how to make transparent background textures

ok i creatued a butterfly texture.... and i make the background in photopshop transparent..... but when i upload it to sl it has a white background

Can someone please give me smile instructiosn on how to make a texture so it has just the butterfly?

Torley did a lovely vid tutorial explaining how to do this.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/03/20/tip-of-the-week-27-making-transparent-textures-featuring-a-giant-leek/

Hi Eclectic... you might try this:

1. Hold down the 'ctrl' key and 'right click' the thumbnail picture beside the butterfly layer.

2. Go to the top menu bar and click 'Select' and scroll down to 'save selection'...

Make sure the newly created alpha channel is selected or 'turned on' before you upload it back into SL...

Hope this helps...

caroline... thanky thanky that walk through was great... seems the only thing i was doing wrong was saving it in the wrong format

Transparencies must be saved either in .TGA 32-bit format or .PNG format, otherwise they lose their transparency when imported into SL.

Hmmm....can anyone explain why I cannot seem to get the transparencies to upload in a TGA file....but it seems to work fine with a PNG?

I'm going crazy in photoshop trying to upload some new textures.....finally I tried PNG and presto....it's transparent. ??? Confused.

There is a sticky in the Texturing Tips forum about this very subject - /109/32/80851/1.html. And there are threads there about how to do it among the various different programs. Please go to texturing tips and take advantage of the wealth of knowledge there.

are you creating the alpha layer for the tga file format?

I do not use that anymore, I upload using the png's now when I need transparency

Well, your first problem might be that there's no such thing as an "alpha layer". It's an alpha CHANNEL. Layers and channels are entirely different things. Confuse them at your peril.

See the multitude of stickies at the top of the texturing forum for more information.



Eek, I just watched that tutorial. Rest assured I'll be discussing it with Torley. There's some dangerously borderline information in there. Each of his comments about the "advantages" of PNG over TGA are either irrelevant or simply untrue. I'm a huge Torley fan, but really, that video and its accompanying blog post, are troubling.

Contrary to what the post and the video say, alpha channel work flow is neither "clunky" not rime consuming. If it were either, it would have been abandoned by the industry long ago. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. I'll explain.

First, alpha channel work flow affords you far more control than the "simple transparency" work flow demonstrated in the video. While it may be hard to tell this just from the extremely simplistic image the video demonstrated, the fact is there are countless situations in which having an actual transparency map (alpha channel) is crucial to creating/preserving detail.

Second, it's a myth that making an alpha channel takes more time than what was shown in the video. For anything as simplistic as that leek thing of Torley's, both methods would actually take the exact same amount of time, and would require the exact same number of steps. Instead of hitting the Delete key when Torley did in the video, all you'd need to do to produce a perfect alpha channel would be to hit the Make New Channel From Selection button. So basically, all Torley did was exchange one mouse click for one keystroke. That's it. There's no time savings there at all, either way.

Where time does become a factor is in more complex images, anything with varying levels of transparency, such stained glass windows, waterfalls, shoji screens, etc. For those, making an alpha channel will always take considerably LESS time than using simple transparency. I won't get into too much detail on that here, since this isn't the texturing forum, but trust me; Torley's description of simple transparency somehow saving time over alpha transparency couldn't have been more bass ackwards. (If anyone wants to hear more about that, by the way, I'll be happy to discuss it in the appropriate forum.)

Third, the work flow demonstrated in the video is destructive. NEVER delete anything, ever! If you want to remove something from vew, mask it. It's a one-click process, just like deleting is, but the advantage is you can always undo it at any time. Once you delete something, it's gone. If you want to bring it back later, you're SOL. But if it were masked instead of deleted, you could remove or change the mask at any time, and everything would still be there. ALWAYS work non-destructive, always.


The only thing the PNG simple transparency work flow actually "saves" is the one-time ten minutes worth of instruction it takes to learn how to make an alpha channel. It does NOT save any actual time in the texturing process, and it absolutely does NOT make the job of texturing any easier. Often it makes it far more complicated, in fact. Take it from someone who does this for a living. There's a reason alpha channels are the mainstay of the graphics industry. If you avoid learning how to use them, you're sacrificing a lot, and you're making things so much harder on yourself.


Sorry, Torley. I couldn't let that one go.

sorry wrong terminology, no need to bite my head off about it though...

and I do not have the problem with the alpha, either in tga or png, I was trying to help, used the wrong words, not the first to do it, nor will I be the last.

I recommend everyone to watch everything by Torley..the man's a genius..how's that tune go.."rum tum tah d rum tum tah..."

Actually, there is a need. I bite everyone's head off who does this.

The SL forums are the only place on planet Earth where people insist on using the words "layer" and "channel" interchangeably, and that is one of the biggest reasons why so many people who come here end up thinking the subject of alpha channels is somehow hard to learn. People read conflicting and incorrect information, and then assume the subject is so much bigger and more difficult than it actually is. In truth, it's beginner 101 stuff, something that's taught practically on day one of any graphics class in the world. Maintaining proper terminology at all times, just like we do in the classroom, is the ONLY way to ensure that confusion is kept to a minimum. Going around cavalierly making up terminology is dangerous.

You might think it's no big deal since you know what you meant. But I can promise you that to those your words confuse, it is very much a big deal. I've been teaching this stuff for many years now, and I've seen first hand the problems little mixups like this cause for so many people.

It's been a mission of mine for years to put a stop to that, in order to make it as easy as possible for people to learn from these forums. Anyone who regularly frequents the texturing forum can tell you I'm relentless about this, and for good reason. So relax; it's not about you.

oh I have seen your posts over there

I merely meant you can correct the mistake without biting off the head of the mistake maker...

anywho I stand corrected and will strive to use the proper terms in the future

See, this wouldn't keep happening if your head weren't so irresistibly tasty-looking.

HA!
as if

I am just a prime target for head biters cuz I tend to make a lot of mistakes... but granted I learn from them!!

eventually I will run of out mistakes to be made.... right?

Stop taking it personally, Rha.