Tiff alpha channel question
Roygee
Posts: 2,247
Hi all :)
Just got a bunch of XFrog trees, which include a lot of useful billboards in .tif format. Gimp opens them with the alpha channel, but Carrara 8.1 gives a solid black background. Converted to .png, they work fine in C.
Is there something that needs being done in Carrara to have the alpha channel, or are there various flavours of .tif and XFrog is using one that is incompatible with C? I have found, for instance, that Carrara doesn't like Gimp's version of .bmp.
No big deal, I've found a very good batch file converter, just curious :)
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I think .tif can have layers, almost like a .psd, and Carrara use to render OUT the alpha in a tif as a 4th layer (RGB+A, I think that was how you got alpha in a 16bit file). Now they render similar to .png with the color layers having "empty" pixels (I think this makes them 24bit, I could be wrong...).
I'm guessing Carrara is not sure where this alpha info is on the Xfrog tiffs (maybe you could look for a 4th layer?). In your image shader, you might try the various alpha options, but .png is a much more effecient file size. If you convert them all to png the files should be about 1/2 to 1/3rd the size.
You answered your own question. Problem solved.
Thanks, Holly :) I've tried every combination of alpha in C that i can think of to no avail. Yes, I always prefer to use .png Just thought there was some mystery in C that I hadn't been able to figure out :)
And no, GigaShadow - I never answered my own question - found a better method, yes. Still, it's always good to get advice from experts to get to understand the technicalities :)
Hiya Roygee.
Hope you don't mind me asking, but what file converter did you use?
I'm kind of in the same situation here.
Thanks,
Susi xx
EDIT:
Scratch that. Ifound one that works for me. Thank you anyway.
As a reference for others -
I used BulkImageConverter.exe from SourceForge
http://skylink.dl.sourceforge.net/project/bulkimageconver/BulkImageConverter.exe
Man, I haven't used my X-Frogs billboards in... well... a very long time. If I recall, I had to make all my own actual billboard models. But I cannot recall how the alpha went down. I thought that my pack came with alpha maps that I used. I'll have to dig them up and have a look.
Hi
I was on the point of giving you that link when you posted the edit :)
Cool. Dogwaffle comes with a nice batch file convertor too.
FYI, for Carrara rendered files, you can convert those, even animations, using Carrara. Just open the render in the render room and "Save As" and choose the new format. It even works for sequence to avi, avi to sequence, sequence or avi to animated gif... pretty sweet.
A bit OT - how to compile a .gif sequence into an animated gif?
I've never had the need to use gif, but needed to yesterday to send a light-weight anim by e-mail - that is the format my daughter wants for her blog. First did the render using "Animated GIF" - rendered OK, but then got a message "The movie format "Animated GIF" has writing capability only. The movie will not be opened" What it did with it, I know not - it's not in the named file I wanted it saved to and it's not in Daz tmp.
OK, so I made a .gif sequence - that saved fine where told, but my two video editors, VideoPad and VirtualDub won't run it. So, what software (preferably free - not something I'd use a lot ) can I use to compile it?
Well, the few times I've created an animated .gif with Carrara, it saved it to the temp file. It also gave the warning that you had, but as I said, I found it in the temp file. Maybe check to see if it's there before quitting Carrara, in case Carrara cleans out the folder? If it is there, maybe you can move it before quitting Carrara. to play, I either can open it in my web browser or use Quicktime Player to view it.
Just gave it another run with an empty tmp folder. This time it gave me the same message, but added that the file was in the tmp folder. Sure enough, it was, but only the last frame, plus a .comp file of 0 bytes!
Anyhow, I've managed to compile the sequenced gifs using Photoscape, so all's well that ends well :)
Thank you :)
- As your post was earlier in the month, I didn't know whether you were still watching the thread. So I listed what I had come across.
Thanks loads though.
Susi xx