Texture alpha channel

[Bahak]

Hi !

I'm wondering how to add an alpha channel to my textures.

I've worked on an existing texture ces_hned.paa (dirty road).
I used TextView 1.1 to convert it to ces_hned.tga.
I've imported my texture (.TGA) in After Effects 4 in order to be able to export the alpha channel.
So, I exported the whole file to photoshop format (.PSD).

Then I open the PSD file with photoshop 7. Now I can see both, texture channels (RGB) and alpha channel. I do all editing work on texture layer and on alpha channel until i get the wanted results then saved it in 32bits TGA format. But here's the problem: when i use TexView 1.1 to view my modified texture after disabling "Show RGB", the alpha channel is a full white page (or black).

I might doing something wrong in the edit process with photoshop or while saving the file. TGA is supposed to support 8bit alpha channel, so why it doesn't show in TextView
 

[Tomb]

Well, I dunno about photoshop, matey - but in Paintshop it goes like this:


1. save as TGA in texview

2. open TGA_picture in Paintshop

3. click "Load From Alpha Channel" in the MASKS menu.

4. Then in SELECTIONS, click "select all"

5. Now, copy & paste "...as new layer"

6. Goto LAYERS and click "delete" ( = delete the orig. alpha channel )

(insert yer own re-texturing process here)

7. When yer textures are done, click "save to alpha channel" in the MASKS menu.

8. Save the TGA, close the whole crap, then re-open it & close it again!

9. Now, you should be able to open the TGA with texview & convert it to PAA/PAC.

  In short - screw photoshop and use PS instead - it often comes in comp'zine CD's (free trial).


Laterz!  

[Bahak]

Thanx Tomb for the hint

I've tried it with Paintshop 7 and it works well indeed  ;D

It seems to have a bug with saving alpha channel to TGA format in PhotoShop but with PaintShop it saves it very well.

So, from now,  i'm switching to PaintSHop for OFP texture editing.

Thanx again