Transparent textures compatible with Dark

[6635ff0764fafvoodoo47]

If you are creating or modifying object textures that have transparent parts, you might have noticed how easy it is to break them - typically, the texture will display some transparency artifacts, looking like small holes when viewed ingame. Fixing this is quite easy, fortunately - you just need to get Gimp (freeware), and follow the instructions below:

- load the texture into Gimp
- go image/mode, select RGB
- click on the currently selected color, pick a custom color, set it to ff00ff (it's what is being used by vanilla SS2 textures, so lets go with that)
- color all parts that should be transparent with this color
- go image/mode, select indexed
- set it to generate optimum palette, number of colors 254, and convert
- go windows/dockable dialogs/colormap
- rightclick on the ff00ff pixel, choose rearrange colormap, move it to spot 0, click ok
- export as gif (or pcx)

The resulting texture should have proper transparency, both under NewDark and oldDark. I'm guessing the same result can be achieved with other image editing tools as well, as long as they support all the required functionality.


Notes: if you observe similar transparency artifacts on a texture that doesn't need any transparency, saving it as PNG should be enough to fix it (but you could apply the colormap fix as well if you really want to, or if oldDark compatibility is required). If you need transparency, load the texture into Gimp, go Image->Mode, select RGB, go Layer->Transparency->Add Alpha Channel, use the Fuzzy Selection Tool to select all the parts of the texture that should be transparent, hit delete and export as PNG.

Also, remember that all Dark textures should be power of two sized.

[6635ff07651afKolya]

The wiki entry describes how to use one colour as transparent. Is there no alpha channel transparency yet?

[6635ff07652d9voodoo47]

for oldDark compatible (pcx, gif) textures? no, whatever is on spot 0 is treated as transparent, afaik.

[6635ff07654beZylonBane]

In OldDark you use Targa format textures to do alpha transparency.

[6635ff07655aeKolya]

Okay, and in NewDark? I mean, who cares about old dark compatibility anyway?
(I feel like I must be missing something blindingly obvious here.)

[6635ff07656bdZylonBane]

Uh, in NewDark you can also use PNG with alpha channel. DDS textures with DXT5 compression should also work, though I've never tried it.

I still use TGAs for a lot of transparent stuff anyway because PSP gives you more discrete control over the alpha channel.

[6635ff0765792Kolya]

Shouldn't that at least be mentioned in the wiki entry?