Transparent HUD as .dds

Tue May 31, 2005 12:34 am by Ro9ue

I'm wondering what format a transparent HUD mat should be. I know how to make tranparent canopies - I almost always make ships with cockpits and canopies, saving the transparent mats in those cases as 24-bit .tga files.

But in Milkshape, no matter how transparent the mat is in Photoshop, it has a whitish background in MS. I made the transpency 2% of its original strength with the Layer Blending Options, and it looks like i want it in Photoshop. But it is not very clear in MS - even when I turn down the opacity bar under the mats tab, that makes all of it less opaque, not jusr the background.

Now, I can make the HUD mat refer to a .psd picture image, and that one does stay clear like I'm aiming for. But will FL support a psd image? I never really thought about it 'til now ... I also made a .dds version of the HUD, and that one looks like I want it to in Milkshape, but I am not sure yet how it'll do in FL - still have to finish model before testing.

So is .dds the best choice for something very transparent, or is there something else I'm overlooking?
Thanks.

- Ro9ue
_________________________________
"Do or do not. There is no try."
- Jedi Master Yoda

Tue May 31, 2005 4:10 am by AluminumHaste

No, FL only supports DDS and TGA

Tue May 31, 2005 6:54 am by Bejaymac

Ro9ue theres a link to nvidia plugins for photoshop that will let you save in dds.Look in the thread "saving in dds" a couple of threads below this one.

Tue May 31, 2005 7:11 am by Ro9ue

Ah, thanks, but I already grabbed those

Thanks to them, I can save .dds no prob now. So saving the mats isn't the holdup anymore. Thanks, though.

But I was wondering about whether .dds will save as transparent, as very clear (pretty much see-through except for the parts like radar, ship status, mission objectives, and comm heads, which I want to see.

- Ro9ue
_________________________________
"Do or do not. There is no try."
- Jedi Master Yoda

Edited by - Ro9ue on 5/31/2005 8:13:44 AM

Tue May 31, 2005 7:39 am by Cold_Void

yes it will save as transparent.you do need to pick your alphas first before exporting & so far its been nothing but a headache for me(alpha channels),but then i am using paintshop 8 and its total crap so maybe it will work correctly for you in photoshop.

Tue May 31, 2005 9:25 am by Argh

Yes, DDS DXT3 with an alpha channel is the best choice. Don't worry about how things look in Milkshape... the FL engine uses DirectX, not OpenGL, and renders a lot of things completely differently- transparency being one of them.

Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:15 am by AluminumHaste

Oh and one other thing; When you export to dds using DXT3 or DXT5 with alpha, in photoshop, if any of your layers have any transparency, it will be saved with the proper level of transparency.
At least it did for me.

Sat Jun 18, 2005 7:06 pm by Ro9ue

Ok, thanks guys, for the help/replies

I think I can comfortably work with .DDS. They rock - I love not having to flip textures and having tiny .mat files (compartively speaking). Although, Aluminum, I have had some pretty weird things happen to my canopy textures - I have saved them as transparent files, though FL renders them as very opaque and light-colored - almost metallic. Heh, not too transparent. But I finally got them right.

So, thanks

- Ro9ue
_________________________________
"Do or do not. There is no try."
- Jedi Master Yoda

Sun Jun 19, 2005 9:28 am by Argh

If your textures aren't transparent, that's probably your Ec or Dc settings. Check them both with UTF Edit.

Mon Jun 20, 2005 2:32 pm by AluminumHaste

Making your texture have an alpha channel in photoshop instead of making groups of geometry into an glass group would allow you to be more flexible.
Getting FL to interpret the alpha channel in the dds file correctly gets annoying. Although lucky for me it worked the first time but that might just be because I used non-decimal values for my alpha's in photoshop. I.E. 25%, 50%, 75% etc. etc. Instead of using the slider.

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