Decals

<td width="600" valign=top>The first thing I will do is delete the black area of the image I don't want to be visible.<br>

<td width="600" valign=top>Next, I will select everything and give it a heavy border. I want to do that so the border is easily visible when I shrink it down to 32x32 pixels.<br>

In photoshop, go to Layer>Layer Style>Stroke. Change the stroke color to black and the size to '10'.

<td width="600" valign=top>Now I want to be able to select my image and the new border using the magic wand.<br>

In photoshop, the easiest way for me to do this is to create a new transparent layer below my current one, then merge it down. Go to Layer>Merge Down.<br>

Now I can use my magic want to easily select my image by clicking the empty area, then inverting my selection by going to Select>Inverse.

<td width="600" valign=top>Now that I have my selection, I can easily create my Alpha Channel.<br>

In photoshop, I go to the channels window by going to Window>Show Channels. I now see four channels: RGB, Red, Green, and Blue.<br>

Create a new channel by clicking 'Create New Channel' at the bottom of that window. That gives me a black square with an outline of my crossbones.<br>

I want to fill that area with white so it will be visible in my decal. Go to Edit>Fill and use White. <br>

If you want to blend it to let some of the dirt and paneling of the mech show through, make a color that is 80% grey and fill the crossbones with the paintbucket too.<br.

After you fill it, you can deselect the image.

In photoshop, go to Window>Show Layers and select your layer.<br>

Resize your image by going to Image>Image Size. Change the width and height fields to 32 and press OK.<br>

After resizing, I would suggest creating a completely black layer under your image layer to ensure there isn't any white spots on the edge of your transparencies. That is completely optional though and usually not necessary.<br>

*To create a 64x64 decal with transparency, you will need to take an extra step using Gimp [See top of page for a link]. First re-size your image to 64x64 instead of 32x32 and save it. Then open your .tga in Gimp. You should see the transparent area as being a tinted checkered pattern. Go to Color>Posterize. A slider with a number going from 1 to 255 should appear. The program will probably automatically select the optimum number of colors you need for your image. For my crossbones image, I only needed three. To keep your file size under 5KB, you will have to use 16 colors or less, and possibly even fewer than that.<br> After you press ok, to to 'Save As' and overwrite your file. A window allowing you to use RLE compression should appear, press Yes and save. Check your file size. If it's under 5KB, transfer it to your 'customdecals' folder and try it out.