Corrupted Skin Problems

[mattdraw]

I've just recently started skinning models in Warcraft III, and I have a couple of questions for you fine dudes.

More often then not when I import my own custom or edited skin into the editor the skinned characters appear with only their team color model without the texture. I know how the alpha channel works within Photoshop, so I know that this isn't the problem. Sometimes the skin appears and the problem's solved after I undo a couple of times on my Photoshop file. I'm using Warcraft III Viewer to convert the files.

My second question has to do with the file's texture quality. I've noticed that the quality of my imported skins aren't as clear as the original Warcraft textures. Does this have anything to do with the file type I'm saving it as?

Sorry If I posted this in the wrong section. Haven't made a post in more then 8 years.

 

[PurgeandFire]

I've had issues with wc3viewer for conversions in the past, and as far as I know, a lot of people have had similar issues (mainly with alpha channel handling). Sometimes it'll use 7-bits instead of 8-bits for the alpha channel, or it won't detect it, or it won't have one in general. Try BLP Lab instead:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tools-560/blp-lab-v0-5-0-a-137599/

As for your second question, there are two main things to consider (1) how it is exported (2) how it is converted. For (1), the converters may perform some optimizations when converting them to JPG/BMP/TGA. Take note of that. If you want to ensure that you have full quality, then you should extract the file directly from the MPQ using an MPQ editor and then convert it to TGA through BLPLab (and make sure the settings are correct so that it has the highest quality). For (2), a lot of converters will compress the BLP for a lower file size. Usually ~75% vs. ~100% isn't very noticeable, but you can always choose 100% quality if you want.

It may also look different depending on whether you use JPEG or paletted compression. JPEG tends to result in fewer color-deformations but become blurrier as the quality goes low. Paletted will end up making things look similar to GIFs (a bit fuzzy) because it will try to compress the palette down to 256 colors (which is problematic when a BLP uses 10k+ colors).

All in all, BLP Lab is probably the best tool for you since it will give you full control over the detail/compression of the file. If you need any more help, feel free to ask.

P.S. For future reference, I recommend exporting BLP's as TGA vs. JPG/BMP because TGA inherently reserve 8-bits for an alpha channel. I've just had fewer headaches with them. Good luck.

P.P.S. Welcome back.