Ace to TGA loses transparency

[Literalman]

I'm working on a repaint of Tim Blythman's Melbourne tram. In fact, I thought I was done, but the transparency disappeared.

I think the problem is in the Route-Riter conversion of Ace to TGA. When I used it and then used Ace-It to create a new Ace, the transparency had turned into dark gray.

When I opened the TGA in Gimp 2.8, the gray checkerboard was there and it had an alpha channel, but no transparency as an Ace.

Route-Riter had no options in the graphics conversion, so there are no settings there to change, at least that I can see.

Any ideas as to what I should do differently?

Thank you.

[rdayt]

If you have AceIt it might work better.
It has the option to save with alpha.

Randy

[Literalman]

Thank you. I tried converting the Ace file to TGA using Ace-It, and it created a file but then couldn't read it. I have TGA tool 2 but couldn't figure out how to use it for converting Ace to TGA, but I found a Steam4Me tutorial on how to do it, so I'll try that. I also found a program called reaConverter for batch conversions that is for sale, but the website has free conversion online for just a few files, which is all I need. I used to be pretty handy with Photoshop at work, but that was 6 years ago, and I don't have Photoshop now. I found a Gimp manual on the Gimp website with a warning that it has errors and missing pieces, but I will look at it. So I have a few things to try …

[rdayt]

If you are using OpenRails you could just save it as a .dds.
I think Gimp will do that natively.

Randy

[pwillard]

So can Paint.net.

[rdayt]

So can Paint.net.

That's what I use but he is already invested in Gimp.
Way to confusing to me.
Paint.net is great. Once you sort through the plugins.

Randy

[Literalman]

Gimp is free, and one of my kids downloaded it years ago. :-) All of them are grown and far away now.

I was using Paint.net, but the TGAs it made lost the transparency.

My computers can't handle Open Rails.

The Steam4Me tutorial for TGAtool2 said to read the manual. >

I found and downloaded a TGAtool2 installer, which gave me the manual. I already had TGAtool2 but no instructions that I could find. I just worked on one of the Aces using it, with Paint.net as the image editor, exported the Ace from TGAtool2 and tried the result in the simulator. Transparent windshield, yes!

[rdayt]

Glad you got it sorted out.
I've found that the best tool to convert .aces to workable images is Shapeviewer.
It exports the alphas along with everything else.
Tga tool will only export either the alpha or the image w/o alpha. It can be a pain to get the two together.

Randy

[Literalman]

I have Shape Viewer, but I didn't know it could export graphic. Well, when somebody else is losing transparency in images extracted from Aces, this thread will have a lot of answers. :-)

[rdayt]

The new Shapeviewer that came out a few years ago that will handle .dds textures is especially handy.

Randy