Using TGA files turns material translucent

I did a bit of searching but I could not find an answer. What is happening is whenever I use a TGA for a texture the component turns translucent. I can see the all my edits to the file, but its all "see through", if I switch back to a BMP, its opaque again.

Any ideas?

There will be an alpha channel in your TGA texture, turn it off in your paint program or use the BMP texture instead.

Regards

Gerrit

OK, but I wanted to keep the alpha there for when I export the texture to RW. This was the only reason I wanted to use as appose to BMP. What I am trying to avoid is adding an additional step of either making a separate ACE (which would contain the alpha) or adding it to the TgPcDx after its been generated in RW.

Overall there are a lot of repetitive manual steps during the design process, and I am looking for ways to cut them out, or automate them.

I am using Photoshop as paint program and it is a little bit easier with that, because RSC supplies a plugin, for saving in ACE format, for Photoshop.

I save my textures in three formats.

Photoshop format ( to maintain the layers )
BMP format ( for use in 3DC )
ACE format ( for export to Railworks )

If you are not using Photoshop, then there is no way around an extra step, by saving your texture in TGA format and using an external program to convert to ACE format.

Regards

Gerrit

I have used the PS plugin to make an ACE as well, but it raises another question. Why does that plugin make a larger ACE than RWAceTool (written by RSC[/url:3djq01d0])?

By the way, thanks for responding. I know this is not a subject that perks the interest much.

When you use the material, in the Advanced Options, Primary Tex. Alpha Ch., instead of Standard, set it to Ignore. That way, it won’t be transparent, although if you’ve also used bump mapping, it might appear silvery.

Incidentally, the Advanced Options can’t be seen (or modified) in the Material Manager, so you have to set the ignore when you apply the material directly.

Thanks for responding Spudinsky. I had to stick with using BMPs for modeling and TGAs for ACEs.

I hope someone can clarify what I found with the ACEs.