Marmoset Toolbag 2 Alpha Problem
polycounter lvl 4
Hello guys,
I am having this very annoying issue regarding Alpha's in Marmoset Toolbag 2 on PC. I have been working on a project using both Mac and PC versions of Marmoset. The issue is that on PC I am getting a thickening, white border around the alpha. On Mac I have no such issue. I took a side by side of the same texture loaded into the Albedo slot in Marmoset. The one on the right is Mac, left is PC. Any advice on why this is happening and how I can solve it? The textures have not changed. Thanks.
I am having this very annoying issue regarding Alpha's in Marmoset Toolbag 2 on PC. I have been working on a project using both Mac and PC versions of Marmoset. The issue is that on PC I am getting a thickening, white border around the alpha. On Mac I have no such issue. I took a side by side of the same texture loaded into the Albedo slot in Marmoset. The one on the right is Mac, left is PC. Any advice on why this is happening and how I can solve it? The textures have not changed. Thanks.
Replies
People say PNG was notorious for alpha issues with Photoshop, the problems should be clear now but give TGA a go, I think Earthquake mentioned something about Marmoset and PNG's not too long ago but I forget what that is haha. With TGA's I always usually leave premultiplied alpha on and since you're using an alpha, go 32 bit for full alpha bit depth (note: not 32 bit under Photoshop's mode setting, stay in 8bit, Photoshop will prompt you about the depth when saving out the TGA).
Edit: I remember it was about the PNG loader:
"I'm not sure if our PNG loader supports 16 bit files, if it looks like the 8 bit version, probably not. PSD supports 8, 16 or 32 bit, which is why looks better." --Earthquake.
It's probably the alpha in the extra 8 bits and Marmoset isn't loading it, which is giving the appearance of "thicker" edges. They're not actually thicker, they're just being rounded to either 0, black or 1, white.
TGA should solve the issue.
Well TGA might not fix the issue but I believe it should, I haven't had any issues with TGA on Win. I don't use GIMP but according to some searches it does have a TGA exporter so you should be fine.
As for why a PNG on Windows causes an issue compared to Mac. Just speculating, it might again be due to the PNG loader. The Marmoset team might have used a different PNG loader if it's not cross compatible, so PNG loader Win might import 8bit, PNG Mac might import 16bit. Honestly I'm not sure! You might have more luck enquiring about it in the Marmoset sub forum and EarthQuake hangs out here pretty often so he might jump into this thread
Ah okay then, do you have another idea on why it might be an issue? When I inspect the Win version again it does appear to have some steps of grey, it's not block white or black, there is a mid. So a read error perhaps?
The color issue could be a problem of Windows/Mac. I can't tell.
I was just referring to the 16-bit discussion coming up. PNGs can't have 16 bit in Toolbag at the moment and the TGA loader is also working to correctly in toolbags current version and can't have 16 bit, either.
I would try to export .psd files and see what happens with those thickened lines.
I followed the steps for GIMP and it worked. No more white border. Thank you.
Try looking at your albedo texture and use the mip bias preview slider to preview your texture when mipmapped.