Help needed for Paint.net or Gimp 2.6

[Rail4Pete]

Hi fellow Trainzer,

I am asking your help for a particular problem. The problem itself is that when I open certain .tga files (lets say here for example: Dinorius_Redundicus's Jersey cow or Hereford bull...any of his cows except the Friesian ones) with Paint.net, the file open but this is blank, it is all grey. To avoid that I've downloaded Gimp 2.6 ...and the same problem happened again.

So I contacted the author to ask if it is because these file are ''kinda'' locked. He said NO, he uses Photoshop.

I've downloaded the trial version Photoshop CS5 (what a great software) and obviously I see the file. Because I don't have now the budget to buy even Photoshop element, I am trying to see if there is something to do with this.

Any idea ? if I need a ''plugin'', any idea which one it is ?

BTW, except Paint.net (I'm really use to it but I miss the airbrush) or Gimp, do you know any other good legal freeware paint software (friendly user) ?

Thanks for your help,
Rail4Pete

 

[clam1952]

Reason it won't open in paint.net and gimp and same problem with irfanview is that it contains an embedded blended alpha. Use Pev's images to TGA and you can see it has an alpha.

Paintshop Pro will open it, not free but is cheaper and often Coral used to give away free fully working licenced copies of old versions as an incentive to upgrade (comes with a Nag screen on shutting down) . Not sure what happens now though.

May be able to get one of the old shareware versions with nag screen from oldversion.com. if I remember correctly they didn't used to time out until maybe version 9 was released when I think Coral bought out JASC. Not sure it the old versions would handle the embedded alphas though. Failing that there is a 30 day trial of the latest version.


I think you will find this problem with most freeware programs which seem to be mainly aimed at doctoring photos, not editing textures for use in games.

 

[Retro00064]

Eh? GIMP can open TGAs with alpha channels for me. IrfanView simply ignores the alpha channel. What is the KUID of this asset? I can trry to open the TGAs in the GIMP myself.

Regards,

Retro.

 

[clam1952]

Funny you should say that as I just Googled Gimp and it can deal with Alpha Channels, some TGA's with alphas not all though open as black in Irfanview here, so incidentally do normal maps with an alpha. Not a problem for me as I use PSP anyway.

Try Kuid2:68213:36016:1 which is one of the cows Rail4Pete was referring to.

 

[Rail4Pete]

Thanks for your effort to help. I'm waiting Retro's result.

BTW, how come the same kuid has a .tga file we can open in trs 2010 but in 2012, I open for edit an there is no .tga file ? Does that mean we are ''stock''
with 2010 if we want to reskin ?

Rail4Pete

 

[itareus]

...BTW, how come the same kuid has a .tga file we can open in trs 2010 but in 2012, I open for edit an there is no .tga file ? Does that mean we are ''stock'' with 2010 if we want to reskin...

That asset is probably a built in with TS12. Instead of a .tga you will see a .texture file. These can be converted using PEVs Images2TGA, but don't edit the built in file directly, clone it and edit. Also be aware of copyright issues if you are planning to publish any reskinned assets.

 

[clam1952]

Guessing cows again, some of them are builtins in TS12 so the graphics files are in the internal format that Trainz uses and are .texture files, clone and use Textures2TGA on the .texture file and it will restore the TGA's. This applies to all builtin assets.

Edit:

Got distracted and forgot to post the reply and got beaten to it.

 

[Retro00064]

What I believe you are seeing is that the alpha channel is almost entirely black, save for the gray sqare at the bottom left for the shadow.

To get the main image to display in the GIMP, do the following:

1. On the menu bar, go Layers -> Mask -> Add Layer Mask. Choose "Transfer layer's alpha channel". This will transfer the alpah channel to a layer mask, which can be edited seperately from the main image.
2. Go Layers -> Mask -> Disable Layer Mask to show the main image. Note that Layers -> Mask -> Edit Layer Mask must be unchecked for you to edit the main image (probably what you want to do), and checked for you to edit the layer mask (alpha channel). If unchecked, the border around the image in the GIMP will be black and yellow; if checked, the border will be black and green.
3. When you are finished editing the image, go Layers -> Mask -> Apply Layer Mask to convert the layer mask back into an alpha channel. Then you may save the image as a 32-bit TGA (make sure that the "RLE Compression" checkbox is unchecked and the "Origin" box is set to "Top Left" when saving).

I should correct my earlier post in that IrfanView has an option in Options -> Properties/Settings -> Viewing called "Show PNG/TGA/DDS alpha/transparent color. If checked, then when opening such an image with an alpha channel, IrfanView will display the image with the opacity effect against the IrfanView background color (which is black by default). If unchecked, then IrfanView will ignore the alpha channel and just display the main image. IrfanView can not save TGAs with an alpha channel, I believe.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Retro.

 

[clam1952]

Well I never knew that setting was there, been using irfanview for years mainly for resizing screenshots and quick colour adjustments on textures. No matter how much you know there is always more to learn, thanks for that.
You are correct in that it won't save the alpha channel, I've used it as a quick and dirty method of loosing an alpha.

 

[Rail4Pete]

I have printed the instructions, then tried this out with Gimp..........and that works !
Thank you very much. I still got to learn how to use Gimp (or plan to buy Photoshop) but at least, I know now how to open the file.

Rail4Pete

 

[itareus]

....Got distracted and forgot to post the reply and got beaten to it....

..........