How to make glass textures?

[Skaircro 0]

I've done a search and found out how to make alpha textures but couldn't find anywhere about making a glass texture.

I would like to make a slightly black tint glass for my plane.

I'm using Paint Shop Pro 5.01 at the moment.

Can anyone give a brief step through?

Or is it just done somehow with alpha channels?

Thanks.

[ralphwiggum 6]

moving to O2 modelling.

[VXR 9]

it has to be done with alpha channels in a paa texture

[Skaircro 0]

I've tried making it using alpha textures and stuff, but I cant get the damn thing to work.

It always comes out as a solid colour.

Can anyone give me some help here??

I saw someone mention that it is done using gradients.. but I have no idea how to use them.. even after reading the Paint Shop 'Help'.

It isnt very helpfull for the inexperienced user!!

Please help me!

[Guest BratZ]

Only thing I can suggest is use a working glass texture.Like one from a model.Fit it where needed.

[franze 196]

This one has me stumped too. *NONE* of the textures I try to add alpha channels to or save masks to work in Oxygen.

[A.W.O.L 0]

why dont u open the demo OFP house - doesnt that have glass textures?

If it does, note down the name of the texture than either take the texture from data folder and put it in ur model, or link ur model to the texture located in data folder

[Skaircro 0]

I am currently using a working glass texture from a different plane addon,

but I was really hoping to make my own texture with a slight black tint colour.

Its not critical, I could just use the texture I'm currently using and it should still look ok, just thought it could be a handy thing to know.

[Lansen 0]

When you convert images to ¤.tga format you must use 32bits mode if you use Alpha channels. Make sure you save them as ¤.paa images in Texview, not ¤.pac

¤.pac doesnt use alpha channels for what I know.

The alpha channel works like this;

Black colour has 0% density and white has 100% density.

So if you want to make a slightly black glass you need to make a dark grey alpha channel in a black image.

Here is how the alpha layer can look:

Here is a link to the ¤.tga file with alpha channel, this one works in OFP. TGA picture of window

Edit: Note that the alpha layer only use gray scale.

[Skaircro 0]

Lansen, thanks for that, I had a look at your window pic and that is exactly the effect I'm after, but for the life of me I could not reproduce the effect.

When i tried to make the same type of thing it still comes out completely see through. As if it loses the grey/ slightly transparent part that I try to put in the background. (or atleast I think thats whats happening)

Unless I'm trying to do the "dark grey alpha channel in a black image" all wrong.

Are you able to do a very brief step through how to do this?

I know enough about Paint Shop to get me by so it doesnt have to be detailed at all. Or do you use Photoshop?

Thanks

[Lansen 0]

Hi

Offcourse I can write exactly ho I do, its allways nice to help.

Right now I´m not at home but when I come home (in a few days) I will write a little "turorial" for you.

I use Photoshop 6 for all my painting. I have photoshop 7 but I must say that the only thing that is better in it is when i work with my painting tablet (Wacom intuos2). Photoshop 7 seems to have problems writing alpha layers for tga images.

I dont have any experience from Paint Shop pro except that I have seen it once, I would recommend you to get photoshop.

Photoshop is quite expensive but you can buy Photoshop LE (sometimes it ships with scanners i.e.), its a "easy" version that doesnt contain very much advanced things, but its still nice to paint with.

If there area ny more questions, post them here and I´ll trye to answer.

[Skaircro 0]

That would be perfect, thankyou!

I dont have Photoshop myself, but my sister does graphical design, I think she uses Photoshop 6 or 7 a fair bit, so she should be able to help me there.

(She hasnt had anything to do with alpha layers though, which is why I'm looking elsewhere for info)

Thanks again!

[Lansen 0]

Hi again, sorry its ben so long until I put this up but I dont have the best memory...

But its finaly here and thats what count, isnt it. This is a little tutorial that present the basics of how to make a texture with alpha channels for transparent surfaces.

The document is in PDF format so if you cant view it, download the free viewer from Abobe.com download page

Download the Tutorial

[Skaircro 0]

I was thinking that maybe I should PM you just to make sure you hadn't forgotten.

I got Photoshop 6 from my sister.

I will try and give it a go tomorrow and see if I can get it to work this time.

I've never used photoshop before, but I think if I follow your tute I should be fine! I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanks Heaps!

[Skaircro 0]

It works!

I was having a bit of trouble at first. My glass was completely clear, not tinted.

Then I read more closely where you say "Now you should still have your selection so paint it almost black, very dark

grey to make it almost transparent", and then realised if I make it less dark I get my tinted glass!!

It took a bit of messing around to get the hang of it in Adobe, but all goes well!

Thanks again for all your help!

[Lansen 0]

Nice to see that you made it

The rule is, black = transparent and white = solid colour