorials for all 3 programs, as is the rest of the web, so you can certainly search for them if you need. Here's what to do if you are indeed using Photoshop:

1. On the Layers Palette turn off all layers except for the layer that has your feather on it. (To turn a layer off, click the eyeball symbol to the left of its name.)

2. If the feather layer has any white space around the feather itself, use the eraser to get rid of the white space. It's very important at this stage that the feather be on its own layer with nothing else on it.

3. On the Layers Palette, ctrl-click the thumbnail for the layer with the feather on it. (The thumbnail is the little picture of the layer directly to the left of the layer's name.) This will select everything on the layer. You should see the "marching ants" outlining your feather now.

4. On the Layers Palette, click the tab that says Channels to switch it to the Channels Palette. What you should see listed here are the three primary channels for your image, labled, "Red", "Green", & "Blue", and a master channel for the three, labelled "RGB". If you see any other channels besides those four, delete them now.

5. In the lower right corner of the Palette Window, locate the button that looks like a square sticker being peeled from its backing. It's the second one from the right. It's immediately to the left of the one that looks like a trash can. It says "New Channel" when you hover your mouse over it. Click it.

6. You should now see a new layer called "Alpha 1", which is currently all black. Make sure all channels except for Alpha 1 are turned off and that Alpha 1 is turned on. This should have happened automatically when you created Alpha 1, but if it didn't, do it now.

7. Your canvas should now appear to be solid black with the exception that you should still be able to see the "marching ants" outline of your feather. Paint everything inside the outline white and leave everything outside of it black.

8. Click "Select" on the menu bar at the top of the screen to pull down the Select Menu. Click "Deselect" and you should see the marching ants disappear.

9. On the Channels Palette, trun the red, green, & blue channels back on, and turn Alpha 1 off. Now click the tab that says layers to switch back to the Layers Palette. Create a new layer by pressing the same button you previously used to create the new channel. (Just as it created a new channel while you were on the Channels Palette, it will create a new layer while you're on the Layers Palette.) Click on the name of this new layer and drag it underneath the layer with the feather on it. Paint the new layer 50% gray or darker; black is fine. (The gray/black layer will prevent the white halo sometimes caused when Alphas are created the way we just did it. If you don't know what I mean by that, don't worry about. Just make sure to always put a gray/black layer underneath your work and you'll never have to see that white halo.)

10. Save your file as a 32-bit TGA and upload it to SL.

Enjoy.

If you have any questions on this, fire away.


EDIT: Here is an example image of a feather, and what its alpha channel should look like. It's a bit roughly cut out, but like I said, it's just an example so you can get an idea of how the alpha works. If you want one that looks really good, you'll need to spend a good amount of time on it. Feathers are delicate, and realism takes time.