Alpha

[joemitchell69]

I'm using a PSD texture with alpha channel for opacity but the Image Alpha switch in the material editor is greyed out so I can't select it. Anyone got any suggestions?

[joemitchell69]

....worked it out - don't use psd, use tga instead.

[Klokwerks]

Targas work great! You could also use the image and an opacity map to go with it. But all depends on what your doing and what kind of control you want.

[alexg]

you can also use TIFF to get the alpha

[Ron Schatz ASAI]

Just remember that the alpha map is just a 8bit channel, 0 to 255 values, so any black and white or grayscale image, in any format can be be applied as alpha channel and on all surface attributes for that fact.

 

save out diffrenet brightness, constrast, sharpness, and any version you think need. Sometimes the software changes and modifies an image with-in it, but I feel that the control photoshop can get you what you see quickly and then tweak it in the 3d app. if needed.

 

Recap an RGB is 8bit red, 8bit green, 8bit blue = 24bit RBG image Then adding a 8bit Alpha makes 32bit image file. So a grayscale image is just 8bits (1/3 the size) and a Black and White bitmap(as PS's mode describe) is 1 bit, but make it larger to help smooth it.

 

Sometimes it is art, but I fine you have to know math to make it look great.