How to make transparent mods

How to make transparent mods?

• First of all a texture needs to be saved with an alpha channel included. This extra channel indicates where to make objects opaque, semi-transparent or totally transparent/invisible.

• Objects are opaque when the alpha channel is missing at all, or the alpha value at a specific pixel is black (has a value of 0). On the other hand, fully transparent parts are marked with white pixel (a value of 255). Grey values make the objects see-through.

Changing .txf Files

• The game does not know by default, what it should do with the images alpha channel. This is because the values may be treated in different ways. To solve this ambiguity we use .txf files.

• .txf files are text files. When changing the contents of those files, a text editor must be used. Winword is not a text editor by means. So to change the contents of .txf's use notepad (or any other the like).

• The game recognizes various txf file settings. The most important one's are (please note the quotes)
  • "RGB_888" "Opaque"
  • "RGBA_8888" "AlphaMask"
  • "RGBA_8888" "AlphaBlend/WriteZ"

What do those settings mean?

• "RGB_888" "Opaque"

• "RGBA_8888" "AlphaMask"

• "RGBA_8888" "AlphaBlend/WriteZ"

Important Notices

• Semi-transparent objects need to be drawn in a specific order (from back to front). Sorting groups of objects is partly done automatically, but mostly artists need to sort them by hand (assign engine specific layers, etc). Thus, objects that are not transparent by default will sometimes behave a bit odd in regards to drawing (flickering, disappearing parts,...).

• At the time of writing this guide, there's an issue with reloading .txf's. So to say, .txf's are only loaded once when a modded texture is applied, Alt-R will not work for them.