Texture Tutorial: Alpha to black

[Verdite]

Texture Tutorial: Alpha to black

Greetings. As many of you know, SoM uses pure black to create a see through hole in a texture.

I've recently had trouble with alpha channels in stock textures, and i couldnt find any guide or faq to indicate how to turn alpha into black. So i decided to make this tutorial, which will guide you through the conversion process.

You'l need GIMP (open source / free) and you're own stock textures. The one i'm using is free, and from a website.
Step 1



IMPORTANT: If you want the best image possible without gray/black pixels around the edges, resize you're image to you're needs now. My image is a much higher resolution for tutorial purposes.
SoM's maximum texture output resolution is 256x256.

Load up you're image into GIMP. Go to "Edit" and "Copy."

Step 2
Go to the "colours" tab in the top bar, select "desaturate" followed by the ok button. For this tutorial ill be using the default selection of lightness.


Step 3


Go to the "colours" tab again and select curves (1st reference). Drag the line from the middle to the top left corner, until you're texture turns white (2nd reference).


Step 4

Click on the magic wand lookalike icon in the toolbox, called the fuzzy select. Click anywhere on the white of the image and it should outline the whole white area.


Then click on "Edit" then "Paste into" while everything is still highlighted.

Step 5

Ok, heres the technical part.
Click ONCE inside the texture's area.
That should highlight what you are aiming for.
Now, click "Edit" and "Copy."

Step 6

Go to file, then new. Gimp automatically picks up what you're previous image size was, so dont worry about size adjustment. Click ok.

In the toolbox selection, go to the "Bucket" icon. Select 0 on every colour, like in my screenshot.
Bucket fill the area by clicking anywhere.


Now go to "Edit" again and "Paste." Click anywhere on the texture to anchor the layer.



You're image should have no issues. However bear in mind that if you choose to resize now, you will get gray/black pixels around the leaves in game.

I will show you how to have no gray/black pixels in more detail, in the next tutorial.

Cheers.

Verdite