robcat2075

Try this. Make blank canvas with nothing but the background checkerboard. Paint something with a fuzzy brush. Save that as a PNG. Apply that as a decal on a patch in A:M

Was there any sort of an "options" button when you went to save the file

Damn. Is there a forum for that program?

I'm wondering why the red channel has something in it. Try saving that out as a TGA. There should be some option to save it out as 32-bit (includes alpha channel) instead of 24 (doesn't include alpha channel)

It's getting bad. All I did was *think* about getting a larger SSD and then the next ad that shows up on Facebook is for... a 2TB SSD!

Try something. make a new image. Fill it with red. Add an alpha channel in the channels list with the plus sign, fill that with black and draw something in white on it.

Here is a thread the covers some of the issues about making a decal with transparency. There are also several possibly useful tutorials about decaling in the tutorial link in my signature.

You might get a more convincing result if you made several variations of the decal and put them on individual planes close together. Also, particle hair can make pine needles. Roger made an animation a few years ago that did this...

Give this a try... clip4903ApplyCookieCut.mov Happy Thanksgiving, John!

Cookie Cutter mode is easiest for that. The alpha transparency in the decal will also control the transparency of the surface.

So close, but yet so far!

Are you sure you used the one I posted, not your original? Mine will have the alpha channel. That won't matter, 32-bit will run on your 64 bit computer. I was using Photoshop. Photoshop Elements is a very stripped-down version. If it has a "Windows" menu see if it has "Show Channels"

Photo Plus looks like it has what you need! It has Layers, it has Channels and it can load/save TGA, JPG and PSD Try loading that PineNeedles.tga file and see if you can see the separate channels in the Channels Tab like they show on pg. 103. It should look something like this...

Happy Thanksgiving, John!

Along with some snazzy entries, I've heard about some sudden family disruptions and gotten a few "the dog ate my dinosaur" messages so I'll keep the deadline window open for a few days more so that no one has to skip their Turkey dinner to get their entry done. Happy Thanksgiving!

Channels in paint programs are typically labeled Red, Green, Blue and sometimes Alpha. If it doesn't let you access those ,it probably doesn't have channels.

You want something that can do "channels" and Photoshop-style "layers". It needs to be able to save in TGA format "GIMP" is often suggested but it is unnecessarily complicated if you are new to paint programs.

What do you have for a paint program?

One way to get the decal exactly right is to model one clump of needles such as you have pictured there, render that with alpha channel, then use that render as your decal. I'll also note that very fine lines tend to render better with multipass.

Yes you can do that. That is a frequent strategy for Cg detail like leaves. It is tricky to do with something that has such thin lines. i gave it a try here... PineNeedles.tga Apply that to a patch and set it to Cookie-cut mode.

A pretty much straight quote of "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" from Götterdämmerung by Richard Wagner... clip4907SiegfriedsRhineJourney.mp4

I have a video on re-routing splines which may or may not have useful advice for your situation.

Here are the two tests I have used with my monitor. Warning: you can not use these in a browser. You have to load them into a paint program with no color management on and no scaling. I have the monitor contrast and brightness set so i can distinguish all the bars in colorbands.png Then i adjusted the monitor gamma so that vertical bands in gamma-test-2.png match each other at 2.2 the original directions can be read here http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ but don't use the test images in a browser. After i make these adjustments, the graphics and photos i encounter on the web look generally appropriate and full-range. gamma-test-2.zip

These images look generally appropriate on my monitor but still a bit darkish. The earlier tiffs were so dark that I couldn't discern much in them and couldn't see a difference in the rendering.

Here is a histogram of one of the frames. Is it really intended to just use the darkest half of the range?