Ship Shading

[WhipBamBoom]

I know there is a trick to create transparent shadows underneath wipeout vehicles for Wipeout XL. I have seen it posted on the internet before, but can not find it anymore, since then I have forgot how to do it. I think it might have to do with the SILLSHAD.TGA file located in the Pics folder. If someone knows hot to do this then please post it in this forum. I know it is possible but forgot how to do it (unless I am dillusional). It is my only pet peeve of this game, the non transparent shading underneath the ships.

[zargz]

'non transparent shading' 8O ???!
what's the effect of that?
no shadow?
*confused*
:? ?

[WhipBamBoom]

There are shadows beneath the ships in Wipeout XL, However, they are not semi- transparent, they are just black. For example, in wipoeout 3 on PS1 there are transparent shadows (shadows that can be seen along with what the shadow is covering, a more realistic apporach to shading now used in games). Just like real life shadows, if there is enough light you can see what is underneath a shadow, it is not completely black. But unfortunately wipeout Xl for Pc does not have transparent or SEMI transparent shadows beneath the vehicles. I know there is a simple procedure to fix it, but i forgot how to do it.

[zargz]

I see! Thanks! http://www.geocities.com/zargz/leenden/ok.gif

[Lion]

tga supports alpha channel information. if you load the texture in photoshop, you should be able to change the alpha value of the relevant parts. this should render it partially transparent.
I'm just using logic in thinking about this, I haven't tried it

[WhipBamBoom]

I have Photoshop, if you could just tell me how to apply your idea to the SILLSHAD.TGA file I would really appreciate it.

I tried fooling around with the transparancy settings (set opacity of layer to 50%) with the sillshad.tga file and it did not work.

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edited by Lance

[Lion]

I tried it myself just now and it did not work, anyway, to create the alpha channel: when you have something selected you can choose to create an alpha channel from the selection. it's the button at the bottom of the channels menu that looks kinda like it's in negative

I think it's even possible to have multiple alpha channels, for an example, check out the quake3 crosshair texture