Photoreal - resample won't load my tga?

[Gridley 257]

Quick question - for some reason, I can't get resample to use my TGA file after I've added the alpha channel to get land/water masked. If I save the tga as a bmp and change my inf accordingly, it works great, but no reflective water. If I add the alpha, mask an area of land and paint it white, save as TGA, resample won't load it. I've saved as 32-bit +/-RLE encoding, even tried 24-bit though I knew it wouldn't work... Any thoughts? Is there a right way to add an alpha channel in photoshop CS?Thanks!sg

[Gridley 257]

Problem solved! I was using an old version of resample...needed the one from FS2k4 SDK to use 32-bit tga.New problem:I still can't get the result I want. I have a nice photo bmp at 4m/pix of bermuda. I want to make a photo scenery out of it - both the land and the water (more the water, really).What I've done:I coarsely selected the land area, then copied the selection to an alpha channel in photoshop, made sure land was white, water black, and saved it as a 32-bit tga.Made my inf, resampled.Converted the output tga bits using "imagetool -batch -terrainphoto -e bmp *.tga"Made a new folder with scenery and texture subfolders, but the bgl that resample made in scenery, converted bmps into texture. Added the area to FS and here's what I see:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/125906.jpgYou can see that in places where there was both land and water, the alpha effectively creates transparency allowing the water class to show, rather than creating reflections on my photo-real water, which is what I desire.Whereever there was only black in the alpha channel, I get photoreal water, but no effects on it, just expansive flat non-reflective water that looks like blue-green land.Am I barking up a dead horse, to effectively mix metaphors (since my textures wont!)?Thanks!sg

[nudata 10]

just a dumb thought but it may be the underlying landclass specification.Dick Boley @KLBE

[Gridley 257]

So you think it should work though, Dick? I've got quite a bit of extra land class around the island, because I couldn't get it to fill 100% because of dithering, but the area of water extends much farther, and none of the LODs have reflection/waves.I thought it might be the underlying waterclass, but if I remove LODs from my water class (set them to undefined) the default shows, and neither allows the photo textured water to reflect...Stumped...I'm really starting to think photoreal water with reflections/waves is not a possibility.

[Guest ps76]

HiI don't know that much regarding photoreal water with reflections but the island looks great! If it makes it to the library I'll probably be making the download for one!Have never encountered any photoreal water with reflections I think (a few South Pacific sceneries I've downloaded have had water but no reflection). Maybe try with Misha or anyone from the Terrabuilder forum (TBlite was great for making photoreal for me but I think it just performs a similar process)?P.

[Gridley 257]

That's a good idea - I'll try the terrabuilder gang.FREEflow Bermuda with non-photoreal but darn nice and accurate land class and water class based on OceanFX2 textures will be in the library soon - a week or two.If I can get the water to reflect, a full-blown v2.0 will be released. If not, I'll still release it, but probably as an optional upgrade with non-reflective water or water class options. That's a ways out...