Turing 4.1 and Transparent GIFs

[andrew.]

Hi guys,

I was wondering about Turing 4.1 and partially transparent GIFs. I have made an image that is a gradient, but the gradient is about 80% opaque. I have saved it to a GIF file with dithering enabled (to have some sort of transparency as CS2 does not allow it without dithering). Anyways, my problem is that Turing does not read the GIF file properly. It shows up all grey with no other colours and no transparency whatsoever. Is it possible, to have partial transparencies within Turing? Also, if not, is it possible to have Turing process transparencies (not Pic.SetTransparentColor)? For instance, if I wanted to draw a box, can I store it as an image and have it 80% opaque?

Thanks guys

[Tony]

I don't think GIFs even have alpha-transparency. Let alone having that work in Turing.

You could draw an alpha-transparent image by mixing your own RGB values. For every color of RGB (so all 3 of them), find a point between background and foreground that is 80% towards the foreground.

For example, if your background is pure black (0,0,0) and your image is a certain shade of pink (200,0,100), then an 80% opaque image would be (160, 0, 80)

Though you'd likely wouldn't be able to draw your images this way anywhere close to real-time.

[SNIPERDUDE]

hmm, using RGB you can make something semi transparent so you can see the underlayer, but like Toni said there is no way of doing this close to real-time.

[andrew.]

Yeah, I know you can't do this in real-time with Turing. I've tried before using the same method. But anyways, thanks. I guess I could just have it solid.

[SNIPERDUDE]

OR do it once, screenshot it, then draw this new image solid.
It all depends on the situation...

[[Gandalf]]

SNIPERDUDE @ 2008-06-30, 5:39 pm wrote:

OR do it once, screenshot it, then draw this new image solid.
It all depends on the situation...

However, in that case you couldn't take into account changing backgrounds, since the screenshot would be static. And if your background doesn't change, then there's no need for alpha transparency in the first place because you could use a non transparent image to produce your gradient effect.

[SNIPERDUDE]

makes sense.

[andrew.]

This is my workaround:

I take an image of the area of what I want to be partially transparent (Pic.New) and then I draw a grid over it with whatever colour I want it to be and then I use Pic.Blur to blur it. The result is something similar to Vista's blurred title and taskbar.

[SNIPERDUDE]

That works. Kind of like the old method to blur things except blured.

You have a scrrenshot?

[andrew.]

Here is a screenshot. I was making a Vista-like OS, but it's on the backburner now.


Click here for a higher quality BMP file.

The only file outside of the Turing files is the background, which can be changed and renamed because I have JPG file detection in my program.