How do I enable transparent areas in the naval flags?

**Spanky** · April 05, 2009, 09:49 AM

I need some help here from experienced artists out there. Unlike large.tga, ensign_denmark_diffuse.dds in the naval textures directory does not seem to work with transparent areas - they show up as pure black around the flag. Any idea how to solve this?

My .dds file has an alpha channel that specifies transparency, and I save it using DXT5 compression - this all works for the campaign and battle flags, but for some reason, not for the naval flags. It might have something to do with the program looking for the alpha channel in another file - there is an ensign_alpha.dds file in the pack - but making a separate alpha file following this naming convention hasn't worked so far (ensign_denmark_alpha.dds, to go with ensign_denmark_diffuse.dds).

Any help would be appreciated.

**Spanky** · April 06, 2009, 05:21 AM

Hmm. No ideas on the problem? I'm still stumped.

**Flobulon** · April 06, 2009, 07:30 AM

I think it may to do with the ensign_density.dds file. I seem to remember seeing it when poking around in there. Just a thought

**Spanky** · April 06, 2009, 09:01 AM

Thanks. I'm not sure it does, though; that file is a different shape from the other ensign files, it's square... Not sure what to make of it.

**Bladerunner** · April 06, 2009, 10:07 PM

Mayby the problem is in the ship-models. There is a hint to the ensigns in the rigging files of the models and i find at variants two files called capstana..
I'm not sure, but if this one is for the mast and the flag, there is a black dummy-texture, which would explain your problems and which can't be solved till we get modelling tools.

**Spanky** · April 07, 2009, 03:43 AM

Thanks. Yes, I'd be grateful for any hints on this one. A capstan, though, according to wikipedia is:

a rotating machine used to apply force to another element, notably used on board ship and on dock walls, for heaving-in or veering ropes, cables, and hawsers.

Not sure they would put the flag in the same model?

I discovered yesterday that the british ensign also had a "_normal.dds" file, but I'm assuming that is used for bump mapping or something similar.

There must be some way to get transparency into these flags. Naval flags are those most frequently having swallowtails.

**Bladerunner** · April 07, 2009, 06:47 AM

i think you may be right with the capstana-file, but you really should take a look into the rigging.xml files. there are two sails (001 and 099) which have the texture ensign.