Transparent Texture/Team Color Now Replaced With White?

[Reesespieces]

Hello, everyone, I'm currently in the process of getting back into Warcraft III and I had decided to try my hand at a bit of skinning and modeling.

I was working on a skin for a model in GIMP 2, and when I opened the Model Editor to see how my skin "fit," I noticed that the cloak, and shoulder plates, both normally team colored, were now white. In addition, the eye seems to have lost it's transparent texture as well. Since I'm unaware of the technical terms I'll attach an image so hopefully you guys can see what I'm talking about:



Now, would anyone mind explaining to an amateur, what exactly the problem is, how it went wrong, and what I can do to correct this issue?

 

[Vinz]

I think it is the alpha channel. You must edit skins in TGA I think.

 

[Reesespieces]

I think it is the alpha channel. You must edit skins in TGA I think.

I hate to be a noob, but would you mind explaining in layman's terms?

 

[Vinz]

Tbh I don't know anything about alpha channels, other than that they provide transparency. You should use a program that can open TGAs (extract from the MPQ as TGA). TGA or targa file types preserve alpha channels.

 

[kellym0]

I use photoshop adobe CS3 which allows me to skin units in war craft 3

the way it works is you need what are called ''alpha channels'' not many photo editing programs iv seen in my time can even ''save'' those channels.

the channels are basically layers which when activated by materials to be ''transparent'' ''additive'' or other material layer types, the alpha channels do different things, but mostly they just act as where pixels become invisible, such as your models eyes.

the team color shoulders are similar but the material layer is different, its blend plus some thing else don't remember exactly, using the team color and the texture in different material layers, using the same alpha channel but using it differently.

your model has a broken skin and a broken material layer, which could be broken because of the skin. that is what is happening.

simply re open your skin, and the very original skin its self directly from blizzard, go to the alpha channels, copy and paste the old alpha channels in the old skin into your skin, save properly, and then your progress on your skin is saved. doing this back wards with copying your new skin onto the old skin keeping the original alpha channels intact can also work.

and rather then using them as TGA files, I use them as BMP files, because thats a file type that both CS3 AND the warcraft 3 viewer can both see and under stand, leading to faster skinning.

 

[Vinz]

So bitmap saves Alpha as well? And Wc3 viewer understands TGA 2 IIRC.

 

[Talavaj]

You can also use PNG and simply erase parts of the texture you don't want (so the checkerboard underneath shows) and it will be converted into alpha channel when you convert it into BLP via magos.
Messing with alpha channels when you want just a few holes is pointless, they are more useful for when you need detail such as in height maps or when you need two layered map given that alpha channel preserves the main channel so you can use a material with holes or without.

 

[kellym0]

I like changing alpha channels Talavai, without it I would never of been able to build my plants that disintegrate into tiny pieces.