Chevron Tank Car...first skin need help to finish it up

[RailroadKing]

Everything seemed to be going ok when making this skin. But when I loaded it up in the editor, I am missing the wheels and the ladder. I tried to repaint both of the stock tank cars and done alot of trial and error but had no luck. I even tried to place just a chevron logo only but I ended up with the same results. Its like part of the model is missing or something. Anyone know what could be wrong?

[RailroadKing]

Come on, surely someone has to have an idea here? Has this at least happened to anyone else?

[controll]

Give us some photos of the problem to view.....also if your using
a graphics editor that does not utilise ALPHA channels correctly then it could be removing the overlays and transparencies.

Hope to see pics and help ya

Controll

[mmackin]

Yep, if your not using a paint program that supports RGB channels and TGA files. That's exactly what's happening. Your convering up the alpha channels which are use for transparentices. That's why your ladder and railings are disappering.

[Xacto]

One thing to keep in mind with TGA's with alpha channels. If you copy the texture within the graphics program, you will loose the alpha channel. As long as you work with the original texture that has the alpha channel and then save it with your new file name, the alpha will remain intact.

I'm not sure if that was the cause of the problem, but I had a problem with missing alphas when I first started working with transparent textures and that was the cause.

[RailroadKing]

Xacto, you are referring to copying and pasting from another graphic into the skin? If so thats what I was doing with the Chevron logo to put it on the tanker. I have read in here where someone had stated to use transparent layers to avoid messing up the alpha channels. I am afraid the program I am using(Photo Suite 8.0)don't do this, it can however open and save .tga files. Fortunately I do have Corel Draw 10 Graphics Suite, maybe I will use that. Thanks for the help!

[Xacto]

You can paste new images onto the opened TGA and not loose the alpha. It's only when you use CTRL C, CTRL V to make a copy of the original TGA that the alpha is lost in the copy. If you are just adding the Chevron logo by pasting it onto the TGA, then your problem must be happening somewhere else in the process. (I haven't gotten that far yet :) ) Most programs have an option to check the status of the image and the number of alphas should be shown there. You could check the final texture before converting it to be sure the alpha is intact.

Good luck,

Xacto