Help! - Working with tga files

[jocko417]

Hi guys,

Is there a way to save a tga file so that the transparent portion doesn't end up black? I'm making some replacement RAF markings for Cliffs of Dover and each time I put them in the sim I get a faint black outline around the roundels or tail flashes due to the black background after saving as tga.

any ideas?



Not the best shot but you can see a faint black outline on the tail flash. The serial number has been modded to an authentic RAF font, vs the weird font that 1C has as stock.

[daliborsky]

you can't change textures in cliff of dover

[jocko417]

you can't change textures in cliff of dover

Wanna bet?

Performance improvement mods (Low clouds/smoke/grass/shadow, no mipmaps, etc) - SimHQ Forums

The serial number on the Hurri above is not part of the skin, it's generated by the game. I replaced the stock font 1C uses with a more authentic one. The sim is moddable.

Back to my original question, any ideas about how I can avoid a black background when saving a file as a tga?

Thanks in advance.

[adlabs6]

Is there a color on the TGA that's serving as an alpha channel? Could it be that this color is slightly off spec?

I'm not familiar with CoD yet.

[jocko417]

Yes, I was reading a bit online and am wondering if it's a case of being able to assign a certain colour to the alpha. The files I'm working on are RAF roundels and tail flashes. When viewed in PSP7 the outer most roundel ring colour extends all the way to the edge of the file (square) but when viewed in GIMP or PS you see a round marking with a transparent background. I'm wondering if there is a way to assign a colour to the alpha so any 'edge' to the marking will be the same colour as the marking itself and therefore 'invisible'.

[adlabs6]

Something to consider, is whether the image has any "anti-aliasing" on the alpha edge. A hard, clear "pixelated" edge is what you want, not a smoothed line.

That anti-aliasing will cause the pure color required for the alpha to change where it sits next to your artwork, and thus would directly cause the dark line around your artwork.

Perhaps you could create an aliased mask around your artwork, then fill a new layer on the very top with the alpha color. This would prevent the edge of the alpha from being fouled.

[jocko417]

Thanks for the replies, I found a workaround of sorts. Using the colour swap feature in PSP7 I was able to change the colours without getting any "fringing" - I think that is the technical term

It seems that working with tga's in PSP doesn't leave you with either a white (PS) or black (GIMP) background. I knew I kept that program around for some reason

Probably not the most elegant way to do it but it works for now.

[adlabs6]

Glad you got the solution, thanks for sharing it.

I'll move this thread to IL2 section, in case others might find it useful.