TGA file water effects conflict... need some advice.

[Icarus999 70]

So I have been playing with terrain repainting and I am having a problem with the coastal TGA tiles. When I place the modified tiles in game I am getting water effects across the entire tile instead of just the water portion. Is this an Alpha issue? what are the correct settings for saving Targa files in Photoshop?

Edited February 27, 2013 by Icarus999

[Wrench 9,818]

stock tiles or 'home made'?

[+Baltika 85]

Here's the drill for creating a coastal tile alpha channel in gimp:

 

http://combatace.com/topic/58802-how-to-create-alpha-channel-for-coastal-tile-in-gimp/

 

You will need to adjust for PS, but you get the idea.

 

Slainthe!

 

Baltika

[Wrench 9,818]

and another, although somehow the image got removed!!!

 

http://combatace.com/topic/50042-simplified-sealand-transition-tile-creation/

 

we actually COULD use a bit more informatiion

[Icarus999 70]

stock tiles or 'home made'?

 

These are "repaints" of Stary's Formosa Targa tiles. Basically what I'm doing is was making a composite... Between Formosa tiles and various earth sand and city tiles for placement in specific target areas areas. An example of what I am doing would be layering the sand tile over the Formosa tile adjusting the opacity to combine tile features - tracing out the Formosa coastline on the top sand tile and deleting it... to retain the greenish blue water on the tile below.

 

I am using Fubars dynamic water shaders. Stary's stock tiles have no issue with the water shader effect

 

Most of my modified tiles are showing water effects right up the beach and fully across the entire tile surface...Others strangely are not... and I am not sure why. I am also getting weird light effects from explosions and flack that magnify the visibility of seams between adjacent tiles.

 

 

The standard third wire water entry for the coastal tiles is "1" in the terrain data ini , and i have retained that formula

Edited February 28, 2013 by Icarus999

[Icarus999 70]

Here is the tile ... and here is the issue in game, you can see the tile in question has fubars water effects active across the entire tile. the water FX have also turned the tile a dark color in game .The neighboring modified tile has only a slight encroachment onto the coastline.... and only a slight amount of discoloration to the tile.

 

Here is the tile ... and here is the issue in game, you can see the tile in question has fubars water effects active across the entire tile. the water FX have also turned the tile a dark color in game .The neighboring modified tile has only a slight encroachment onto the coastline.... and only a slight amount of discoloration to the tile.

[Wrench 9,818]

what does the alpha channel look like, and do you have a matching _hm.bmp (height map)

 

this is a "normal" alpha channel (albiet with different water bits) for the VietnamSG50 tile, from Stary's GH3,

[Icarus999 70]

Looks like the alpha information from the original tile was lost on some of the conversions but not on others, the alpha channels are just plain white.

 

How do I create an alpha in the psd file to match my transparency ?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Icarus999

[Wrench 9,818]

that image of the layers/channels does us no good ... look at mine. Need to see the WHOLE tile, like in my image

 

however, if you read my post that I linked to in the 1stGen KB, it explains HOW to add the alpha

[Icarus999 70]

Ok I will read up on that and get back to you.

Thank you

[+Julhelm 266]

I experimented with getting specular effects on the entire terrain by using only .tga tiles and a modified water shader. The alpha channel on the tiles is used both as a specular level map and a mask for the water effect at the same time.

[Centurion-1 1,228]

How did it work out Jules?

 

I wish we could have tile specifc normal maps...

[+Julhelm 266]

Well here are some shots from IcelandNA where I experimented with this. You can clearly see the effect on the snow and other parts.