How to ma ke a round button blend with the background?

One way of doing it is making the button on a transparent layer and save as .tga

I am stuck
Everytime I save as the image as .tga it shows "blank", empty, nothing in SkinStudio.

What am I doing wrong ? (It looks just right when I export it)

Any suggestions ??

You have to set the transparecy(translucency?) switch to enabled.

The "transparent" check-box already has a checkmark in it.

The problem is, the image has NO preview whatsoever.

I don't get it. I have been examining other people's .tga buttons and I do not see what I am doing different.

I do it both ways: a) make the button on transparent background and save as .tga
take the mask layer and save in the alpha channel (just as the example .tga images I have)

Both ways I am failing miserably on something so trivial
Skinstudio gives me no preview for what I just made. (as it doesn't recognize the format or something)

??
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There are two settings for trans.The checkbox you see and a translucency switch on the right.Also images must be 32 bit and your color depth in your video properties must be 32 bit.
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What program are you using for the graphics?

ok, I did a little experiment:

a)I took a sample .tga button (that someone else made and that works perfectly)
openned the perfectly good .tga in PaintShopPro8
c) immediately I hit the save_as and saved with different filename.tga
d) now in SkinStudio the new (identical) file is BLANK !!! (no preview, nothing)

Ok, maybe if I bang my head on the desk a few times... things might start falling in place ??

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PSP 8 is your problem, it doesn't save tga with alpha channel properly. Jasc is aware of this, and has promised to fix it. Do you have PSP 7?

The only options it gives me while saving the "identical" file is: 8, 16, 24 bits and Compressed/uncompressed.

I choose 24 bits uncompressed.


Ok, then I go to Illustrator, draw a doodle and export as .tga at 32 bits. Now in SkinStudio the .tga is all BLACK (no doodle).

?? ! ??

>>PSP 8 is your problem, it doesn't save tga with alpha channel properly. >>Jasc is aware of this, and has promised to fix it. Do you have PSP 7?

Aaaaaarrrgggg !^%$&$#@^%!#&^%$@#

...and I have been drilling on this for 5 hours ! (my brain has now officialy turned into a liquid goo )

shoot... I do not have PSP 7... (guess I have to wait for a patch)

Thanks for the tip man. You saved me from developing Alzeimer's so young.
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Do you have the payed for version of SkinStudio? If so get the beta version and you can save the file in PNG. formate and it will change to a TGA file when you import the image into SkinStudio. Actually try this first before you go looking for the newest beta version, it may already be implemented in the version you are already using.

Listen to Keila......... the new png import feature in SkinStudio works wonderfully.......... and I can't beleive I forgot to mention it......    /me hangs head in embarassment  

Do you have the payed for version of SkinStudio? If so get the beta version and you can save the file in PNG. formate and it will change to a TGA file when you import the image into SkinStudio. Actually try this first before you go looking for the newest beta version, it may already be implemented in the version you are already using

My version is 3.0 Build619 (this is paid and downloaded a week ago). I tried to import a transparent .png but it didn't work either.

Nonetheless, THE PROBLEM IS KNOW SOLVED:
I used a .bmp with "magic-pink" and it works for the time being
(I am hesistant to try beta software anymore as much as I used to, after corrupting my Windows a couple of times in the past and had to re-format [I got burned with Beta stuff] )

Thanks to everyone here for offering a helping hand.
This is a very good forum (it is also amazing and inspirational of what some "skinners" can do with Windows) !
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