Need help with Alpha Channels when making textures

[bombchu]

Hello :smile:

 

The Mod Troubleshooting section looked to be more for trouble with mod installation, so I hope this is a good place for this.

 

I'll admit, I'm only assuming this is an alpha channel problem. I'll leave it to the pros to decide. I'm having trouble with textures that I make being partially transparent. The intended transparency is there, but the rest of the texture has the opacity turned down on it as well. I'm using the Photoshop DDS Plugin from Nvidia, and man there are a ton of options when saving a DDS file. Anyway, I don't know what all info you would need to help me with my issue, so I'll just let you ask me about stuff rather than try to run through every little step I took. Hopefully someone can help.

 

Thanks ^_^

[Kikaimegami]

The alpha channel needs to be pure black where it is to be transparent, and pure white where you want it to be visible. No grays. Save it as DXT5, 2D Texture, and generate MIP maps.

 

Now this isn't the case for the other types of textures you might edit (normal maps, specular, etc.), but that's an entirely different topic that's a lot more complicated. You wont need to touch any of that for just alpha channel culling of bits.

 

Also, are you editing the NIF at all? Your NiAlphaProperty block needs the following set:

Flags: 4844

Threshold: 128

 

These may also be set in the Material file, where some other magic happens if you're using that. You can tell if it's using a Material by looking at the name of the BSLightingShaderProperty block (it'll be the path to a bgsm file).

 

Basically what I'm saying is that it may be more complicated than just the texture... or it may not. I'd need more details or even copies of your files to really know for sure what the problem is.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Kikaimegami

[bombchu]

No, not touching the NIF. And yea, the alpha channel is clean, sharp black and white, no grays. I've tried everything from DXT1 to DXT5 with the same results. Although it just occurred to me that I was just converting the same DDS file to the different formats without considering that they might be inheriting the issue from the first file that I saved incorrectly. I'll try starting from scratch and save it with your settings and hope that fixes it.

 

Thanks a lot :)

[jeffglobal]

If you work on any dds texture that has an alpha and don't "open as" the DXT5 interpolated alpha, you lose the alpha channel. I keep a psd to work on and then save out the work as a dds.

 

Also consider that you have to click the alpha test box in the bgsm file under the Alpha Blend Mode and Alpha Test Reference. The Powa in texturing is the bgsm files, look at them carefully. That's how Beth is using a game engine running on fumes and 1980s music.

[bombchu]

Thanks man. This info will be a big help. The "Open As" thing especially.