why do i have this weird black box around my custom icon?

[DrunkenRine]

hi folks,

so im trying to make a ancient greece mod with the greek tribes beeing all seperate civilizations. actually i expected it to be easier with all this mod buddy and stuff. but every single change i try to implement there seems to be something wrong... its really annoying.

1. so now i managed to implement icons for my spartan civ but i have this black box around it ingame. i attached a file showing the problem.

2. my text that should be Sparta, Spartan League, and the History etc. all just show the default tags from the xml files ingame, why could that be?
the problem is also visible in the attached file.

btw.: im using kaels guide.

would be really nice if you modding pros out there could help me out.

 

[Alewx]

My guess would be that you have forgotten to give the image an alphachannel.

 

[DrunkenRine]

well i wondered why the area outside the white icon circle is black in gimp and when i try to add an alpha channel the option is unselectable as if there already was one.

 

[chrome-rome]

I'm definitely not a pro but the box problem can be solved rather easily. When you load up GIMP, just hit Ctrl+L. This should bring up the layers screen. Check the box that says "Lock." Now when you place your icons, they go inside the circles rather than on top (probably some technical term for that but like I said, I'm no pro ). whoward has a great tutorial here

 

[DrunkenRine]

wow that sounds cool, i will definately try that! thanks alot!

 

[DrunkenRine]

hm i dont get it... there are several buttons to lock things, i can either lock pixels or alpha channel, but whatever i do it doesnt make the icon appear behind the black stuff so that it only fits in the circles. when i lock pixels i cant even copy/paste the icon into the picture. whatever i try, even when i place the icon absolutely within the circle, so that the white or transparent is visible as a border of my icon, even then there is a huge black box around my ingame icon.

i would greatly appreciate any further ideas... it cant be so hard to make this work.

 

[Kwadjh]

I understand where the problem is, but it's hard to explain, especially because English is not my mother language.

So, let's try.

If you are using gimp to create your icons, you use a layer to indicate where the icon shoud be. The problem is that you keep the layer when you save your icon, you must remove it to avoid the "black box".

Kwadjh

 

[Barathor]

I'm not too familiar with GIMP, as I use Photoshop, but I'm sure things are pretty similar. For DDS, I had to install an Nvidia plugin; I'm not sure if you have to do the same (or get the same one).

Anyway... it looks like the alpha channel is missing. When you're saving the image as a DDS, make sure you're including the alpha channel.

ARGB not just RGB.

I think DXT3 is the preferred format.

 

[DrunkenRine]

ok guys, finally it worked. thank you all for the advices.

in the end i used the icon templates from the guide that chrome-rome posted, instead of using the templates keals guide refers to. with those new templates the icon copy-pasting worked as intendet, so that the alpha-area of the template isnt even changed by the icon (the icon only appearing inside the circles and else dissappearing). im so happy that this works now so i can progress.
thanks again!!!