Alpha Textures

boyd600

Hello!

What files are people using for alpha textures in unity?

I have tried saving as a targa file with an alpha channel in Photoshop but I'm getting white fringes on the edge, there is a page on the Unity website that suggests a work around - http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-alphamaps.html

but this seems really awkward any suggestions?

Thanks

Brendan

Firstly, if you're doing plants and leafy things, cutout is your best option. It sorts better and faster and has a 'base alpha cutoff' slider. Slide that around and you'll see what I mean.


Otherwise, the dds settings in the texture importer can mess with the edges just a bit (try truecolor?). What you do then is more about how you use photoshop; get the colors and then use a mask, making sure there's still a bit of (colour) around the edges in the RGB channels when the alpha channel is not white (at that pixel).

SO if you have a leaf, like in the link, see how there's green going away from the leaf texture over what will be transparent? Do that.

jerry

I'm not sure if there is a way around this if you want that imageformat.

I think png gets imported without any fringing.

Personally though I've been working directly with psd's in the project and use the solidify filter found here: http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html (in the free package, last one.) but it's just a nicer version of that tool on the unity site.

Goeddy

i also recommend using cutout for vegetation, should fix the problem.
i´d also recommend you to use "RGBA compressed ATC 8 bits" or the "DXT5" instead of the standart compressions, because the standart compression realy sucks.

also that workaround is realy complicated, better install x-normal.
it is free, and it ads a dilation-filter to photoshop, wich you should get familiar with, due to the automaticly created mipmaps often exposing seams etc. so you should generaly use it on all textures (except tiled ones ofc)

boyd600

Thanks for the advice guys, already had the x-normal plug-in installed I didn't realise it had that feature

Elyaradine

Just be aware that mobile devices generally really, really don't like alpha-cutoff, so you may actually want to avoid that depending on your target platform.