TGA Transparency

[JoeFine]

Greetings...

There seems to be quite a bit of confusing regarding .tga files... to which I need to add another...

 

In PHOTO how do I create some kind of transparent export from a .tga file with a transparent Channel?  

Any assistance is much appreciated, thank you kindly.

[MEB]

Hi JoeFine,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

We don't support alpha in TGA files so there's no way to include/export the alpha channel. Can't you use other format like TIFF or PNG?

[JoeFine]

Hello Meb... 
Thanks for your reply.
These are textures I have purchased in .tga format... I was hoping I missed something... as you can see, the TGA file imports with an alpha channel?  
I am trying to export it in any format I can... without the background (with alpha).

 

Is this not possible?

 

If not in Affinity, I guess it's back to fiddle with photoshop.

Thanks for your time.

[SrPx]

In theory, as transparent value (not exactly the same, but for what you mention, should serve),  PNG should do the trick, exports transparency pretty well. (unless you are flattening the image somehow in AP without you knowing it, in one of your steps. If so, no format will export with transparency, obviously). Not sure if  A. Photo's TGA export supports the alpha channel, but probably it does (funnily, PS had an outstanding issue in PS 7, very long ago, with the tga channel in export.... They fixed it later, but took a while....  Was key by then, as in its day, for making games we used a lot TGA and its alpha channel. ). 

 

PD: TGA exports a greyscale image as its "alpha channel", which then 3D apps, video editors, etc, can use for many functions. Is not complex, at all -I can explain at another moment-  To a) create a greyscale image out of your layer transparency info , save the grey scale as an additional file to use as mask or whatever in your target app OR b) Just export as PNG, if all you need in the target app is the image , the figure without the background, for example. OR c) if your target is another 2D app, you can in most cases build there a greyscale image out of the PNG pixels and transparent areas / % of transparency in other pixels (that's, from the image itself), and use this alpha channel image as you might need. 

 

If you tell us what is the target use -even just a raw idea- I might suggest a specific solution.  (btw, I'm in no way related to the company or Support)

[SrPx]

oops, sorry, was not reading the first posts wel, sth weird I made with my browser, haden't read Meb's answer. 

 

I'm 99,99999 % you can do what you need with PNG. Build whatever needed workflows with extremely minimal effort (I'd explain)

TIFF, as Meb said -as I had not read it- certainly stores alpha channel, "selections" , in pretty most softwares (ie, PS) . I tend to prefer TIFF for exclusively stuff to be printed -when requested, as if not, I much prefer PDF for getting a better workflow with the print people- , and PNG for almost everything else, even when doing frames renders in Blender....

 

As I mentioned (but I either had seen the image, I really was doing sth that screwed  up my browser window), please tell us what is the target, planned use -don't have to get specific if you don't wish to, as is not needed, either-  but I'm supposing this is for a t-shirt, or using it for some sticker, or for using as a part of a texture or bigger design, collage or etc. In all these, it should work great with PNG's transparency. But you need to be careful how you handle it before export, I'm almost certain you are flattening it without noticing, maybe tell us step by step what you do to export it, including what you answer if a dialog window pops up asking sth, etc. 

[lepr]

.

 

[JoeFine]

SrPx /owenr... 
Thanks for the posts, much appreciated.

Unfortunately neither option accomplishes what I am trying to do.

I think I'll need to figure out how to import into Unity and work it from there...

Not sure I understand why in 2017 a popular image format takes such wrangling...  but back to Lynda I go...

 

Cheers.