Custom Icons - Adding alpha channels?

[Fulla]

Is anyone aware of a tool that can add alpha channels onto 76x76 SC2 icons? I need this for some custom SC2 Icons I have.

Currently they do work, but can't combine them onto buttons as they just completely overlap it without an alpha channel.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Here's is a pic to show what I mean.

 

[Cr34p]

hm I do my SC2 textures with Gimp and a DDS plugin. You have to save the dds files as
BC3/DXT5 compression, so that alpha chanells get saved.

 

[Fulla]

Installing Gimp now, where can I get this dds plugin?

EDIT: Ok so this would save the channels when extracting the icons. Is it possible to add one onto a custom icon to import into SC2?

EDIT2: I tried adding an alpha channel with Gimp and saving the file as a TGA. Doesn't seem to work in the SC2 game, still overlaps buttons.

 

[Cr34p]

should work, does for me. But if I use other icons, I insert transparency by removing black color, since I like the colorless style of SC2

 

[Fulla]

Could you tell me the best way of removing the black color to make it transparent?

I had a go at this one and failed completely, attempting to cute out the black, add an alpha. When you import icons to you still them TGA?

Failed Attempt:

Also do you have any of your SC2 icons uploaded anywhere, would like to see them if possible.

 

[Cr34p]

no they have to be dds

 

[Fulla]

Ok, managed to get the plugin.

- Opened Icon with Gimp
- Added an alpha channel
- Saved as a .dds
- Unfortunately still fails to work with buttons.

 

[Cr34p]

u have to save it as compression : BC3/DXT5 as I said before

 

[Fulla]

Ah ok, well I just tried that and the same thing happens. Damn :/

Have you actually managed to get an SC2 icon working yourself?

 

[Cr34p]

yep, here an example

 

[Fulla]

Your icon worked perfectly

Ok so how did you get it all working?
- Open up the jpeg icon with Gimp
- Add an Alpha Channel layer.
- Save as a.dds with BC3/DXT5 compression.
- Import and done!

Any steps I'm missing?

 

[Cr34p]

this icons was a Blizzard Icon I've found here in the icon section. So it was blp1. i converted it to tga. Then I opened it in Gimp, made it colorless -> removed all colors. So only the white image and the black background were left. Then I converted black color to transparency and voila I had my Icon (before I removed the wc3 Borders.)

 

[Statharas]

Installing Gimp now, where can I get this dds plugin?

EDIT: Ok so this would save the channels when extracting the icons. Is it possible to add one onto a custom icon to import into SC2?

EDIT2: I tried adding an alpha channel with Gimp and saving the file as a TGA. Doesn't seem to work in the SC2 game, still overlaps buttons.

Read my tutorial on icons on the tutoral section.

Plus, make sure you only have 1 layer.

 

[Fulla]

Thanks guys, finally got it working at last