I'm trying to make a scope mask that mimics iron sights, like this.

So I made my bitmap from a render, and I deleted all of the area that shows up white in Paint.net here so it would be transparent. (Ignore the fact that they're the same weapon; I'm trying to learn the concept so I can implement it into a whole tag set) The TIFF saved and compiled successfully.

I made the bitmap into a decal just to test it, and it looks pretty good!

...on the ground. Using that same bitmap as a scope overlay, I get this.

What doesn't make sense to me is that Guerrilla shows the alpha information as being set up exactly the same.

The only difference I see between the two bitmap tags is that the bitmap I'm comparing mine to has 0 bytes in its "compressed color plate data." Anybody know what the problem is?

The alpha is backwards. If you look at the black shape in the middle of the screen here
It looks the same as the one on the left here
What you need to do is invert the colors of the alpha. And try bumping the bitmap down a size, it looks like it's too big to fit it all on the screen. Try that and let me know the results, we'll work from there :)

I tried editing the alpha channel directly, as directed here: http://www.stankirdey.com/content/how-edit-alpha-channel-image-using-gimp-28
But when I did this, it made the image grayscale (it did let me edit the alpha manually, though). Furthermore, Tool wouldn't let me make it into a bitmap compressed with explicit alpha. There has to be an easier way to do this, or something I'm missing.
Edited by ReconNinja117 on Jan 30, 2013 at 08:08 PM

Gimp is a great free program, and an excellent substitute for photoshop. To create\edit an alpha channel, right click on layer and hit "add layer mask" click okay, and then edit it to your liking, then click apply. As much as i love my paint.net, i have to give credit where credit is due. Gimp makes alpha's much easier.

I tried that method too, it still wouldn't compress with explicit alpha.

assuming that is part of the weapon interface
you are using your bitmap in screen effects
something like this



and the result is obviously something like this



delete that and do the following in the crosshair overlays




and you'll have something like this




here is my bitmap



Hope that helps
Edited by 6thLoneWolf on Jan 31, 2013 at 03:25 PM