Transparency & Civ Color

[Kael]

I am using Paint Shop pro 7 and Photoshop CS2 and I can't figure out how to set transparency (as in the religion buttons don't show their background on the religious screen, but my new religious buttons do).

I also can't figure out how to set the Civ color on any of the skins. If I load a skin and save it it seems to ruin the Civ color. I am using the Photoshop plugins from Nvidia so I don't even need to convert them to another format to edit.

How are you guys doing it?

 

[Spindrift]

This ought to be in another forum (this one is for presentation of finished mods, I believe, not questions or discussion), but in the meantime allow me to answer:

Every texture the game uses (.dds format, natch) needs an alpha channel to dictate transparency and Civ colors. With most graphics it determines the former, with things like units the latter. The alpha channel is a monotone "layer" that determines how much of the texture to "let through," or in the case of units, how much of the Civ color to "let through" onto the unit texture.

For example, if your unit has a hat that changes color based on what Civ they're in, their corresponding DDS texture would be all white, except for the spot where the hat texture goes; it would be all black (the black dictating to the game where to put the colors, or transparency on textures that use that).

I don't know how your tools handle .DDS files, but it sounds like when you're saving them, it's not saving them with an alpha channel as well, or at least not a custom alpha channel (as most custom graphics will require). I would reccomend getting a tool specially-suited to the job, one that lets you import alpha channels and save them into your .dds files. I'd dig around on the forums for info on these and how to do that, as I don't have any immediate reccomendations myself.

 

[Rufus T. Firefly]

 

[Kael]

This ought to be in another forum (this one is for presentation of finished mods, I believe, not questions or discussion), but in the meantime allow me to answer:

Every texture the game uses (.dds format, natch) needs an alpha channel to dictate transparency and Civ colors. With most graphics it determines the former, with things like units the latter. The alpha channel is a monotone "layer" that determines how much of the texture to "let through," or in the case of units, how much of the Civ color to "let through" onto the unit texture.

For example, if your unit has a hat that changes color based on what Civ they're in, their corresponding DDS texture would be all white, except for the spot where the hat texture goes; it would be all black (the black dictating to the game where to put the colors, or transparency on textures that use that).

I don't know how your tools handle .DDS files, but it sounds like when you're saving them, it's not saving them with an alpha channel as well, or at least not a custom alpha channel (as most custom graphics will require). I would reccomend getting a tool specially-suited to the job, one that lets you import alpha channels and save them into your .dds files. I'd dig around on the forums for info on these and how to do that, as I don't have any immediate reccomendations myself.

Awesome, thanks man. I will check and see if I can find anything about an alpha channel in Photoshop.

Update: It works perfectly! I have transparent icons and units with the civ colors showing. Thanks!