Little help with Alpha Set up and Tint 4

[Dragonofdarkness13]

Hello all, I was going to start making Tennogen stuff when it was introduced but I was finishing College at the time and then went to work.. had to quit.. job hunt.. nothin'
BUT enough of my life story lol, I figured now that I have some free Time I'd try to make some stuff ... But I hit a snag
So DE gave us the older Tint Masks with no Alpha and the newer ones with a layer Mask
I HAVE to use the gimp as I can't afford a legit copy of photoshop and I wouldn't feel right using a not legit copy in making stuff that I could potentially make a profit off of.
The Gimp seems to not allow the Alpha Channel to color tint 4 ~ It seems R is for Tint 1 , G for Tint 2, B for Tint 3 and White is supposed to be Tint 4 but it doesn't work .. it's just part of Tint 3.
As for the New masks .. I have No clue how to remove the Layer Mask that's applied to them.

Any help would be great... And before someone says " look it up on the internet" I have nothing seems to work and that's why I'm here asking , Thanks.

[Quarinah]

Hope this helps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNBCezMYgr0

it was in the tutorial they gave us: https://warframe.com/steamworkshop/help/index.php?page=tintmasks

[Dragonofdarkness13]

6 minutes ago, Quarinah said:

Hope this helps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNBCezMYgr0

it was in the tutorial they gave us: https://warframe.com/steamworkshop/help/index.php?page=tintmasks

Sadly No, That is one of the first videos I looked at and while it did give me a handle on the basics ... The Tint 4 still doesn't register with that method
Also being almost a Year old the Video doesn't address the New Resources coming with a Color Mask image that Already has a Layer mask on it, I dunno about photoshop but if I open that in gimp it's just a mostly blank image with no color areas .. I have no idea how or if you even can remove the Layer mask for that kind of image 

While it didn't help I do Appreciate your trying 

[Quarinah]

The thing is, you dont need to care what the image looks like, it will look very odd no matter what, all you need to care is how each channel is looking like.

Here's a workflow that might get you something, at least this is how i work in substance painter, if you don't want any of the gray diffuse to show up on the model, first you flood the red channel with white, if you want some diffuse to show up then dont flood with white those parts in the red channel, then the next tint is the green channel, here you can draw with white on the green channel wherever you want the second color to be, then you move to the blue channel and paint with white whatever zones you want to have the 3rd color, and then, if you don't want a 4th color (tint) you can just add a black alpha channel like the guy does in the video, because without this alpha channel being there, it wont work in tennogen either in game, and if you want a 4th color, you can paint those zones with white in the alpha channel as well.

Just try this, maybe (at least this is what i done in the beginning to see what's going on) make a simple plane, with a square UVmap, import that in tennogen, and then make a 1024x1024px file in ghimp, and play with the channels, and then import it in tennogen as a tint mask.

And again, it doesnt matter how the image looks like, it can be white, black, pink with orange, all that matters it what you painted on the individual channels+alpha

[Dragonofdarkness13]

2 hours ago, Quarinah said:

The thing is, you dont need to care what the image looks like, it will look very odd no matter what, all you need to care is how each channel is looking like.

Here's a workflow that might get you something, at least this is how i work in substance painter, if you don't want any of the gray diffuse to show up on the model, first you flood the red channel with white, if you want some diffuse to show up then dont flood with white those parts in the red channel, then the next tint is the green channel, here you can draw with white on the green channel wherever you want the second color to be, then you move to the blue channel and paint with white whatever zones you want to have the 3rd color, and then, if you don't want a 4th color (tint) you can just add a black alpha channel like the guy does in the video, because without this alpha channel being there, it wont work in tennogen either in game, and if you want a 4th color, you can paint those zones with white in the alpha channel as well.

Just try this, maybe (at least this is what i done in the beginning to see what's going on) make a simple plane, with a square UVmap, import that in tennogen, and then make a 1024x1024px file in ghimp, and play with the channels, and then import it in tennogen as a tint mask.

And again, it doesnt matter how the image looks like, it can be white, black, pink with orange, all that matters it what you painted on the individual channels+alpha

... Okay I guess I wasn't Clear
Tint 4 (alpha) is NOT Working ... As in The White that is on it Can NOT be Changed with the Tint 4 Slider ... It is fused with Tint 3
Also as far as I'm aware you can't color in the individual color channels.

and the New Color mask files for lets say Ash, Has almost nothing visible when I edit the image - Meaning a Layer mask was applied .. and I can't remove it

[Quarinah]

Ok, had to download Gimp to see what's going on in there, seems a very odd/bad program compared to Photoshop in my opinion, but maybe i'm just used with Photoshop, but as a side note, Photoshop is 10 $ a month, and in a month you can make a skin, and if its approved you'll get your money back, if not you just wasted few good beers.

And from what i'v noticed, you have the 3 R G B channels and the Alpha, in order do work on the alpha, you need to hide all the other channels by clicking the eye in front of them, except the alpha, and then use the Eraser tool on it to remove, or Alt+Erase to add info to the alpha channel, that way you can edit Tint 4.

I'm from having any professional level knowledge of Gimp, just tried it for the first time ever, but i used the Ash tint map, did some modifications to the alpha, exported it as png, and it worked in tennogen.

Now for a workflow i'd recommend first flood the whole Alpha channel with Alt+Eraser, so you can work on the individual color channels, by then leaving the alpha channel on, and switch off the other except the one you wanna work with (ex: to work on Red channel, turn off Blue and Green, and leave on Alpha and Red). After you are done with the R, G, B channels then you can edit the remaining Alpha channel, and you leave it last because you wont be able to see the other channels once you start editing the Alpha, because Gimp doesnt seem to have a native channel editing mode like Photoshop, so editing the Alpha channel will actually mask the rest of them.

PS: no idea of you skill level, but just to be sure you have all the info, to get the Channels panel in Gimp go Windows -> Dockable Dialogs -> Channels

Edited August 1, 2016 by Quarinah

[Dragonofdarkness13]

12 minutes ago, Quarinah said:

Ok, had to download Gimp to see what's going on in there, seems a very odd/bad program compared to Photoshop in my opinion, but maybe i'm just used with Photoshop, but as a side note, Photoshop is 10 $ a month, and in a month you can make a skin, and if its approved you'll get your money back, if not you just wasted few good beers.

And from what i'v noticed, you have the 3 R G B channels and the Alpha, in order do work on the alpha, you need to hide all the other channels by clicking the eye in front of them, except the alpha, and then use the Eraser tool on it to remove, or Alt+Erase to add info to the alpha channel, that way you can edit Tint 4.

I'm from having any professional level knowledge of Gimp, just tried it for the first time ever, but i used the Ash tint map, did some modifications to the alpha, exported it as png, and it worked in tennogen.

Now for a workflow i'd recommend first flood the whole Alpha channel with Alt+Eraser, so you can work on the individual color channels, by then leaving the alpha channel on, and switch off the other except the one you wanna work with (ex: to work on Red channel, turn off Blue and Green, and leave on Alpha and Red). After you are done with the R, G, B channels then you can edit the remaining Alpha channel, and you leave it last because you wont be able to see the other channels once you start editing the Alpha, because Gimp doesnt seem to have a native channel editing mode like Photoshop, so editing the Alpha channel will actually mask the rest of them.

PS: no idea of you skill level, but just to be sure you have all the info, to get the Channels panel in Gimp go Windows -> Dockable Dialogs -> Channels

Looking at that , After adding the alpha channel I need to add a Layer Mask and Edit that with the white for Tint 4

The Problem now is that Once Applied the PNG is now Locked with it on .. Sure it works on the Tennogen app ... but With not being able to remove it I'd need to make the Color mask from Scratch

Thank you for helping with figuring the first part out

Edited August 1, 2016 by Dragonofdarkness13