multi TGA export

[SrPx]

Have u tried saving Affinity native format and opening ( it supports it, but dunno till what extent ! ) in the free XnView MP ( fully functional freeware, 26 $ for commercial, dirty cheap) , exporting from there the TGA ?  Genuine question ( don't even kno either till what extent TGA export is supported there ! ), as I have not tried. And been a while since last time I worked in games (been many years!)

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/#downloads

Checked, it read/writes Truevision Targa, yet dunno what features are supported ! Neither what is kept, or able to be read, opening a native Affinity file there. IMO worth tons checking !

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/#formats

[SrPx]

Just checked, it works in a simple test.

I am not able to make it recognize native affinity files ( sounded always strange to me, tho, that his would be possible)  . I just open any graphic ( ie, a photo with no transparent parts), or make a new one, in APhoto, make my selection as I want the alpha channel to be ( if it didn't come already by importing a TGA with alpha, or tiff, etc), do FROM IT an independent mask layer ( at same hierarchy level, just over it) over the regular photo/graphic layer (not in a tree fold link) with the proper selection. Export as tiff as "full document". In XnView MP, I open the image, ( u can tick and un-tick the "show alpha", in view menu, just to check).  This whole thing understanding you want a full image, with no transparent pixels, yet porting an apart alpha channel inside it, to be used by the game engine, yet keeping the entire pixels of the image.  Export the image as TGA. Even if in the export preview window, it shows as if it had removed the background pixels by using the alpha, it is not,  you are keeping the entire image, AND the alpha channel, you can check this with many tools/utilities ( as an extra tip, with Irfanview, at preferences, you can un-tick show transparent color for TGA/DDS/(...) so that you can see the full image, not the alpha channel pre-applied. The engines will do whatever you tell them to do...) . In case you want just the background transparent and the alpha channel info ( so, if u don't want the bg pixels in the image, at all), you can just delete those background pixels initially , export the merged-combined layers thing with its transparent pixels and all, already from APhoto (the composite alpha is always created, so).

Maybe it helps in the meantime this feature could be added (or not).

[SrPx]

BTW, given the fact that XnView includes an amazing BATCH converter (is also available as  separated utility) you might indeed benefit a lot from this... Both for games and video editing, it is often needed to batch process TGAs... In games, for textures and/or sprites, or etc. In video editing, for video frames, even for an entire movie. You could go exporting in TIFFs from Affinity, then at the end just do a batch operation over a folder to convert ALL files in a row, with the touch of a button. Dunno, it's then really a minimal extra step, u can probably convert hundreds (maybe thousands) in a folder or a bunch of folders, with the single touch of a button....

[myclay]

8 hours ago, SrPx said:

I am not able to make it recognize native affinity files

To enable thumbnail previewing of affinity files, go to preferences (F12)  click on General and activate Show all graphic formats.

 

[zemetone]

TGA pls

[M911]

+1

[KenA]

I'm not a developer, but do paint some aircraft used in the flight SIM world. I bought Affinity Designer,

and enjoy using it, though I have to use paintshop pro  because Affinity does not have the ability to export to a TARGA  fotmat. 

I   paint a segment of the aircraft. Then copy merge, and select tga from their list of extensions, then 

 convert it to DDS using DXTBMP. My question; are you going to add the tga extension to your export list?

 

Regards, 

Ken

 

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by KenA
Grammer

[OlaHaldor]

@SrPx having to use a 3rd party application to get what should be a core function in Photo is... quite the hurdle. 

[KenA]

Yes it is. With PSP I can save a copy of my project as TGA then conver it to DDS using DXTBMP.

 

[Mithferion]

On 10/17/2018 at 12:47 PM, Jellybit said:

That being said, I am very glad it can at least open TGAs. That just makes it even more confusing that I can't export, but at least I can make an edit to a combined RGB, single layer TGA and save in a different program that does support it.

Import of TGA files is a fairly recent addition. Maybe later they will add the Export option

Best regards!

[Mister_Blister]

I'ts been almost a year and a half and the devs still have not added .tga support? I bought this because it looked like a good alternative to PS. Please add .tga support

[TLeyva]

 I was just testing Photo for creating game textures for an online simulator that I work on. We use TGA files for all textures. I don't understand why TGA import is supported, but not export. Without being able to export TGA format, I cannot convince other game developers that Photo is a viable option to using Photoshop. Please get TGA added soon, and it will only open the door widely for more professionals to switch over from Adobe. Thanks.

[JohnMakesGames]

+1 for tga export support.

[mutatedjellyfish]

Just started my trial of Photo, assuming I was going to switch to it from Photoshop, but I cannot give y'all any money until I can save as tga. It's an absolute deal breaker for anyone working in tech or games. The fact that this thread has been around since 2016 with no word isn't very reassuring.

[Mithferion]

4 hours ago, mutatedjellyfish said:

Just started my trial of Photo, assuming I was going to switch to it from Photoshop, but I cannot give y'all any money until I can save as tga. It's an absolute deal breaker for anyone working in tech or games. The fact that this thread has been around since 2016 with no word isn't very reassuring.

It was later in more recent years when TGA import with the Alpha Channel was added to the Affinity Suite, so maybe the ability to export to TGA is in the works. But that's just a possibility.

Best regards!

[Bhawk]

On 5/9/2019 at 12:02 PM, mutatedjellyfish said:

Just started my trial of Photo, assuming I was going to switch to it from Photoshop, but I cannot give y'all any money until I can save as tga. It's an absolute deal breaker for anyone working in tech or games. The fact that this thread has been around since 2016 with no word isn't very reassuring.

I just started my trial as well hoping to be a nice alternative to PS but without being able to save in tga format this is a bust. I am also needing tga for gaming. I'm glad I didn't purchase Affinity, I would be more then happy to if targa is added for export. 

[Pseudocorpus]

Affinity Photo is a great program! Nevetheless I am missing the TGA-Export option. I hope you manage to support it in the near future.

[js_morgan]

Yes I would really like to see this format (TGA) supported for export! Thanks

[Recon03]

On 11/14/2016 at 1:41 PM, OlaHaldor said:

It's not so much about need for Unreal Engine, but we used that all the time. Basically, it was the file format that gave us the least trouble. PNG could have some trouble with color space or alpha, while TGA was rock solid all the way through.

 

Right now I am making some mods for a game called Transport Fever (think the 90's classic Transport Tycoon in 3D), and it supports both DDS and TGA, where DDS is used for textures of 3D objects and TGA is used for the UI.

If I could shave a step (and in time, perhaps even cancel the Photoshop subscription) by exporting directly to TGA (with alpha channel) that would be a huge time saver.

 

I get it if I'm like the only one, you won't look into it, so I hope more people may wish for TGA export. :)

as a professional game developer since 1990's.... most clients today still want TGA, so as much as some of us, want to invest and buy this software.. it seems, from what I heard from friends who use this..they aren't going to add it.  So its sad to say, we will pass on this program, until they understand game devs need this...  Due to many reasons OlaHaldor said.... this pays our bills, when clients want TGA files... period.  So if this company is un-interested that is a shame, many game devs wanting to get away from ADOBE, won't for this reason...PNG... alpha are terrible, which is why many of us also use Super PNG... and TGA files... as well.

[dominik]

12 hours ago, Recon03 said:

as a professional game developer since 1990's.... most clients today still want TGA, so as much as some of us, want to invest and buy this software.. it seems, from what I heard from friends who use this..they aren't going to add it.  So its sad to say, we will pass on this program, until they understand game devs need this...  Due to many reasons OlaHaldor said.... this pays our bills, when clients want TGA files... period.  So if this company is un-interested that is a shame, many game devs wanting to get away from ADOBE, won't for this reason...PNG... alpha are terrible, which is why many of us also use Super PNG... and TGA files... as well.

Hello @Recon03,

welcome to the forum.

While I understand the need for game developers to use the TGA file format I do not understand why it is not an option to use AD and export to PNG and convert externally to TGA. There are several ways to do this at a reasonable price (like this one) or for free. If the goal is to leave Adobe right away this should at least be tested as an option and perhaps this works right away.

There is nothing wrong with asking for native TGA support within AD. I just mean to point out a possible workable solution 

Cheers,
d.

[OlaHaldor]

While that is a workaround, it’s just that, a workaround, to a problem that shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Besides, it’s not free. It adds a watermark to the image (according to their website at least), and the license is $30 or so.

Could you imagine if we weren’t able to export PDF from Publisher, but could export to SVG, and had to find a third party solution to convert to PDF? It’s the same thing with TGA for us. It’s plain and simple a requirement for us. 

[dominik]

46 minutes ago, OlaHaldor said:

Besides, it’s not free. It adds a watermark to the image (according to their website at least), and the license is $30 or so.

There is a free version that only converts from PNG to TGA but does not batch convert. That's why I linked to the paid version. $ 30 in comparison to Adobes subscription seems to me rather affordable 

Again, I am not saying that the wish for TGA support is wrong. I just wanted to point out a way to get this to work right away without the need to wait until Serif has come up with a solution that is not even mentioned to come at any time (as far as I know).

d.

[SrPx]

On 6/27/2019 at 2:16 PM, OlaHaldor said:

Could you imagine if we weren’t able to export PDF from Publisher, but could export to SVG, and had to find a third party solution to convert to PDF? It’s the same thing with TGA for us. It’s plain and simple a requirement for us. 

That was the case for Inkscape for a very long time, and work could be done. But I am not denying the need of adding TGA format. I have worked at four game companies (made 10 games in a year in certain mobile games one, 5 almost alone as an artist, and TGA was a constant need. Yet I'd have to convert, better say, batch convert constantly. To and from a gazillion formats) and I know it is yet a very key format. Specially with some old but "revived" game engines, that happened to survive and adapt, to be today the reference for indy and medium size development (not so much AAA big titles, btw, where each house has its very different pipeline, and often custom engine).

I see the need and the advantage in Affinity sells with a relatively small feature to add.

But in the meantime (not saying this to discourage the addition of the feature!!)  XnViewMP does convert very well to tga and from tga. You can use the image browser or the only-converter, XnConvert (just study the features to check what's best for you) ,  I tested indeed  XnViewMP from PNGs and other formats exported from Affinity, it quite works. 

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/

The batch convert option is particularly important for games (frames, or any sequence,  packs of textures, etc)

It IS free.  Scroll down a lot the page, is after the purchase data (is a full page long). huge advantage for a studio that is fully cross platform (win, mac, linux)

It is NOT an ideal solution for a company that is planning to buy 20 licenses for 20 seats (because in that case you want uniformity, and have the most complete and polished workflows possible...but with what is saved in 20 seats... heck, I'd find a way...), I know . (in the places I worked at, whoever in the staff (pretty talented in the 4 places)  would just code an utility in C++ to convert the output not only to tga, but also to whatever the game engine needs to eat... but... whatever). It'd be WAY more than enough for me, as I tend to use a bazillion utilities in every game company (or advertising agency, regular software dev, or whatever) , often doing this with batch-capable utilities and even putting python scripts to scan continuously a folder to go converting depending on whatever parameters.

Even admitting its importance, I agree with what was said by someone above, is not enough of a reason to decide or not to purchase a 2D suite or raster app, IMO. And I say it knowing deeply the game dev scene (and video editing works) , having worked at mods, shareware games, indy development, companies, etc. But would certainly make game artists' life easier.

 

PD: I still believe that what is needed is not just a format (TGA). But also a way to handle the alpha channel (and channels in general), which imo people is expecting it'd work just if TGA is added (while maybe the staff is thinking it's only about adding an export format). I mean, imo the app needs more work to replicate the same works in games that are done in PS which end in the export of the TGA (and importing, in a full cycle of I/O with some complex worflows, often)

EDIT : Cr4p ! Sorry folks, seems I had already mentioned it, even in this same thread's page, lol... Is just that as I saw the recommendation of a paid software in a very recent post (which surely is also good), XnView is free, I believe paid for commercial (I'm not very well versed on till what extent is that needed: "If you intend to use XnView in a company, you must purchase a license." ... TGA is not a vital need for me anymore (I have a dozen other ways to convert it, as well))  use (but ridiculously cheap),  it sounded to me as it hadn't been mentioned (these super long living threads...)  and XnView has the very important advantage that, as tested by several, serves as a very nice assets browser for Affinity, as well as counting with its batch (or not) converting and other extra functions (and is an utility quite polished along the years, I remember its beginnings, and with a very good general following).

[Patrick Connor]

Relevant input from Serif here

 

[MikhailPo]

Hello.

I was tested exporting to TGA format with Alpha channel in version 1.7.3 and had some problems with it.

TGA header has information about bytes per pixel equals 4, but ImageDescriptor field hasn't any information about bits for alpha channel (it is equals 0). With it some programs can't open exported TGA files

File format reference - https://www.fileformat.info/format/tga/egff.htm#TGA-DMYID.2

Quote

ImageDescriptor contains two pieces of information. Bits 0 through 3 contain the number of attribute bits per pixel. Attribute bits are found only in pixels for the 16- and 32-bit flavors of the TGA format and are called alpha channel, overlay, or interrupt bits. Bits 4 and 5 contain the image origin location (coordinate 0,0) of the image. This position may be any of the four corners of the display screen. When both of these bits are set to zero, the image origin is the lower-left corner of the screen. Bits 6 and 7 of the ImageDescriptor field are unused and should be set to 0.

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by MikhailPo