Problems Skinning

I have a problem while making skins for units in Warcraft. Whenever I import the skins, the unit becomes completely transparent apart from the bits with the team colour on them. This has also happened with my last 3 skins! Does anyone know how to rectify this problem?

Sometimes, if you alpha out some parts of a skin, or draw even a tad out over the skin itself, it will turn out like you describe.

Best way to fix this, is to take the original skin it's based off, and use the clone tool to transfer your skin onto the original skin without changing too much.

Post a screen of your tga file, and I'll see if I can tell you more.

Here it is. I have no clue about how to edit Alpha Channels, I'm a newbie to skinning. This skin is for the High Elf Peasant Model. I'm planning on giving him a green tunic after I get him working.

what program do you use because if it doesnt support alpha channels it messes it up.

i have the same trouble, i'm also new to skinning, but i know all the good stuff (basic and tools) of the program i'm using. how exactly do you make copy?

btw: i use adobe photoshop 7.0, and i also have photoimpact 7, but don't use it often for skinning.

both of them should support alpha channels

I use Corel Photopaint. I'm not sure if that supports Alpha Channels. Do you know of any freeware I could use to fix the file's Alpha Channels?

I've tried editing the alpha channels in photopaint, but it says that the TGA format won't support Alpha Channels. Does anybody know how to fix this with photopaint? Or if anyone knows of a plugin for Photopaint or some freeware for editing alpha channels, could you let me know? Thanks.

I kind of feel like I'm talking to myself, but oh well. I've downloaded a 60-day free trial of Jasc Paint Shop Pro. Can somebody tell me how to edit the Alpha channels, and what to do next? When saving as a TGA, it refuses to save more than one channel. Do I combine the channels or what? And how would I go about that?

I bet 500 bucks that you use wc3 viewer. It can deleate alpha channels.

Easy fix, when you convert to .blp format it puts up a compression quality, lower the quatliy. Default is 85 i think, take it to arround 70.

How come nobody knows about that???

cause its bullshit, i've never encountered the problem. The only difference i can see that quality does is change the size of the finished .blp

Put the quality of compression up to 99, youll see what im talking about.

i used to use it on 100 all the time untill i realised it made my skins 200 kb.

Well i guess it has to do with the file format that is being converted, or how the program saves it that saved the file in. Who knows, who cares. I gave the answer that has fixed it every time ive seen this peoplem. If it hasnt affected you then good, but if it does thats what proploly happened.

I don't use WC3 Viewer, I use the map editor and the game to view my skins. Also, I keep the quality at 70, as I heard that it can muck up the alpha channels. So, what else could it be? Soon I think I'll probably just put my skin up and ask someone to fix it. It's not that great, most of it is just a recolour, but I want to fix this one so that I can start work on other skins, and get them to work.

I guess i lost then.

Your problem is your alpha channel has been deleted along the way somewhere. Either that or you have 2 alpha channels.

First make sure you only have one alpha channel.

What you need to do to add a new alpha channel is. If you can, copy your alpha channel from a newly extracted version into your modifyed version. If you cant, copy everything from the modifyed to the newly extracted file.

Sorry for assuming the wrong thing earlier, it tends to be the problem most of the time.

[edit] If that dosent work,I was right with my earlyer assumption. Try lowering the quality of compression down even further when converting. It is the process of converting that messes with the alpha channels, not the useing of the viewer to look at them.