Making a grate using textures

[Absolution]

Or a chain link fence, a net whatever...

My understanding is that to make metal deck-grating (like you would see on a fire escape) one must make a simple rectangular object then paint on a texture that looks like the grate. Everything you want to be "see-through" should be black but when I do it everything that is colored black is... black.

How do I make it so I can see through my, otherwise, solid object.


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And since its relevant to the topic here's another one:

Can I stack textures on top of each other? For example I have the hull of a ship that I have textured. Can I add in a window texture and paste it on top of the hull texture. Viola! Window on side of the ship.

How do I do this?

[Wolfrug]

It shouldn't be black AFAIK, but Alpha channel, or, well...transparent. I don't know exactly how to do this in anything except Adobe Photoshop, so...

Basically the way to do it there though is to first cut out the picture you want retained (i.e. the chain links) using for instance the magic wand tool or whatever, and then to paste that picture into a new picture which is set to having a "Transparent Background" (you can pick that when creating a new picture). In Photoshop, the transparent areas have this kind of black-and-white-striped pattern on it, so that way you can see what has the appropriate alpha channel or whatever it's called.

Then just save it as .trg (Targa) and use TexView2 to convert it to .pac. That, at least, is the way I do it? There's probably a more clever or easier way to do it, but yes...

Wolfrug out.

[h-]

Maybe this tutorial helps
Creating an Alpha Channel

[Absolution]

Well this was simply a misunderstanding on my part. I guess when I saw the Black background that was set as the Alpha Channel.

Thank you for answering and I apologize for asking such a beginner question; I know you guys have better things to do. I really appreciate it.

[Gnat]

A default grate in ArmAII you can use is;
ca\structures\data\alpha\net\lavkaalfa_ca.paa