Still having a problem with transparent texture files in Effects.

[old_wombat]

OK, I have my fx_wake.bmp file with the coloured and transparent bits just the way I want them. But when it displays as an effect in FS2004, there is a "bordering" effect. Every boundary between a transparent and opaque colour has a medium-grey boundary around it. These boundaries stay a constant apparent thickness, so from a long way away, they dominate the entire texture, making it look almost completely medium-grey. If this is not entirely clear I can paste in some screen caps.

I am using DXTBmp to create these files. They are all 128 X 128 pixels so there is no green-bleed issue. This happens irrespective of which format I save the files in. Is there some other product to create my transparent textures? Or some other technique?

Steve from Mudgee.

[jgf]

Just a guess, but I suspect this may be a vid card/driver issue, or possibly OS/DX, or some arcane interaction of all those. The wakes in some payware scenery I have display the same way, and when not running Active Sky some cloud textures have a dull grey edge (I think there's a transparency there), wakes in the freeware Project Hawaii also have the dirty grey edges. This didn't occur on my old XP system with either GeForce or ATi cards, but has been consistent on my Vista system with GeForce and ATi. If there's a solution, I've yet to find it.

[old_wombat]

Like the mathematicians searching for elephants in Africa, there must be a solution. I've got smoke and spray effects that certainly contain transparent textures and they display OK. We must keep searching.

Steve from Mudgee.

[old_wombat]

I tried a lateral approach and used another package - Lview 32 - to make those transparent textures. But it wont do transparent BMPs, only GIFs, and FS wont recognize those.The wake turns into a black oilslick. Bugger.

Anyone else have a suggestion?


Steve from Mudgee.