Recoloring, SimPe Wizard, Alpha

[The Mule]

OK....So I decide to recolor a clothing rack following Kathy's tut. Works fine...I have a nice rack of horrible looking clothes (that was my intention). Next I try to make it look like the rack is half empty...so I export the alpha with the texture. I edit the alpha like I would for clothing, to make it look half empty.

Here's the problem. When I Import back into SImPE wizard, it saves the file as the texture....How do I import it as an Alpha file?

Thanks

[BeosBoxBoy]

for that operation Mule you will have to use SimPE and not the Wizards.

the basics

1. make a recolour as normal

2. later, after closing the Wizard, open the new file in SimPE

3. extract/export the texture as PNG by right clicking on the preview image

4. if it is not showing transparent places in the preview (DXT1format), you will have some fancy foot work to do getting the transparency - but edit the texture accordingly

5. import the edited texture by richt clicking on the preview image and choosing Build DXT and make certain to select DXT3format or DXT5format to preserve the transparency

6. click "commit"

7. go to the Material Definition, change the stdMatAlphaBlendMode value to blend (I think this is right it has been some times since I did this so I am working from memory)

8. click commit

9. save the file

10 test in game

[The Mule]

Crappy pic - the texture is not good because I was conserning myself with the alpha -but here it is. It wasn't EXACTLY the way you describe it...but it worked out anyways. Clothing rack with empty hangers! THANKS SO MUCH!!

[BeosBoxBoy]

cool - when Marvine signs on I will ask her to beat me in the head with her shovel of wisdom to remind me of the proper Material Definition setting so the clothing disappears altogether