Custom Texture Question

[hf_]

Hi,
I'm trying to create custom textures for a map. They are "rail" textures in the sense that I want part of the texture to be visible, and the other part to be complete invisible (100% transparent), such as a fence texture or a railing texture. I've created the visible portion of my texture, but how do I tell Hammer that I want the area around the visible portion to be completely transparent?

[nodnarb]

If you don't get an answer soon, I'm pretty sure GambiT knows how to do it.

[Beetle]

I'd know the answer if you were talking about TFC :P

[fisheye]

the .tga source image that you're started with needs to have an alpha channel added. the alpha channel is like an extra greyscale layer tagged onto an image, and can be used by the source engine in a couple of different ways, like transparency, self illumination, shiny cubemap effect etc. the lighter the shade of grey, the brighter/shinier/more transparent the effect will be.
( it could be the other way around though, i don't do textures too often. )

anyway, once you've got your alpha channel sorted, you still need to let the engine know what effect it should apply to it. that's done by adding something like"$translucent" 1 in the .vmt file.

[hf_]

I don't understand what you're saying fisheye. I saw a tutorial online how to make the whole texture transparent, and what it said is similar to what you are saying. I just want to make part of it transparent, and the other part completely visible. In HL1, this was done by using the color blue and the character '{' in front of the texture name.

[hf_]

Alright, finally figured out how to do it. This site was a great help:
http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.p...sparent_Decals

In case anyone else has this question, this is what I did:

1. Created texture in photoshop.
2. Used wand to select portions of texture that I wanted to be transparent.
3. Select -> Save Selection, named "Alpha".
4. Deselected and then inverted.
5. Saved as 32-bit .tga file.
6. Converted to .vtf.
7. Put the following in notepad to be saved as .vmt:

"VertexLitGeneric"
{
"$translucent" 1
"$baseTexture" "dir/name"
"$nocull" 1
}

That did the trick.

[fisheye]

well, since you've got photoshop, you should get the .vtf plugin.

http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=154#p154

[GambiT]

sorry i didnt see this sooner hf_. if your using Paint Shop Pro its alot different to add an alpha channel than in Photoshop. if anybody has PSP(i use PSPX) and you need to know how to do it let me know.

also i may be mistaken but i dont think you need the nocull in the vmt, that makes it 2 sided. myabe somebody could explain just where a 2 sided texture would be useful?

NOTE: the white portion of your alpha channel is what will be visible.

NOTE: i'm not sure about photoshop but PSP when you load alpha channel from image and select "source opacity" if you have any black(0,0,0) in your image that you want to be visible you need to have it selected along with the rest of the "visible image" like it shows in the "making alpha channel" of that link you posted.