can i add an alpha channel to a ground texture to exclude part of an image ?

working in TANE , I have a lot of high resolution photos of the rocks and vegetation along the cumbres and toltec route that are creative commons . I have decided to use these as ground textures .
some of these are cliffs and boulders with sky backgrounds, i don't want to include the sky, so where i could not manage to crop sky out, i've removed the colour and was hoping to be able to use an alpha mask to stop the unwanted portions of the photo to be included. i've looked and cannot find an answer to my problem, so perhaps someone here can help.
I know we can use alpha for 3d objects but can the same be achieved with a texture file ? if it can be done how would i set up the asset so it would work correctly in TANE ?.
Heres the example i am working on , i've created an alpha mask of the sky in photoshop .my objective would be to have a number of these and attempt to paint them onto rock surfaces if it can be done .I know a 3d model would be better but i'm not up to speed to make one of these at the moment .

Not according to the documentation. For a ground texture the alpha channel is not used for transparency but instead controls the strength of the Reflective Texture on a per-pixel basis.

http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/KIND_Groundtexture

BuilderBob said:

Not according to the documentation. For a ground texture the alpha channel is not used for transparency but instead controls the strength of the Reflective Texture on a per-pixel basis.

http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/KIND_Groundtexture

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cheers bob, i saw that but was hoping it had changed in TANE

Even if you could make part of the image invisible using an alpha channel, you can only use square images for ground textures. Any invisible areas captured within those squares would create ugly discontinuities.

The best you could do is copy out some square sections from the visible areas of those photos and use those for groundtexture images. You would probably need to process them further (using the Offset filter trick) to make them seamless tiles - this helps to disguise the borders between repeated instances of the image as you paint it on Trainz terrain.

You could make sum very nice rock items if you have 3ds Max or Blender or even Gmax and used your nice textures on them ?. Dino might be able to comment on the Gmax side of it as his rock collection is still among the best around and i am pretty sure he did it with Gmax way back when.
Mick.

Dinorius_Redundicus said:

Even if you could make part of the image invisible using an alpha channel, you can only use square images for ground textures. Any invisible areas captured within those squares would create ugly discontinuities.

The best you could do is copy out some square sections from the visible areas of those photos and use those for groundtexture images. You would probably need to process them further (using the Offset filter trick) to make them seamless tiles - this helps to disguise the borders between repeated instances of the image as you paint it on Trainz terrain.

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yeah thats what i am doing ,most are seamless and i have taken masses of sections, i have also made some cliff items using the cliff 1 series as the maker of that item has no restrictions on others using it to create more. i just wanted to explore the possibility of utilising the edges of the images. guess its not possible.when i have some ready i'll get them on the dlc , there will be about 100 in total.

matruck said:

You could make sum very nice rock items if you have 3ds Max or Blender or even Gmax and used your nice textures on them ?. Dino might be able to comment on the Gmax side of it as his rock collection is still among the best around and i am pretty sure he did it with Gmax way back when.
Mick.

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i started using blender but its very time consuming and at the moment i don't feel up to it mentally, i retire soon so hopefully then i'll have enough energy to spend the time in making a few of the easier items next year , i know once you do one or two items , it gets easier,.
,

dangavel said:

i started using blender but its very time consuming and at the moment i don't feel up to it mentally, i retire soon so hopefully then i'll have enough energy to spend the time in making a few of the easier items next year , i know once you do one or two items , it gets easier,.
,

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Heaps of knowledgeable folks here to help Dan, Dino being one of those so when ya ready just ask.
Cheers Mick.

dangavel said:

i started using blender but its very time consuming and at the moment i don't feel up to it mentally, i retire soon so hopefully then i'll have enough energy to spend the time in making a few of the easier items next year , i know once you do one or two items , it gets easier,.
,

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You are welcome to reskin any of my splines upload or whatever if they are any use, all CL Rock face ...... same as a cliff really, they are not of a uniform shape, I made them so they looked more or less like rock faces.

clam1952 said:

You are welcome to reskin any of my splines upload or whatever if they are any use, all CL Rock face ...... same as a cliff really, they are not of a uniform shape, I made them so they looked more or less like rock faces.

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much appreciated, thanks for allowing folks to adapt your creations .
i now have over 200 images to complete, i'm going to use them with the cliff spines where possible and as ground textures which should help with blending in with the cliff faces. but i'll get a few of them up soon once i have checked them out and tested them to see how well they work .