Baffled again. This time fooling around with a Lockheed Electra from Avsim. I've got the paint the way I want it, but would like some of the chrome bits to be a bit more reflective. I export the alpha channel from DXT to Photoshop. To remove any doubt that I'm really seeing what I think I'm seeing, I created a half black, half white alpha channel, re-imported it into DXT, and saved the whole thing as a DTX3 bitmap.When I view the new paint in FSRepaint it appears exactly as I would expect given the alpha channel. FS9, however, seems to ignore the alpha channel completely and use the texture colors exclusively.I've read various threads and seen the reflective vs. transparency attribute of the model itself. It seems to me, though, that I should see _some_ sort of difference between the black and white alpha channel parts. Does this make any sense?

"Aircraft Reflections" turned on?Jim

"I export the alpha channel from DXT to Photoshop."I'm curious exactly what you were able to change with this 8-bit file in PhotoShop? The PSD options are limited with this type of file.For extensive editing of the alpha I sometimes convert it to 24-bit BMP then Import it back (after editing is finished) into DXTbmp using the Import Alpha Command (which converts it back to 8-bit).Then save everything out to DXT3 with no mips (for FS9)

Feel free to send the file to me and I`ll have a look at it.You`ll find my e-mail adress on my website at the Piper- page.Just click the blinking red arrow below.Leen de Jager

Jim - Thanks! Things like this are almost always something grotesquely obvious and that was the case here. Most likely I unchecked it to see what effect it had on my FPS rate with a new graphics card. You get too close to stuff for too long and you just fail to see it any more. I totally missed this. Thanks again.Wii - Exporting the alpha channel from DXTBMP results in an "indexed color" doc in Photoshop (6.0). The palette is "grayscale" which gives 256 shades of gray from black to white. 256 is plenty of subtlety for reflections. I'll cut/paste the color texture as a separate layer in this doc to help me with alignment. I make selections on the "color" layer, turn it off, and fill the selection(s) on the main layer with the desired level of reflectiveness (black). When I've got it like I want I delete the "color" layer, and re-import the main layer into DXTBMP. Note that you can also work with the alpha doc as RGB, then convert it back to indexed color using the grayscale palette before saving for re-import.

Hey no problem, gaf. Been there, done that myself. It's easy to get involved with "deeper things" and overlook the obvious sometimes.You guys are always talking about importing and exporting alpha channels in DXTBmp. Somebody must have written a tutorial back in the dark ages that said you have to do this or something. It's a myth. Like I've mentioned before on this forum, there's absolutely no reason to do this if you're using PhotoShop to edit your textures. The alpha channel can be easily edited from within PhotoShop at the same time you're working with the main texture file. In fact it's much easier to do it this way because you have the RGB channels to use as a guide when placing an alpha fill. This allows you to place your filled areas precicely where they need to be with no guesswork or fiddling.I've done up a small tutorial here that shows my method of editing alpha channels. I'm using PhotoShop 7, but I'm sure the basic procedure is the same using any garphics editor capable of working with alpha channels.This is just a simple example I've created specifically for the purpose of explanation. I'm adding an alpha fill to the aluminum underbelly of this repaint to simulate polished aluminum in the sim. These are bits and pieces of a repaint I did for the iFDG A319 using the official iFDG paintkit._________________________________________________________Here I'm working on the right fwd part of the fuselage. So far I've copied two layers from my full-length master .psd; the base paintjob and the polished aluminum underbelly as a seperate layer. I've pasted them onto the "fuse.bmp" blank template that came in the paintkit, flipped them horizontally, and slid them into position over the template with the move tool.http://www.cat-tamer.com/attach/PS_alpha-1.jpgI added the aluminum underbelly as a seperate layer because I'm going to use it's selection to fill the alpha channel in the appropriate area. First I must create an alpha channel because this .bmp template doesn't have one (24 bit). This is done in the "channels pallette", if you don't see the channels pallette, you must enable it in the "Window" part of the PS file menu.http://www.cat-tamer.com/attach/PS_alpha-2.jpgWhen you create the alpha channel it will automatically be pure black so you must fill it. You can fill it with white, but in this case I'm going to use a very light gray (#F4F4F4) which will give my entire fuselage a bit of overall reflectivity. I set the foreground color to my desired shade of gray and then use "fill/foreground color" to fill the alpha channel.http://www.cat-tamer.com/attach/PS_alpha-3.jpgNext I want to darken up the alpha channel in the area underlying my aluminum underbelly, to add extra reflectivity and make it look like polished aluminum in the sim. I click on the RGB channel in the channels pallette, then return to the layers pallette and click on the "underbelly" layer to select it. Now I will load it's selection from the "Select" menu.http://www.cat-tamer.com/attach/PS_alpha-4.jpgWith the selection loaded I now switch back to the channels pallette and click on the alpha channel. Notice the underbelly area is still selected, all I need to do now is fill the area with a darker gray. This image shows the selected underbelly on the RGB, and the corresponding area on the alpha channel after filling it with gray:http://www.cat-tamer.com/attach/PS_alpha-5.jpgDoing it this way precisely places the alpha fill directly beneath the underbelly area on the finished texture .bmp. Let's see you do that with an exported alpha channel! How would you know exactly where to place the fill area without the RGB to use as a guide?Now I'll repeat the process for the right-rear, left-front, and left-rear portions of the fuselage, and save this file as a .psd. This enables me to re-open it and modify the alpha, or add an alpha fill to another part of the texture later if desired.Once I'm ready to try out the texture in the sim, I simply re-open the .psd, flatten the image, and do a "Save as", saving it as a 32 bit .bmp with the appropriate filename for the particular model I'm working with.Finally I open the saved .bmp in DXTBmp for a final save to make it DX compatible. Notice that you can now see the newly created alpha channel in DXTBmp's alpha preview window. No need to export or import anything. I then save it as either "Extended 32 bit 888-8" or "DXT3" and fire up the sim to see how it looks. This final save for DX compatibility is really the only reason I have DXTBmp installed. Everything else gets done in PhotoShop.I hope that clears up some of the myths associated with importing and exporting alpha channels, and sheds some light on alpha editing in PhotoShop.Jim

The method you use is not really that much different to the "dark ages" method others use. The only difference being you're using the alpha channel in the psd and others export it as a bmp. I find its easier for people new to painting to understand the DXTBmp importing method than the channel one.One advantage however of using the "dark ages" method is you can use layers for the alpha channel. This can be useful when experimenting with alpha channel intensities. Filling the selection with black, then reducing the layer opacity allows you to constantly change the gradient of grey used.. without having to redo the selection.If you really want to save time then you do not need to do the whole "Load Selection" step, if you hold crtl and click on the layer it should make the selection in exactly the same way (changed to clicking on the thumbnail in CS2)