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I have looked through all the forums and am still unclear on the correct steps for a simple reskin. hat I have is an .ace file for a boxcar that has an alpha channel (24 bit + 8 bit for alpha). I have TGATool2 to open the ace file and Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photo Deluxe (can save .tga files), and MSPaint. What I would like to do is simply renumber the boxcar. Is there someplace that tells what steps are needed to accomplish this change? I know I can send the main ace file and the aplha channel to an editor, but I am not clear as to how to recombine these files.Sorry to ramble.
Sixman, you are correct in the steps you have down so far. Just to clarify things, I will explain all the steps, so please forgive me if I list some you already know. 1. With TGATool2 open up the .ace file you wish to change. 2. Use the send image to editor command, and it should open the file up in Photoshop if you have it selected as your image editor. 3. Go back to TGATool2 and then select the option of sending the alpha channel to the editor. This will open up a new window in Photoshop. 4. With the alpha channel drawing selected go to the "select" menu and choose the "all" option. 5. Select the "Edit" menu and choose "copy". This will copy the entire alpha channel drawing. 6. Select the drawing that you first imported into photoshop. (The one that has all the skins for your boxcar....) 7. In the bottom right corner of your Photoshop window you should see some tabs that say "Layers, Channels, Paths". The "Layers" tab should be currently selected. Select the "Channels" tab to make all of your channels active. 8. You should now see instead of drawing layers, different rgb color layers. "RGB, Red, Green, Blue". What you will want to do is click the "create new channel" button below (It looks the same as the "create new layer" button.) 9. Once you click that button it will give you a new layer called "alpha 1". Go ahead and select the "Edit" menu and choose "paste". You have now re-inserted the alpha channel into the drawing. 10. Select "File" and choose "save as". You may then select from the various types of files the "targa" option. Once you save as a .tga file you can then import it back into TGATool2 and create an .ace file with an alpha channel. Good luck! Edit: I forgot to mention that you will need to do all of your modifications (ie. renumbering, color changes, whatever....) before saving as a .tga file and then re-importing back into TGATool2. Otherwise you would not be changing the .ace file at all....
