Preserved Topic: Kind of odd transparency question.

Ok, I'm trying to finish up this sig for my guild message board... Mad, mad props go to mahjqa for the technique. Anyway, the problem is in the transparency. This is the sig currently:



That background color is the average of the two forum colors, CCCB9B and DEDDBF. It doesn't blend into either since it's just a big rectangle. I'm not sure how to make it transparent... That background color is achieved by using a solid layer set to Lighten - the real background is black. The .psd is here if you want to check it out. Ignore that Layer 2... Just fooling around and forgot to delete it.

Anybody know how to make this blend in? I'm stumped. Any help is greatly appreciated!

(Edited because UBB Code is HARD and whatnot. So are .zip files. Directory names are HARD too. Man, four edits?)

[This message has been edited by Ikonomi (edited 01-25-2001).]

hmmmm... wellI am not a animation expert.. (always found it to be too time consuming).. but why is your 'real' bg colour black? and not the final bg colour you need?... that seems a bit odd!

I am sure Majiha if reads this will be able to help

~Vp~

Well, following mahjqa's technique, there's a layer to cut out the flames, which is basically a fire-shaped hole in a black layer set to Color Burn. Sooo... To make it match the Asylum background, what he did was use a layer of 40 4 4 set to Lighten to change that black into this color. *points at the Asylum* So that's what I did, having no imagination of my own, but it didn't come out as nicely.

I tried moving the Lighten layer down to right on top of the cut-out layer, but it doesn't come out quite right.

well surly if your using Mahija's method, it would be good to email hin directly for help?... and not sure about teh tongue slimey!... but if it makes yuo feel better!....

anyhoo... yw

~Vp~

The tongue slimey always makes me feel better.

Thanks fer takin' a look, VP. Hmm... Iko 2 email mahj.

ok.. well I DL'ed.. lol.. what I dont undersatnd is why the original bg layer is 0,0,0....? why go thru the bother of having a balck bg when you could just make it the final colour of the final destination bg colour? that throws me...

~Vp~

Well, the deal with the black Layer 1: I put that in there so I wouldn't end up with a little white box at the left side of the image, where the Lighten layer is left with nothing to lighten (since I was forced to resize the "Magic Layer" to make the animation smaller. I did the fire setup exactly the way mahj has it in his signature.

Hehe, I've been wanting to make a flaming sword for my paladin for a looong time, but mahjqa's fire is the only way I've found to make it look cool.

so what your saying is you took a shortcut?... why not redo the whole thing?.. and do it right?

Nono, not a shortcut, I promise. I didn't know how else to do it. Even if I go back and do it over, resizing the Magic Layer to cover the whole canvas so that the bottom (Layer 1) black layer isn't needed to fill in the gap, the cut out layer is still going to be color-burned black, and the whole thing will need to be lightened to the forum color. Am I overlooking something here? Something obvious?

ok.. but why not just resize the 'magic' layer? !Vp!

edit:... ok guys.. feel free to chip in anytime.... lol... like I said I am not an animation expert.. help!

[This message has been edited by vogonpoet (edited 01-25-2001).]

VP: my name's hard, ne? ^_^

All right. What I did was loading the gif into my gif animator, set the color you used as background color to transparent (if you do that too, don't forget to unoptimize first. (I'm sure there's a button for that on your gif animator too.)

k, I'm gonna test this first....

Okay. To get the flames to blend with the background color nicely, I added that one layer set to [lighten] to change the black into the average of the forum colors. sadly, this doesn't work as good with lighter background colors. (unless you like the white flames). but the big trick of making it blend with the real forum colors is making the background color of the gif transparent. I saw your gif was 32 frames... that must've been a LOT of work! the largest I made was 16 frames and took me around 30 minutes to export!

Ikonomi: you just resized my flames & layers? well, they say the secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources... :P

K. Does this one work? Oh yeah, do you want to retain the original flame colors too, or do you like the white? (If you don't I'll see what I can do. If you do I'm not gonna bother. )

(Yeah, why not.)

lol, no! They are my layers... Just your technique. Rendered from scratch. I didn't mean to imply I bit them. Thanks a bunch... Lemme go try and fix that! Thanks!!

And the white is ok for the forum I'm using it in... But man, that looks harsh against the Asylum. Ouch.

OH DAYAMN! I AM stupid! Oh wow. I was going about animating it a totally different way! I WAS missing something obvious. lol, boy.

Well, thank you, mahjqa. You fixed my Fiery Avenger! Now I can finish the actual sword.

And just to prove that I indeed can animate a transparent GIF...



[This message has been edited by Ikonomi (edited 01-25-2001).]

>Rendered from scratch
I already thought they weren't stretched... but you said {since I was forced to resize the "Magic Layer" to make the animation smaller} and I interpreteted it as you resized my my layers... ouch. my bad. But you made 'em yourself. Kudos to you, then, 'cuz making a 'magic layer' (hell, I hate that name all of a sudden ) is really hard.

>Now I can finish the actual sword.
So this ain't even the final version? Be sure to show the sword when it's ready!

: : Mahjqa : :

Edit: what's that 'guild' you've been talking 'bout?


[This message has been edited by mahjqa (edited 01-25-2001).]