how to make transparent units and parts?

[Amorphos]

how to make transparent units and parts?

do i just paint the respective parts of the alpha black?

thanks in advance

[PurpleScotch]

Yes, painting the parts you want to make transparent in the alpha black would do the trick. It's how many shields are made in RTW. Many Roman units in BI use a rectangle shield with parts of it transparent to make it look like an oval shape.

Try it and report back .

[Amorphos]

ok i’ll try it thanks. doing loads at the moment so it may be a while.

[Halie Satanus]

If you mean transparent as in ''ghostly'', paint the whole of the alpha grey, how light or dark depends on how ghostly you want the unit.

[Amorphos]

no i meant invisible ~ but i didn’t know that about different levels of transpareny. wow i can have great fun with that.

[sleighr]

Is there a tutorial on this? I'm not clear on what you mean by black and grey. I tried it and all I get is a a rectagular black shield in the game. No transparency at all.

[Amorphos]

sleighr

i had the same problem then i began to use dxtbmp instead of the dds converter, apparently the dds converter don’t export the alpha.

in dxtbmp [google it] you can wipe the current alpha, then import alpha from an image ~ this means you can make a black and white version of the skin and use it as an alpha channel. it is then simply a case of painting parts you want to be visible in game a white and the invisible parts as black ~ grey will be semi-transparent according to shade.

if you want to make a new shield shape, you can just paste e.g. a round shield over a square one, > copy the image > convert to greyscale ? copy and paste the black and white image of the new shaped shield to the alpha.