Skinning Complication

[bebop]

Okay I hoped to be able to solve this without asking for help but I'm stumped.

I'm trying to remove a unit's weapon and shield through some simple skinning in order to replace them with attachments. I read this tutorial on how to do this and it made perfect sense, but I ran into some problems.

First I used Gimp to try to black over the areas of skin I wanted erased. I noticed that when I selected the alpha channel alone the pencil and brush tools had no effect, so I tried selecting all channels at once and then blacking over the offending areas. After importing the skin, the only visible change was that the weapon and shield were black.

Next I tried Photoshop, only to find that the alpha channel does not appear at all, only RGB, Red, Green, and Blue channels. This is despite the fact that the skin is in TGA format. I am using Photoshop 7.

I am lost at this point. Erasing the skin areas only has the effect of making them team colored. If you know what I am doing wrong please tell me.

 

[TDzarefun]

I am using photoshop CS3, so I am not sure how different it is, but I would imagine that the a similar thing applies in photoshop 7.

When you add a layer mask, it creates an extra channel, the "alpha channel." In CS3 you can make a selection and then create the mask from the selection, so there might be something similar in photoshop 7.

Then, after you have created the layer mask, you start scribbling out the area with black (making sure that you have the mask selected), and that should make it transparent.

From memory, that is how you do it, but I will have to wait until I get home in order to confirm.

 

[QirajiLord]

I'm not sure how determined you are to use skinning to remove your weapon, but I've always had luck doing it through simple modeling. It might serve you better.

 

[Reaper2008]

Modelling is better, open it, shrink all weapons shields etc, save and import.

 

[bebop]

Alright, thanks for the advice. If TDzarefun's suggestion doesn't work i'll try deleting the vertexes. I am green to modeling but it can't be that hard.

 

[chilla_killa]

It's the simplest thing on the world.

 

[bboy-tiger-]

Isnt this called texturing and not skinning ?

 

[BlinkBoy]

yeah, this should be moved, but he may not solve his problem unless he does some modelling.