Hey everyone, I have a question about alpha channels with DDS files. I'm using Photoshop with the Nvidia DDS plugin which always has worked well for creating textures for Game Guru. Including normal maps and alike. I'm just wondering if anyone had any knowledge with using it for creating a texture with transparency?

Should you flatten your layers? What color must the background be? completely black? RGB = #00000?

I'm using DXT5 ARGB 8bpp | Interpolated alpha when exporting.

Heya, well I use 8.8.8.8 ARGB 32bpp unsigned setting. Alphas are kinda funny, you have in ps your layers, and then your channels tab. I would recommend flattening your layers before export, but that's just me. And in your channels tab you will have four layers: RGB, Red, Green, Blue. If you want an alpha layer you click on add layer (in channels tab) and it should automatically add an alpha layer. What is white in the alpha is what will show through. The black acts like a mask. Once done editing the alpha layer (in the channels tab) then you click on the eyeball to hide that layer and make sure the rest of the layers have eyeballs next to them (RGB, Red, Green, Blue). Hope that helps!

Ah yes the channels tab! I haven't used that in ages. Thank you so much I'll check this out.

EDIT: Thanks it worked!

The method I use is quite simplified. i create my texture as a .bmp, then I create a separate .bmp alpha channel (knowing that black is transparent and different shades of grey are varying translucency).
I then use a free program call DXTbmp and I enter the two textures where they are required and export the image as a .dds (.ddsDXT5 to be precise)

That sounds like a much simpler process than what I'm currently doing within photoshop. Like the idea of open source software as well, as I like to be able to work on things anywhere and also teach others the same (without promoting a bazillion products).

I know it isn't a free product (£10.99 - cheap) but I love MindTex, all you have to do is create your texture with a transparent background so that you can place the objects that you need on the transparent background and everything else around it.Then save the texture as a png.

Load it into Mindtex and play around with the buttons until you have it perfect, you can get a 3D representation of your texture so that you know what it is going to turn out like. After you are satisfied you then save the maps you want IE D, N, S.