WoW Model Viewer Question

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Serenith
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WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Serenith »

Hey guys!

So I've been using WMV again and everything was running smooth until I tried saving a PNG image for the transparency. I remember being able to do that for spirit beasts to get their ghostly effect to show up more accurately...at least this is what I remember. When I try to save a spectral tiger like Ankha now, it now longer saves on a transparent background. The PNG saves the background color Im currently using in WMV. I am wondering if this is just my computer not saving this file type properly, or if this is how saving in PNG on WMV is now. If this is just how it is, it will hinder things, but I'm sure I will still be able to use spirit beasts to a degree.

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Karathyriel
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Karathyriel »

I've had this problem already way back in time when I used to make signatures for people.
The ghostly effect on spirit beasts involves semi-transparent graphics. They can't be saved with a transparent background.
I'm pretty sure your recollections do fool you there.

I always used this litle trick:
Menu VIEW ► SHOW MODEL CONTROL which pops up a new window.
In this new window there is a checkbox named PARTICLES. Uncheck that.
Now that all these effects are turned off, you can save the image.
If necessary, try to reproduce the effects in your graphics software.
I always use Photoshop CS2. It's a bit older but can legally be downloaded and used for free as Adobe stopped supporting it and made it available for everyone.
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Serenith
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Serenith »

Weird. I swear I was able to save transparent backgrounds with PNG, or just certain effects. Its been since 2012 since I have made signatures, so its possible I am remembering wrong. I just vaguely remember being able to do something transparent. Like for Karoma and even just to add in the fire effect for fire spiders. Oh well.


EDIT: Cause I was looking at these ones I did back then and the ghost cats look more transparent. So does Banny.

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Karathyriel
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Karathyriel »

I really don't know...
Transparent backgrounds do work in a certain way: One color is chosen to be not shown, hence it is transparent.
But if you have somethig laid over it, the color changes and because of that will be visible.

I've attached a demo where you can see the pink shining through although I made pink the transparent color.

Maybe, if you chose a background color that matches the background you're going to work with later, that would make it look better but I never tried that.
I use that bright pink because it almost never appears on the models and can be renmoved very easily when working in Photoshop.

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Karathyriel
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Karathyriel »

Here I tried it and chose a light gray instead of the bright pink.

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It does look more transparent but you still can see where gray and blue were overlapping.
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Serenith
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Serenith »

Well, after reading through some old signature and WMV related threads (some were even my posts), I am certain that saving images as PNG did give a transparent background before. So I am not sure what changed.

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Wain
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Wain »

I think it broke some time ago and has sadly never been fixed.
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Serenith
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Re: WoW Model Viewer Question

Unread post by Serenith »

Such a shame :(

Maybe someday it will get a fix! *wishful thinking*

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