Alpha Channel Is A Slacker

[tuihayes]

It's been a while... When I render an alpha-equipped PNG out of Maya, the alpha map is 'baked in'. Meaning once it's viewed by any other program, the transparent regions are, well, transparent.

My copy of XSI 2.0 doesn't render to PNG, but it does render to TIFF and TARGA, both equipped with alpha channels. But the final image simply displays a black background where there is no subject. The alpha map is rendered accurately, but it just doesn't show up except under the channels window in PS. Perhaps that is the nature of TIFFs and TARGAs vs PNGs.

Am I missing something? How can I get XSI 2.0 to render out 'alpha-baked' images? Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
Tui

[joojaa]

Its not baked, its how color really works. Its just a mtter of how the standards were defined.

QUOTE(TuiHayes @ 06/03/09, 02:04 PM) [snapback]308834[/snapback]
It's been a while... When I render an alpha-equipped PNG out of Maya, the alpha map is 'baked in'. Meaning once it's viewed by any other program, the transparent regions are, well, transparent.

Actually its not, ts just thst some applications react in this way to alpha. In case of png thats the defied behaviour. But in other formats alpha IS just a auxiliary channel and you may or may not use it in alpha context. In fact the png image is the same just the default interpretation of png is this. They tried to put photoshop top auto sense alpha in the last version before cs. But they had to take it off, because they pissed of a entire industry. It can still be turned on tough, at least i used to be.*

Any other is a bit stretching it, i mean yes many imaging apps show it as just what its defined to be, a extra channel. if you want it as alpha then say so to the app. But on the other hand comp apps do react to the alpha just as they should out of the box even going as far as sensing what KIND of alpha you used

Also by the way even the maya PNG is black on the transparent pixels you just don't see it. Theeres no such thing as a trasparent pixel by the way it always has a color you just dont see it.

*its a philosophical thing sure its more work on you now but if standard says something is just a arbitrary channel then it should be treated as such until i say otherwise. Simply because theres plenty of uses to pack other stuff in the alpha channel in wich case having it trasparentized is not a good thing.

[tuihayes]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 06/03/09, 08:35 PM) [snapback]308842[/snapback]
Its not baked, its how color really works. Its just a mtter of how the standards were defined.
...
*its a philosophical thing sure its more work on you now but if standard says something is just a arbitrary channel then it should be treated as such until i say otherwise. Simply because theres plenty of uses to pack other stuff in the alpha channel in wich case having it trasparentized is not a good thing.

So it's the nature of PNGs vs others. Thanks for the reply