Texture Alpha Channel
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Hey!
How do i make a ped texture transparent? I tried adding alpha channels but it did not work (the texture is black instead of transparent)
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@Gennerator The main body textures on the peds are DXT1, which have no transparency. That's a good indication that it's not used, so the shader won't deal with it if it finds any.
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This post is deleted!
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@LeeC2202 I saw some textures that are DXT5 and those are using an alpha channel(extracted and checked them). eg: a_f_m_beach_01.ytd uses DXT5 on almost every body part
- I replaced a DXT1 with a DXT5 and didnt work (sadly)
- I think DXT1 has support for 1 bit Alpha channel (thats what i found on google; and in photoshop)
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@Gennerator Some shaders use the alpha channel for things like specularity. So whilst they might have an alpha channel, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's being used for transparency, it all depends on how the shader is written to deal with that information.
You're right about the 1-bit alpha, it was just that I loaded up some textures for a model I had been playing with and they were DXT1 with no alpha... I forgot about the alternate version. **
We get so used to working with 2D images, that we naturally assume that alpha = transparency but when it comes to game engines, it's not always the case.
** Edit: I wrote something here that was wrong... I thought Photoshop saved files in the same format as it loads them but I was wrong. It was insisting on saving files as DXT1 that OpenIV says are DXT5... must watch out for that one.
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@LeeC2202 Sooo...Do you have any idea of how to make transparent textures for peds? I would really like to try something new(i have a lot of free time
). Also...are those blue-purple-ish textures specular maps ?I'm kind of new to this picture editing stuff so thats why im asking a lot of questions :D. I did some retextures in GTA:SA a long while ago.(the alpha channel made the textures transparent there)
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@Gennerator I don't think you can do it... As I say, if the shader either uses the alpha information for something else, or just ignores it, there's not much you can do. If you look at some objects, like posters for instance, if you use the alpha channel on them, then you get transparency, it's how they create the torn edges etc...
If you look at s_f_y_hooker_02.ydd > uppr_002_r, you can see the straps across her chest are actual mesh straps. In a game that uses transparency for the textures, they could have done that by making the gaps with the alpha channel. I don't think there's much you can do, other than modify the actual models and shaders perhaps, to use the materials differently.
The blue-purplish images are either normal maps or specular maps, they are usually marked as _normal or _spec. It's a bit confusing as normal maps are usually blue/purple and specular maps are usually grayscale. They must be doing something more than calculating just the shininess with the spec maps in GTAV, probably using it to tint the reflections... maybe.
