Interface - starting up

[Fyxe]

Hey folks

I've decided to make my own UI with my own skin & graphics, but!. Last time I tried, I couldn't make backgrounds invisble, with KG panels, so there is, forexample, some holes in the panels, that shows the wow screen. Kinda hard to explain , that there's some of the panel that is simply invisible, How do I do that?
any special color I shall use?. I have acces to Photoshop CS4

[BFSskepsis]

First thing with photoshop cs4 is whatever size the image is going to be, make go to like.. shoot I can't remember, but I wanna say layers, and new layer, and new layer from background and make the transparentness 0 and the image should turned white and grey checkers, then you can just put whatever you want ontop like a it's a regular background and it will be transparent.

[Fyxe]

Originally Posted by BFSskepsis First thing with photoshop cs4 is whatever size the image is going to be, make go to like.. shoot I can't remember, but I wanna say layers, and new layer, and new layer from background and make the transparentness 0 and the image should turned white and grey checkers, then you can just put whatever you want ontop like a it's a regular background and it will be transparent.

I can't find anything with transparent to do, when I "Redo" the background to a layer, only Opacity, if that's what you mean?
It's a long time ago I used PS, so bear with me :b

Screenshot: http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8263/unavngivetxe.png

/EDIT: I think I got it now, When I create a new picture, or w/e, I can create a background as transparent? :b

[v6o]

WoW accepts two types of texture files, .tga (TARGA) and .blp (Blizzard's format)

Most of the time I make 24bit PNG files with transparent background and then convert them to .blp with a small droplet program (see BLP2PNG)

When I need some advanced semi-transparent stuff I sometimes use TGAs because BLP2PNG doesn't always do wonders with the transparency. If you want to make a transparent TGA you will need to add an Alpha channel. If you're not sure how to do that then you can probably find a tutorial about it.

[Fyxe]

I just tried it out, and it works Ty for the help

but, why use the .blp files?
Does those use less resources? or?

[Waverian]

For the record you need to use manual alpha layers if you're using a tga file.

http://amenity.yolasite.com/tutorial...m-ui-graphics-

[jeffy162]

Just to clear something up a little here: You absolutely do not have to use alpha channels if you are using a TARGA (.tga) file. You only need to use alpha channels if you want parts of the image to be transparent. That's Alpha CHANNEL, not Alpha LAYER. Although, I must admit that I don't have a clue what an Alpha Layer is.

[v6o]

Originally Posted by Fyxe I just tried it out, and it works Ty for the help but, why use the .blp files? Does those use less resources? or?

I'm faster at making BLPs, that's all.

As for "resources" or file size it most likely won't matter at that small scale. Depending on how many colors are used TGA can be smaller than BLP if RLE-compression is enabled.

Do whatever is easiest for you.