White edges after trimming art.

[MidgetMage55]

Basically when i trim a .tga file to modify art I end up with white edges on some things. Artifacts if that sounds more accurate. I have no idea why it is happening nor how to make it go away.

Example:


If you look at the red bar filling in on the left side of the image you can see what I'm talking about. (it appears like that in game as well so its not just in the screen shot)

I literally took the base image, copied it and chopped it up simply erasing elements I did not need. Afterward I scaled the image as needed for the addon I'm using.

The element I took it from was made the same way but the issue isn't there.

I'm using the latest version of GIMP for editing. Any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?

[Landrell]

Midget, if you give me some time hon, I'll be more than happy to make your version of the bars along with the red filler as well. I'll start work on it later tonight so you won't have to go through that trouble.

[MidgetMage55]

I appreciate it. I don't mind doing the work as well. Especially if it inspires someone. =)

I try to give back a little to where I get inspired from.

EDIT:

I have another idea if you are feeling artistically frisky.

I thought about taking the glow elements from the UF art and making a red version of just those parts to throw in to a panel perhaps so that when a player has aggro the color changes. Not sure if there is a script for kgpanels that will do that however. And border Textures seem to be rather specific in design.

[ChaosInc]

Stop enabling his laziness. :P

[Landrell]

Originally Posted by MidgetMage55 I appreciate it. I don't mind doing the work as well. Especially if it inspires someone. =) I try to give back a little to where I get inspired from. EDIT: I have another idea if you are feeling artistically frisky. I thought about taking the glow elements from the UF art and making a red version of just those parts to throw in to a panel perhaps so that when a player has aggro the color changes. Not sure if there is a script for kgpanels that will do that however. And border Textures seem to be rather specific in design.

Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. I've been wondering that too for a little bit, but I think it's going to require two different textures, one red and one blue to pull it off. I'm sure there is a script laying about somewhere that can be used for this.

@Chaos: It gives me something to do, otherwise, I'd let him go full tilt!

[Waky]

Did you trim the mask as well? Otherwise it'll just show white-space like that.

[MidgetMage55]

No mask that I am aware of. Only things showing in the elements list is the art layer and an alpha channel.

If that were the case wouldn't i have a HUGE white area? I basically take the main piece it comes from and erase everything that i don't need. So trimming is not an entirely accurate statement on my part.

After wards i just use a rectangle select and move it to a new canvas and scale the image before anchoring it.

Ill take a look at the tools in GIMP however and see if there is something along that line that i am missing. I freely admit I'm not terribly well versed in image software.

[Kendian]

What font are you using for your unit frames? Me likes~

[MidgetMage55]

Been a while since I tinkered with that UI buy I'm fairly certain its Visitor2.

[Elloria]

Originally Posted by MidgetMage55 No mask that I am aware of. Only things showing in the elements list is the art layer and an alpha channel. If that were the case wouldn't i have a HUGE white area? I basically take the main piece it comes from and erase everything that i don't need. So trimming is not an entirely accurate statement on my part. After wards i just use a rectangle select and move it to a new canvas and scale the image before anchoring it. Ill take a look at the tools in GIMP however and see if there is something along that line that i am missing. I freely admit I'm not terribly well versed in image software.

These are the steps i take when editing art like that.

1. copy and paste art to a whole new image file. Make sure it has a transparent background.

2. Trim away all the unwanted art, i also recommend maybe using the blur tool if you are cutting away using the rectangle tool. This will clean up the edges and make it look less chopped off. If you aren't and you are just using the eraser then i would use the fuzzy edged round eraser brush.

I love gimp because you don't have to fool with alpha channels

[Kendian]

What is gimp? Is it like Xnview? Or photoshop?

[Seerah]

It's a free, open-source program much like Photoshop.

[Dawn]

Originally Posted by Elloria I love gimp because you don't have to fool with alpha channels

You don't "have to fool with alpha channels" at all, no matter what. Simply save as PNG and convert to BLP, afterwards.

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by Dawn You don't "have to fool with alpha channels" at all, no matter what. Simply save as PNG and convert to BLP, afterwards.

This is what I do.

[Dolby]

Make sure to choose PNG-24 if your using photoshop.

[hankthetank]

It's a flaw of texture rendering that I have come across several times with BLPs. My only explanation is that WoW internally uses DXT compression for memory savings, no matter what the source format. The compression takes a block of 4 pixels and calculates the average color. So if you have a pixel at the very edge and 3 "empty" nearby pixels are factored in it naturally can lead to color errors.

What I do to avoid those glitches is filling the image with the edge color with 1% alpha which is virtually not visible. Or you apply a layer style with a minimum alpha glow or outline or whatever, the main thing is that the edge is enclosed by pixels of the same color. That fixes the problem most of the time.

Also I would save your textures to PNG files and convert them to BLP textures. This way you don't have to grapple with all that alpha channel crap. From a totally neutral standpoint I can recommend Blpc

[sakurakira]

Originally Posted by hankthetank What I do to avoid those glitches is filling the image with the edge color with 1% alpha which is virtually not visible. Or you apply a layer style with a minimum alpha glow or outline or whatever, the main thing is that the edge is enclosed by pixels of the same color. That fixes the problem most of the time.

I do a lot of image replacement and was really annoyed when I started noticing this. It was even more obvious after I started using a pixel-perfect uiscale. Your method totally worked. THANKS!

[zork]

Thanks alot hank for the explanation.

[Remsaa]

I had no idea you could save to blp to avoid alpha channel editing...I had been saving to PNG > Targa > fix alpha channel ( >.< )