Texture with alpha?

[Lambdadelta]

Texture with transparency?

How does one make a texture/icon (.blp) with alpha?

I want to use this icon as a texture as part of a GUI in-game and where I can change the colour of it by just changing the model's rgb.

What format do I need to use? Warcraft 3 Viewer needed me to use .tga, .bmp or .jpeg. But when I convert it using either of these formats, the resultant .blp fails.

Or is that white rendered as transparent in the editor/wc3?

 

[PurgeandFire]

I recommend .TGA. You can alternatively try using BLP Lab.

If you are applying it to a model, you have to keep in mind that the material layer mode may need to be modified (to transparent? or something).

Is this for an ingame GUI (using trackables/images) or is it for actual icons?

 

[Lambdadelta]

I recommend .TGA. You can alternatively try using BLP Lab.

If you are applying it to a model, you have to keep in mind that the material layer mode may need to be modified (to transparent? or something).

Is this for an ingame GUI (using trackables/images) or is it for actual icons?

Hmm. Not sure how exactly it works. I'm using a destructable which uses a model with a replaceable texture and I'm just changing that field so that it displays the texture. Like how hero selection screens work. Except mine is for cinematic purposes only.

 

[Talavaj]

The image you posted is transparent, what exactly is the problem ? Just convert the png into blp directly, don't use targa,jpg bmp or whatever else.
Honestly, png is the best format to handle transparency. If you need an actual custom alpha channel then make it in targa.

What I understand is that you want the white glow to be transparent like that correct ?

 

[Lambdadelta]

The image you posted is transparent, what exactly is the problem ? Just convert the png into blp directly, don't use targa,jpg bmp or whatever else.
Honestly, png is the best format to handle transparency. If you need an actual custom alpha channel then make it in targa.

What I understand is that you want the white glow to be transparent like that correct ?

What I wanted was:

The icons currently are destructables with models with a replaceable texture. I wanted to add the glow with another destructable and just change the colour of them. Hmm, I think I will just use effects instead though.

 

[Talavaj]

Nah, just make a white doodad of the glow and make as many animations as many of the frames you want and change its vertex color in every animation.
In game then just play different animation depending on what player chooses what.
You can animate the geosets visibility to 0 in the default stand so there is no glow before anybody chooses it.

I think that would work and make what you want.
Another easy way would be making the glow a dummy unit, and simply change its vertex color in game. On initialization you'd make the vertex transparency for all icons 100% so they don't show.

 

[PurgeandFire]

You have a couple of options. Talavaj's methods are definitely viable.

The first things that came to my mind was (1) you can create a 64x64 texture that is all red/blue/w/e with the rounded edges you have. Since you have a black background, you can just make the edges black. Then just make the destructible below the other one (place the other one with a higher Z, but scale the glowing one up). It is not super clean, but you can easily enable and disable it just by creating a destructible at the appropriate position.

(2) Essentially the same thing, but create an image instead (this supports transparency very easily). You would just have it below the other one--assuming that you have a top down view.

 

[Luorax]

Well, using alpha channels in PS has always worked me. I've done a similar border for spells that are being caster/channeled, for my DGUI spell bar and it worked properly. The same goes to the IID healthbar textures.

So do you actually use alpha channels, or do you just make certain parts transparent and try to use them?

What is that hero selection window for, BTW? It looks nice