ID:182277
 Sep 14 2008, 8:31 am
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Recently, I've taken to using Paint to draw certain things, rather than BYOND's .dmi files. But, I can't seem to find the "mask" colour in paint! according to a DM icon file, it's rgb(192, 192, 192). I tried using this color as mask, but you can still see the grey on the image. I also tried white, and that doesn't work either. So how CAN I mask while using Paint?
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Sep 14 2008, 8:40 am
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Stephen001
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Paint doesn't really permit drawing transparency. Try picking up another graphics application, like Paint.NET, the GIMP, Photoshop etc.
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I personally would recommend GIMP out of all of those, just because it's free. I hate it's interface, but it's free...
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Oh? GIMP saves it as a .xcf file, which isn't supported by DM; and when I save it as a .bmp instead, it still shows up as white! This is aggrovating >.<
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Adam753 wrote:
Oh? GIMP saves it as a .xcf file, which isn't supported by DM; and when I save it as a .bmp instead, it still shows up as white! This is aggrovating >.< So save it as a .png :) | |
.png shows white. However, it could be that i don't know how to use GIMP :) you're right, the interface is terrible. Should white be mask, or do I have to hunt around for something else that I don't know about?
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There is no mask colour, because a mask colour removes the option to use that as a real colour. Transparency is transparency. Make a new image, go to the Layers dialog. Right-click on the background layer and "Add Alpha Channel".
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Stephen001 wrote:
There is no mask colour, because a mask colour removes the option to use that as a real colour. It's actually too bad because when there was one, you could still get by with using Paint for those extra touches (or whatever) without needing to really go looking and installing more serious programs for just small adjustments. Losing that color is really no disadvantage at all, because while you couldn't use (RGB) 127,127,127 (I think that was that), you could always use eg 128,127,127, and the difference is not visible in the slightest. The only real difference is indeed the color's identifier (such as RGB 'code'), which for all usual purposes (or, 99% of the time) is no big deal. | |
Adam753 wrote:
Recently, I've taken to using Paint to draw certain things, rather than BYOND's .dmi files. But, I can't seem to find the "mask" colour in paint! according to a DM icon file, it's rgb(192, 192, 192). I tried using this color as mask, but you can still see the grey on the image. I also tried white, and that doesn't work either. So how CAN I mask while using Paint? For some further elaboration in addition to information Jon, Stephen, and Jeff have offered, the mask colour in Dream Maker is an alpha channel and is quite consistently represented as a checkerboard pattern when present in any capacity in any program. Previously, DM used RGB 192,192,192 as its' mask, but with 4.0's addition of alpha channels, it uses the same methods of marking transparency as other programs. I use Paint.NET myself, and as far as I'm aware, "mask" isn't a colour available to use with the pencil or paint bucket, but rather is a placeholder of sorts when there is an absence of colour. For this little icon in Paint.NET, the background is currently grey and will appear that way when saved as PNG and imported into DM (zoomed to 500% for no particular reason):  But using the selector and deleting a segment of the image, Paint.NET's checkerboard mask shows through:  That segment(and only that segment) is now transparent. DM still allows you to change the RGB value of the background colour, but it just somewhat "tints" the checkerboard pattern:  But presently becomes a solid colour based on the RGB "tint" when pasted outside of the icon editor:  MSPaint is one of the few remaining programs that doesn't support the alpha channel, though, so you'd have to funnel your work through another third party program, or create the mask within the icon editor itself when you're finished in Paint. | |
the Byond versions belod Byond4.0 had it set up where like let say you drawn an icon in paint, and you copy/paste it into the icon editor, if you had the light-gray color selected it would automaticily make the light-gray transparent in the icon editor.
unfortunantly I can't do that anymore either >.< | |
Yeah, because they removed the shortcoming in their icon code, presumably also permitting the benefit of pleasant rendering with DirectX.
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You can, however, still use the 'import' option to import a BMP image, I believe this still respects the old mask color method.
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Nadrew wrote:
You can, however, still use the 'import' option to import a BMP image, I believe this still respects the old mask color method. nope, I tried to import in a BMP with that light grey color and it didn't turn transparent >.< oh well, at least there is the swap for the ones that have more complicated icons that have many transparent spots, and the flood option also. It's better than nothing, but still I perfered the earlier dream maker feature where you could automaticly paste it in translarent when it had that light grey background >.< thanks anyways ^.^ + I love the new alpha option feature ^.^ It works perfectly for games that require translucent areas ^.^ | |