PSP AlphaChannel?

[SFG]

I remember toadlife wrote a tutorial on alphacannel'n on the old forums Since we do not have those can anyone post a new one? Thanks..

[CBFASI]

I will see if I can find the bit I copied out of the forum and put it back here.

[CBFASI]

That didnt take long, and its exactly what Toadlife put in.

This is what he put on, and I am only putting it back up so all can use it.

Here it is

This tutorial was done using Paint Shop Pro 6. There is a misconception that Paint Shop Pro is not powerfull enough to do advanced texturing for OFP addons. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Paint Shop is a powerfull program that costs a fraction of what that other graphics program costs. People assume that it is only good for simple graphics editing because of what they read.


This short tutorial assumes you already know:

* How to use texview
* The basics of Paint Shop Pro and image editing in general.
* How to convert images using texview
* How to swap textures in OFP models


About TGA (.tga) files

TGA files feature a background and an alpha channel. When you open a TGA file up using PSP, the picture will appear all black. This is the "background" part of the picture. The background is all transparent, and isn't seen when being displayed in the game. The alpha channel is the part that will be shown in the game. Think of the background as being a window and the alpha channel as being paint that covers parts of the window. When you look at the window you can see through everything except the painted part.

Getting Started

Open up Paint Shop Pro and open up the TGA file that you want to change. In order to view the alpha channel, go to the "Masks" menu and select "Load from alpha channel". Once you have the Alpha Channel loaded, move to the "Selections" menu and click "Select all", then copy and "paste as new layer". This copies the current alpha channel to a new layer, which you can freely edit. If you don't do this you will only be able to edit the painted
part of the alpha channel.

Editing the Alpha Channel

Now that you have an "editable" alpha channel layer, go to the "Layers" menu and delete the original alpha channel layer so that the only layer left is the new one you just created. Edit the alpha channel to your hearts desire.

Saving your new Alpha Channel and scrapping the original one

When you are done, go back to the "masks" menu and select "save to alpha channel". A window should come up which show the current alpha channel present in the image. First delete the original alpha channel, then save the one you have just edited to the image as a new one. You now have edited the alpha channel of the image. Save the TGA file.

Restoring the backround

The last thing you need to do is close the file and then re-open it. The image will appear white instead of black (this is the "background" I mentioned before). Fill in the whole image with black, and then save it again. Now your background is the same as it was before you edited it.

Congratulations!

You now have an image that is just like the original, with your new updated alpha channel!


-toadlife

[SFG]

Thanks CBFASI

[trinec]

I know this is an old post but I need help with this when I make the copy and paste the new layer at start which one do I delete in the new one it gives me layer 1 and layer 2 Ive tried deleteing one and tried 2 and editing what was left but when I go to mask to save to alpha channel that option is greyed out cant select it any ideas?

[DaCoroner]

PSP should be converting your background to layer 1 when you edit an alpha channel.  Personally, I'd skip the whole part about selecting all and converting to a layer.  Just edit the mask, save it back to the alpha channel (overwrite the original) then delete the mask WITHOUT merging the mask to the current layer.

[trinec]

Thanks DaCoroner for the info Ill try it and let ya know optics were making me think to hard hehe