[TUTORIAL] Menu Photos

[Bloodhound]

Hey [O],
this is a tutorial for the alpha channels in photoshop. (take a look at the last part)
http://tutorials.robbiegee.com/ps_tga.htm

And about that pink texture, are you sure that you edited the path in the vmt so that it´s pointing to the right vtf file? Cause that pink texture will only show if a vmt but no vtf is there.

 

[[O]]

Hey [O],
this is a tutorial for the alpha channels in photoshop. (take a look at the last part)
http://tutorials.robbiegee.com/ps_tga.htm

And about that pink texture, are you sure that you edited the path in the vmt so that it´s pointing to the right vtf file? Cause that pink texture will only show if a vmt but no vtf is there.

Thanks so much for that bloodhound.

About the pink texture, my path is actually correct: "vgui\maps\menu_photos_cp_dam"
however, it seems the vmt had an inaccurate file name. so i need to fix that.

If i understand you correctly, fixing this will make sure that SOMETHING shows other than just pink. Whether its an opaque image or a transparent one depends on me getting that alpha channel thing correct.

As for the last part of the tutorial, you mean the flattening of the image?
Will that accomplish this " * edit the Alpha channel to make it hide the black background and show the pictures only" because I followed all the steps and the alpha channel still has black in it.

 

[[O]]

Ok the vtf is now showing in the objectives window, but its not transparent...

I'm struggling with this alpha thing.

 

[Bloodhound]

I'm struggling with this alpha thing.

Sorry, my English is too bad to describe it, the only thing I can do is give you some links.

http://gamesprays.com/articles/tutorial/create-team-fortress-2-sprays-with-transparency-1/

I know this tutorial is about sprays, but the alpha channel thing is the same.

Good luck.

 

[[O]]

It finally worked

Thank you BloodHound. That last tutorial was the breakthrough.

I had to turn on ALL channels AND turn off background layer.

 

[MALYSZ]

Download links from first page not work

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

I really hate to do this necro bump - but just in case others are having the same issue - it would be good to have it all in the same spot.

This issue is:

It's not recognizing my alpha channel - I keep getting a black box around my images.

I have tried both vtf edit and the photoshop plug-in (by the way what save option should I be using with this there's a couple of alpha options).

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

 

[Pocket]

If I'm not mistaken, the plugin recognizes transparency levels and converts them to an alpha channel automatically, just like Photoshop already does for PNG, as long as you specify a format with transparency. The only drawback is not getting to control the "color" of the transparent pixels, which you might want to do in some cases to make a texture show up better in Hammer's material browser.

 

[Micnax]

I find that if you're using Photoshop to create the TGA files that you're going to convert, you need to have the alpha channel enabled alongside the RGB channels when you save the file, otherwise it won't recognize it exists and not use it (annoyingly I found this out when I was doing the high-res world maps)

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

Thanks for the help

I found out that it turned out to be a cache error.

When I completely restarted TF2 this morning it loaded in the working alpha. I'm still scratching my head over this one - another totally weird item to know.

 

[Werewolf]

Necro-Post!

I need some help with the flags in the vtf file, as I'm not sure which ones I need to have enabled and which I don't.

This a screenshot of what I have set in the VTF right now:

Now I have it packed into the map but when I load the map on my testing laptop I get this happen:

It does get a little better when I increase the resolution, but it still has the 'box' effect:

What I'd like to know is: Do I have the correct flags set for a menu_photo, or do I need to have certain flags checked/others not checked?

For reference, my vmt is as follows:

"UnlitGeneric"
{
	"$basetexture" "vgui/maps/menu_photos_dr_hourglass_beta08"
	"$translucent" "1"
	"$ignorez" "1"
	"$vertexcolor" "1"
}

 

[Tumby]

Copy the flags from official menu photos.
I have no clue why pruple stuff is on your photo. I never experienced something like that myself. What compression format are you using when you turn it into a .vtf?

 

[Werewolf]

Copy the flags from official menu photos.

I tried extracting an official one using GCFScape, but kept getting an error:

Error writing C:\Users\Adam\Downloads\2fort_texture001.vtf (Error: Unexpected end of GCF stream (0 B of 2796408 B).  Has the GCF file been completely acquired?)

What compression format are you using when you turn it into a .vtf?

I'm not sure actually. Here's my current VTFedit settings:

Also I don't know if its relevant, but I run TF2 on my laptop in DirectX 8.0, only for the sake of checking it does not have any errors for other people running it in DX8.

 

[Tumby]

You dummy, you cant open the numbered .vpks. You have to open the ones ending with 'dir'!
"Texture Type: Environment Texture" You aren't making a cubemap! Set this to "Animated Texture".
The Version might be a problem. Set it to 7.2.

 

[tehOMGfather]

When importing your TGA file into VTFEdit, you only need to ensure that 3 flags are set: [x] No Mipmap, [x] No Level Of Detail and [x] Eight Bit Alpha.

 

[Werewolf]

You dummy, you cant open the numbered .vpks. You have to open the ones ending with 'dir'!

I did not know that, and you could have explained that without the "you dummy". :glare::angry:

The Version might be a problem. Set it to 7.2.

I was under the understanding that 7.3 was OK? I thought it was 7.4 that has legacy problems?

When importing your TGA file into VTFEdit, you only need to ensure that 3 flags are set: [x] No Mipmap, [x] No Level Of Detail and [x] Eight Bit Alpha.

Thanks for answering my actual question! It also seems to have done the job perfectly! I loaded the map on my test laptop (DriectX 8.0, all setting lowest possible, 800x600) and it looked perfect!

 

[tehOMGfather]

You're welcome.