Color for Transparent Textures

Just started my account, and I do alot of my own textures in MS paint.

I have some trouble with transparent textures I make, for example: a steering wheel for a car. When I lay the texture on a circle, and then make the circle transparent, the steering wheel texture also becomes a ghost image.

What am I doing wrong? Can someone explain the process?

Thanks, Mannie

Setting a texture in SL as transparent means the whole texture will be transparent, not just certain parts. To get the effect you're looking for, you need to use alpha textures. You'll need Photoshop or GIMP to get these.

An alpha is basically a black and white graphic which is a map of what is transparent and what is solid. Black is invisible, white is solid, gray is in between. The alpha channel does not show in the final texture, but rather is kind of like a mask to let you see through certain parts of your steering wheel.

This is what I've done for mine.

Firstly, create the image you want in Photoshop, but what you want to be transparent set as a colour you aren't using. I tend to use something like the bright purple or lime green as the background, then overlay on that whatever you're doing.

Save as a Targa (.tga).

Then, download and install the "TGA Tool" which can be downloaded free at http://www.leadwerks.com/ (you need only do this step once!)

Open up the image, go to Tools > Alpha Channel > Mask Color and pick whatever colour you want to set as "transparent" (if you haven't used one of the standard pallette you can enter the RGB values of the colour which can be got from Photoshop.

It will take a few seconds (depending on the size of the image and your PC's power), then you can save it (for safety I always use a different filename just in case), and upload it as normal.

One useful tip.... you have to have the EXACT RGB value as the mask colour otherwise it won't work.

I found that turning off anti-alias whilst working in Photoshop made a difference too, otherwise you'll get lines around the outside of your image, which will affect the way it looks.

I have made quite a few transparent images this way, if you'd care to look me up in game some time I'll give you a tp and show you some. My bead curtain and windows have been particularly appreciated by my customers.

Lewis

thanks all! I appreciate the help