Images with transparency and soft edges?

[Neil]

Okay, so I'm working on a piece of animation which requires the scenery images to have transparent backgrounds, so I'm using PNGs. Unfortunately, this is what happens when I import one:



Is there any way to keep the soft edges in AS?

[Rasheed]

Essentially, no. You need to do this in an image editor. Soften the edges with a soften tool after you've taken out the white background color.

[jahnocli]

For PNG files to import with transparency effects, they need to be 32-bit files. I would guess that the file example you give is 24-bit, so has imported without transparency.

[Neil]

For PNG files to import with transparency effects, they need to be 32-bit files. I would guess that the file example you give is 24-bit, so has imported without transparency.

Thanks, I'll try that.
Paintshop Prop only seems to go up to 24 bit - I take it I'll need Photoshop to do 32-bit...

(for the record, there is some transparency - the actual background is transparent, it's just the semitransparent pixels around the edge of coloured areas that have gone...)


EDIT: *smacks forehead* it's okay, it's just me being dense. The only reason the semitransparency wasn't working was because I hadn't rendered the file thanks for the help anyway.

[heyvern]

FYI

When dealing with PNG in Photoshop it says 24 bit PNG with a checkbox to include transparency (alpha, extra 8 bits which makes it 32). This can be confusing. A 24 bit PNG has no alpha. If you include transparency using a "check box" in a paint program... it becomes 32 bit but the software doesn't bother telling you that.

They like to keep it simple and refer to only the color portion of the image. So it is 24 with or without an alpha...

... unless you are saving out targa in Photoshop... <sigh> then they get it right. They offer 16, 24 and 32 as the save options for targa. 16 is grayscale, 24 would be RGB color without an alpha and 32 is 24 bit color with an alpha.

They should be consistent but... I can understand why they do this... maybe it is the proper way... I have no idea.

Don't even get me started on 16 bit per channel color images (48 bit). I have to upgrade photoshop to work with those. Apparently PNG has support for that format! Coool!

p.s. An 8 bit PNG is an indexed color palette, 256 colors max... the transparency for that is just one color out of the 256 available with the 8 bits. So transparency is "all or none".

-vern

[Mikdog]

I was just about to say that you should try render the file first, and see what it looks like. It always looks blocky like that in the work view. BUT, I see you've already found that out for yourself.