Alpha Channels

[Bruce]

Have we got a way to do Alpha channels or perhaps a workaround?

[Corey]

Re: Alpha Channels

Alpha channels will be coming in the future at some point but for now the best way is to fill your (aliased) transparency areas with a pure color not found in the image, i.e. 255,0,0 or 0,0,255 or 0,255,0 and then when you bring the image into AMS simply select that color as the transparent color for that image object...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Bruce]

Re: Alpha Channels

Thanks Corey-
I tried it but It didn't work for me, check it out.

13026-Untitled-1 copy.jpg

[Corey]

Re: Alpha Channels

Which area are you trying to make transparent? You need to make sure that area is a different color altogether than the areas you want to be opaque...

To see what I mean, open AMS and then select "Corporate Software Installer" from the project templates.

Then double click a button and in the button's image options dialog's settings panel deselect the "transparency" option for any of the three button states, you will then see the transparent image areas (pseudo-alpha) become opaque. Re-check the "transparency" dialog and you will see them become transparent again.

Try a few templates and look at the buttons, this should give you a good hands-on feel for how we handle transparency in AMS, if you still have questions let me know...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Bruce]

Re: Alpha Channels

Thanks Corey

[Lorne]

Re: Alpha Channels

Bruce -- you need to make sure that the part you want to make transparent is all the same indexed color.

For example, if it was a 16 color image, you have to use the same color for all of the background (color 3, say). Even if there are three "colors" in the palette that look the same, you need to use only one of them.

AutoPlay doesn't have any idea what the color actually looks like, it just knows about palette indexes.

Be wary of saving files as JPGs or applying filters that turn the background into a gradient or smooths it or dithers it. You want the background to be a single, solid color.

It doesn't matter what color you use, so long as it isn't used anywhere else in your image -- or those parts will be transparent too.