need photoshop help

[Doom_Dealer]

im in the middle of making an exar kun lightsabre mod for that new mod. Only problem is i dont no how you make parts of the hilt texture transparent, so i can make those wierd spikey bits on the end. So, as its kinda obvious:

How do you make parts ofa s skin transparent using adobe photoshop???

[Doom_Dealer]

bump!

plz???

[Darth_Grandpa]

This isn't much help, but it's what I've experienced in the 4 days or so I've been using PhotoShop to (successfully) create skin mods.

 

When creating a transparency, the area shows up as a white background in-game.

 

Now, since I am not an expert, I may have missed a step in the transparency process, but I will watch this thread as well, as I have a similar question.

[T7nowhere]

I have made textures transparent by turning down the opacity in the Layers window. hehe makes things all shiny. lol I did a quik test of it with a Good Xor skin I made and it made him look like he's made out of ceramique. easy to do though.

http://images.fotopic.net/?id=3610951&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1

http://images.fotopic.net/?id=3610950&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1

http://images.fotopic.net/?id=3610949&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1

[svösh]

Now I haven’t tried to make any skins transparent but what you want to do is

 

First step make your skin, with as many layers as you want ( SOME THING TO REMEMBER LAYERS ARE YOUR FRIEND ) if your doing some thing and you don’t like the results then you can simply delete any number of layers until you are satisfied.

 

Take the time to name each one as well as it will save you a real headache later on remember to name them accordingly so that the transparent hilt layer will be …transparent hilt and so on .

 

Ok back on track

 

Once you have made your skin to your liking, make sure you have a layer with the painted area of the skin that you want to be transparent. ( This might appear back words to you but stick with me, I have about 8 years on Photoshop )

 

Now Ctrl + left click the thumbnail of the layer and you will have selected only the painted area. Now what you want to do is invert the selection this can be done by right clicking the selection only with the selection tool and choosing select inverse or going to the selection drop menu and choosing inverse or if your like me and like using shortcuts its shift +ctrl +I Keep the selection active now that it’s inverted and go to the selection drop menu and choose Save selection DON’T GIVE IT A NAME and hit ok.

 

Now go to the channels tab behind the layers tab at the bottom you will see a black and white thumb nail called alpha 1 this is the information the game will use to make your transparent hilt a reality.

 

The final alpha channel should look like sold black for the transparent area and solid white all around it now click the eye icon on the channels palette for the alpha channel turn the alpha off and click on the layers palette again and now you see your graphic will look the exact same as before the only difference is that you now have made an alpha channel to represent the transparency on your hilt.

 

Duplicate the image flatten the layers on the copy save as ( whatever you name your hilt. .tga ) save as 32 bit and make sure there is a check mark in the alpha channel check box when saving.

 

Save the original as ( whatever you name your hilt .PSD ) so you can play with the layers if some thing is not right.

 

The result of this should be a saber hilt that looks like its CLEAR glass to change the amount of transparency on the hilt simply use the paint fill tool on the alpha channel with a dark dark gray

 

Or with the selection active on the black area of the alpha channel try the gradient tool with a linear blend of black and dark or middle gray at the edge it might give you the look of thickness on the hilt model. Play around and most of all have fun

 

Pure black is transparent and white is opaque any gray tones are different levels of transparency. { on the Alpha channel }

 

I hope this answers your question if not pm me or reply here.

svösh