Modern Flag Request

[GreatLordofPie]

Could anyone point me in the direction of a good modern day flag pack?

Spoiler :

Or if you're feeling really nice, make a couple for me?

Or point me to a free program that works with Windows 8.1 to make them? (Neither the Gimp DDS plugin, nor the paint.net alpha channel feature work)

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I've used gimp to open .dds on windows 8.1

Ok I take it back, I have opened OTHER .dds files in gimp on 8.1, but for some reason flags don't appear when you open them... that is just wierd?!?

 

[GreatLordofPie]

Do you know if flags will work if you don't alpha-channel them first?

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I think you end up with just black, or white, or pink?

It has been ages since I made flags.. But I think the alpha channel is important, otherwise you just get a blank block or some other bizarre issue.

Windows 8.1 seems to get more stupid every time I turn my computer on...

 

[GreatLordofPie]

That's crappy, I guess I'll do a mix of modern flags and decal flags or something.

 

[Nightinggale]

But I think the alpha channel is important, otherwise you just get a blank block or some other bizarre issue.

The alpha channel is very important. An image is stored as a number of pixels, set in an X,Y pattern. This mean all images are square blocks. This is corrected with the alpha channel, which tells how transparent each pixel is. You can then use the alpha channel to make the unwanted pixels 100% transparent, which on the screen looks like you can make images of any shape.

I suck with graphical editing, but I do know that I have encountered some auto alpha channel rendering, which makes the alpha channel 0% transparent, except for the white surrounding, which is then 100% transparent. I just don't remember how I ended up with a feature like that. However, it is presumably precisely what you need.

In technical terms, the alpha channel is 8 bit, which mean it is a scale from 0 to 255 where 255 is completely transparent. At least I think it's 255, which is transparent. Most likely graphical applications will use the 0 to 255 scale, though percentage and floats from 0 to 1 could exist.

 

[GreatLordofPie]

I have encountered some auto alpha channel rendering

Could you point me in the direction the app that has that if it's free?

 

[Nightinggale]

Could you point me in the direction the app that has that if it's free?

I think it was this one http://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/. At least that one can open the alpha channel in a separate window where it can be edited pixel by pixel if needed, something which I haven't seen elsewhere. Sadly it's mac only and I'm still looking for something like that for windows

I'm not looking hard though. My artistic skills tells me I should stick to DLL coding
In fact I don't do any graphics unless I really need to (almost never) or if I can make the computer do it for me. If I try to draw something of my own creation, I discard it due to poor quality, which is why I don't even try.