Topic awaiting preservation: Transparency in ImageReady (or, "I am apparently a complete idiot")

OK, time to make a royal fool of myself. I decided to try making my latest animation in ImageReady, since so many of you swore by it in the "Animation" thread. I managed to figure out how to make the actual animation without accidentally severing any body parts, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then I realized that the stupid thing wasn't transparent. So I looked through the help files, figured out I had to click the transparency option on the optimization pallete, and then I tried saving it as the optimized file...

No transparency. After reading through more help (and even reading old Asylum thread on the issue), I got the impression that if I used a matte color than the transparent pixels would be filled with the matte color, but if I used "none" for matte color, then they would remain transparent. So I tried saving it with "none" as the matte color. Still no dice. No matter what I do, it saves it as is with no hint of transparency.

I am generally not a stupid person, but I think I may be having what Emps calls a "stupid day." I feel especially stupid posting something that has been posted here a million times, but punching the wall repeatedly doesn't seem to help.

OK, there. I said it. Now someone please come in here and tell me how much of an idiot I am and what simple thing I missed (preferrably both, but if it would really make you feel better to simply insult me, then go ahead).

Cell 270

i'm not an IR junkie.....
but just for the hell of it, man...... go reboot.
This is odd..... this "should" be working.

if you created the animation with a background and are trying to go back and take the background out, it may have to be done on a frame by frame basis in the animation palette, surely not, I hope not, eeeeeew.

open yer animation palette, select the first frame of the animation, do it show a background? in the layers palette is there a background layer behind? If you can asnwer either of these 'yes', you wanna turn the background layer off then proceed to the next frame and check it out, and so on and so forth...

[edit]- if it's a case of a a layer being a background, you can select all frames of the animation and then turn off the layer, that should apply the change across the frames without jacking with anything else. You said something about the matte? You're gonna have to specify a matte color still for transparency, this will just fill in your "semi-transprent/semi-opaque" pixels guz a gif doesn't support partial transparency. The fully transparent pixels will reamin transparent however. see gn trans thing

Jason

[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 10-05-2002).]

Hmmm.... ok, I tried taking the background out. Still doesn't seem to have any effect. I keep getting the matte color and no transparency, and it doesn't seem to make a difference whether or not I select the matte color or none. This is really starting to piss me off.

And restarting the program doesn't seem to work either. I may just kick IR in the balls and go back to using friggin' GIF Construction Set...

[Edit: OK, just for kicks, I tried saving a still image with transparency in PS. I did one with the Save for Web option--no transparency. The only way I was able to get transparency was to index the file and then export it as a .gif. I have absolutely no idea what the heck is going on...]

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 10-05-2002).]

Dude, i had that exact problem with my flame pear sig...

and um.... I have no idea why it finally decided to work


NO FRIGGIN IDEA.

RRAAAARRR!!!



                                                   

post file for download! we must play!

Jason

yes, give us the psd!

and, are you sure you see the transparent pixels too in the optimized window (those white-grey checkerd)?

Now...let me see. I remeber this problem...I think one has to first have the small screen open (under options? Extras?). I always place it to the right on my screen...it's where you can 'play#' around with the options for optimization...there, one needs to set the transparency...at least, that fixed the problem for me...it's also where one can determine the background. Damn, I wish I wasn't using the German version...I'll have to 'fire it up', when I get the time...

It's very nice, because it 'allows' one (amongst others) to set different colors in different areas...making it realtively easy to change bg.

Suho1004: I do hope your Stupid Day is over - if not have you looked at this in the FAQ?:

How do I make my animated gif's background transparent?

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Eheh, I just went and fixed my fire sig's transparency and I'll put it up tommorow...

Thanks for waking me up!

Ahah, thanks to grumble for the natural color of flames, thanks to Jason and Mahjqa on transparency...

Well just look at them!

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New:

Sorry for the delay... I was gone for a few days. I think that I know what might be wrong, though. Let me give it a shot--if it works, I'll just go and post it in the contest thread (yep, it's my contest sig), and if it doesn't work I'll post the .psd. I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong, though, and I'm feeling kind of sheepish...

OK, the jury is in: I am a complete idiot. This is so embarassing I contemplated just dropping it, but I figure I owe you guys an explanation. The reason it didn't work is that I didn't really understand how IR did transparency. The animation is actually quite simple (as you will see below), and I did it in the simplest way I could think of: one "cutout" layer with "SUHO1004" cut out of it and a pattern layer behind it. When I moved the pattern layer, it would appear as if the pattern was "flowing" through the letters. I'm so used to just exporting GIFs that I figured it would take the color I selected for transparency and remove it from the image. I didn't realize that it actually works the other way around, ie, starts from transparency and puts the matte color in later.

I actually thought of this while I was away, but GRUMBLE's comment about being able to see the transparent pixels pretty much confirmed it. So I did the animation the other way around (did the text as a selection and copied from the "moving" pattern layer) and voila! It works. I'm telling you all this because I know you're all wondering why it didn't work, and there's an off chance that someone someday might be as stupid as I was.

*Sigh* All that trouble just for this...




Cell 270