Adding an Alpha Channel

[bridon bear]

Hi,

I am getting to grips (slowly.... ) with repainting aircraft for M$ FS2004.

Using paint kits to aquaint myself with the various techniques has so far proved very useful.....all the PK's that I have so far looked at have an Alpha Channel which I can see and edit easily in Photoshop 7 with no problems. However, today I was looking into a PK that containd the usual PSD files but when I opened the files one by one, there were the usual layers but no Alpha Channel

So what do I do to get an Alpha channel into these files?

From what I can gather (just guessing here ) the PSD is initially opened up in Photoshop 7 as per usual....I save as a BMP then open that up in DXTbmp...so far so good....When the file opens I hit the Alpha tab on the tool bar and a selection is presented there......

At this point I am not too sure what to do....I suspect the command 'Create Alpha Template' could be the one but then a box appears telling me a greyscale image will be created and do I wish to continue...

I am not sure what to do from here on in.....or am I going about it the wrong way entirely....?

Any advice gratefully received....

Regards.

Bridon Bear (Dorset UK)

[adlabs6]

Hi there,

If the new paint kit doesn't include an alpha layer, then you've got a couple of options.

First and easiest, take a look at another repaint for that aircraft that was done by someone else (probably take a look at the default repaint the aircraft shipped with). You can check this file in DXTBmp and see if there is an alpha channel on it. (Be extra careful not to over write this repaint while checking it out!)

If you find an alpha layer on that repaint, then you can export it to your image editing app, and then once in the image editor, save it as a new file on your computer. Then you can open up your own repaint you are working on, create a new alpha layer (with the button you mentioned) and export it to the image editing app. Now simply open up the other alpha channel you saved, paste it into that new alpha layer you imported, and save it. Reload the alpha in DXTBmp and it should appear.

Note that using this method, you'd want to be careful before uploading your new repaint, since it would technically contain someone else work. You'd need to get any permissions first, and if it's a payware aircraft, that'll probably be impossible.

Option #2 requires some more work. It would be essentially creating a new alpha layer manually. Just use the 'create alpha' button to make a new blank alpha layer, then you'll have to shade it's gray scales manually to suit each part of the aircraft. This can take considerable effort, depending on the aircraft.

Finally, if you add an alpha layer and notice that in FS2004 the aircraft is completely or partially transparent, then that particular aircraft model isn't able to use an alpha channel. There isn't any way to fix this unfortunately, as this decision is made by the modeler farther back up the chain, and can't be reversed once the model is exported and released to the public.

I hope that makes some sense. If not let me know!

[bridon bear]

Thanks for your informative reply Adlabs6 Very helpful info.....exactly what I needed..

Option #2 was the one I had to go for...now I have created an Alpha Channel successfully, I am so pleased it was that simple..!!!

Takes longer to write the method than it took to do it...

Thanks once again.

Regards.

Bridon Bear ( Sunny Dorset UK)

[adlabs6]

Glad to hear it worked out well. Indeed it does take longer to write it that to do it, doesn't it?