OK, so you WERE talking about something else.
There is a difference between "PNG vs BMP" and "Alpha Channel vs Transparent Color"
I was talking about PNG vs BMP, but you were talking about Alpha Channel vs Transparent Color. PNGs don't have to haver an alpha channel, they have support for simple transparent color(s), at least from how I have seen MMF2 import them, anyway.
Working as fast as I can on Fusion 3
Okay lol, thanks for the clarification.Originally Posted by LB
However, when I'm not actually adjusting any transparency in a PNG, and just import it into MMF, if you go to edit it in the picture editor you still have to adjust the alpha layer. If you try to move the graphic you'll notice it only moves the top layer and you have to go in to edit the alpha transparency to move that too and have the image be correct.
That would lead me to believe that importing PNG's would automatically add an alpha layer.
Huh, not for me. I guess it depends on the editor that saved the image.
Working as fast as I can on Fusion 3
Yeah that's odd. Did you use Photoshop CS4 by any chance? I should try it with GIMP.
No, I have been using Paint and then using the XP version of Microsoft Photo Editor to set transparent color. Sometimes I use MMF2's editor and then export it with transparent color, and it also seems to keep that property.
Working as fast as I can on Fusion 3
Shawn: I work with Photoshop CS2 and have no problem working with png images without alpha channels. When imported into MMF2, the result does not use the alpha channel either. It's positively your image editor that adds an alpha channel.
As long as there's a proper background layer in Photoshop, an alpha channel won't be saved with the png. If however a background layer doesn't exist (you know, that special unmovable background layer written with italic letters), the png file will contain an alpha channel even if no transparent pixels exist. If you're using Photoshop and I'd pick a wild guess, perhaps you have set "Transparent" as the default "Background Contains" option in the "New file" dialog, so a proper background layer isn't created when you create a new image. It's just a guess though, so I'm probably wrong
As a test, I created a new graphic in Photoshop with transparent background contents but with no background layer. I created two layers each with transparency. I saved this to web first as a PNG without transparency and then with. (The file size of the file with transparency is bigger.) I then imported the files into MMF. The file with transparency once and the file without twice: firstly, without selecting a transparent colour; secondly, selecting a transparent colour. In MMF, I flipped the image frames horizontally. The image without transparency flips fine. The image saved with transparency flips but needs its alpha channel to be flipped as well. The last image (the PNG that was saved without transparency but given a transparent colour in MMF) flips fine but would require an alpha channel to be created in MMF if needed.
Because of this, I always save my PNGs destined for animation without a transparent background and select a transparent colour in MMF: so that the images can be easily flipped to create other ani directions. Keeping colours for animations within a tight colour range helps.
On the other hand, I save picture objects as PNG with transparent backgrounds because I do not need them to be flipped or edited in MMF. And as they have a greater colour range it would be unnecessarily laborious to select a non-used colour as a transparent colour.
Ok thanks Nifflas. You are correct! I was creating the image with a transparent background. I should have realized this would obviously add an alpha channel automatically. I created a new image with a background color, put some text on top of it and saved as PNG. Then I imported, selected the background color to be transparent in MMF2, and it worked just as you said.
That was a really noob mistake on my part lol...
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