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Exporting 8-bit alphas from Photoshop

polycounter lvl 9
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barnesy polycounter lvl 9
Hey guys , I am in the process of creating hair for a character to use with the Xoliou shader 2, but I cant seem to export 8bit alphas :s

alpha.jpg

Here is the setup that I have been using , I have tried exporting it as a PNG aswell but that only gives me the option of 'interlaced' and 'none'

It is driving me insane ,the grey is the colour of the hair , just a flat colour to test it with.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated :)
Thanks!

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  • Vailias
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    Vailias polycounter lvl 18
    What's your issue? The alpha is 8 bit if you're working with a 32bit image. Ie if your bit depth in photoshop is set to 8 bit per pixel then your alpha channels are 8 bit.

    The red displays as a mask in photoshop for visual convenience. nothing more.

    Just export it as a tga or tiff and check 32bit when you get the option during the save.

    If you must have PNG's then you'll need to make your alpha channel a layer mask, as the way in which PNG's are written out of photoshop need actual transparency rather than a 4th channel.
  • barnesy
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    barnesy polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks for clearing that up. There wasnt an issue in the end, I was confused and thought that the red part of the alpha had to be used along with the BMP format to make a better quality alphas. I have saved it as a PNG and all is working. The tutorials that I saw had that red alpha mask in them which is what really confused me, thanks again :)
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