I been unable to do this. Supposedly TGA can save transparency on an image but when I import the image it shows a white background instead of a transparent background.
Anyone know a way to import files with transparent properties?
Eiviyn ran into the same problem recently, it seems .tga format is not correctly supported by sc2. Try to use .dds format, transparency works nicely for me with this format.
I have successfully imported .tga files with transparency.
Make sure you have the alpha set correctly so what you want shown is different than what you want hidden. You can look up how to do this if you don't know how yet, it is pretty simple.
If you are testing your map while trying to get TGA picture transparent, and you keep testing over and over then it won't work unless you close Starcraft II completely after each test.
At least for me, when I would test it and then do a few changes in Photoshop and re-import the picture, nothing would be updated in Starcraft II. The alpha wouldn't work no matter what I did. Then I restarted Starcraft II and ran my test again and the map loaded and the picture was transparent. See what happens is Starcraft II loads the textures, then saves them in a cache to make loading the map faster. So it's using the same picture as the first time you test the map! If the first picture wasn't transparent and then you kept making changes to the picture, re-importing it then it will always show the non transparent version of the picture because it was loaded first. Simply close Starcraft II everytime you make a change to an imported picture/texture and it should work better in your testing.
I been unable to do this. Supposedly TGA can save transparency on an image but when I import the image it shows a white background instead of a transparent background.
Anyone know a way to import files with transparent properties?
If you noticed, the existing transparency SC2 files are in 24 bits per pixel. If you try to import a transparent TGA it uses a black alpha channel which requires 32 pixels to my knowledge. Consequently stay away from tga files. Use a DDS converter and don't worry about the size of the file. GE does a good job with compression so long as you aren't importing a picture the size of the sistine chapel.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I been unable to do this. Supposedly TGA can save transparency on an image but when I import the image it shows a white background instead of a transparent background.
Anyone know a way to import files with transparent properties?
Eiviyn ran into the same problem recently, it seems .tga format is not correctly supported by sc2. Try to use .dds format, transparency works nicely for me with this format.
How do we save .dds images anyway.. I tried it with photoshop the other day but it couldn't find the option.
http://www.filefront.com/3577988/DDS-Converter-2-1.0/
I am using Gimp + DDS- Plugin. Dunno, if something similar exists for photoshop If not, try this converter.
@EternalWraith: Go
Ah, Just what I was looking for :)
You can also export DDS directly from Photoshop (32-bit only) with this plugin: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html I use the DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha option and it works fine.
@DanOwl: Go
I have successfully imported .tga files with transparency.
Make sure you have the alpha set correctly so what you want shown is different than what you want hidden. You can look up how to do this if you don't know how yet, it is pretty simple.
If you are testing your map while trying to get TGA picture transparent, and you keep testing over and over then it won't work unless you close Starcraft II completely after each test.
At least for me, when I would test it and then do a few changes in Photoshop and re-import the picture, nothing would be updated in Starcraft II. The alpha wouldn't work no matter what I did. Then I restarted Starcraft II and ran my test again and the map loaded and the picture was transparent. See what happens is Starcraft II loads the textures, then saves them in a cache to make loading the map faster. So it's using the same picture as the first time you test the map! If the first picture wasn't transparent and then you kept making changes to the picture, re-importing it then it will always show the non transparent version of the picture because it was loaded first. Simply close Starcraft II everytime you make a change to an imported picture/texture and it should work better in your testing.
If you noticed, the existing transparency SC2 files are in 24 bits per pixel. If you try to import a transparent TGA it uses a black alpha channel which requires 32 pixels to my knowledge. Consequently stay away from tga files. Use a DDS converter and don't worry about the size of the file. GE does a good job with compression so long as you aren't importing a picture the size of the sistine chapel.