robinm Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 I'll start by saying I'm not an artist but a games programmer. I'm trying to create a simple image of transparent mist then I can move slowly across my current game. I suppose the best way of describing the effect I'm after is to imagine flying through a cloud containing brightly coloured beach balls and other objects. I don't want to hide stuff but I do want to give an impression of thick atmosphere. I definitely don't need to have the mist follow any ground features. I just plan on creating a couple of 1000x800 images and then overlay them and move them slowly. I might also try and alter the transparency of the images on the fly to further the effect. Is this possible in PDN? I've tried setting the primary colour to a transparent grey and the secondary colour to totally transparent. I then filled an area using the render > cloud effect. It looked fine in PDN but when drawing the image I don't have any transparency and instead get a large block of white with grey clouds moving around the screen. Am I doing something wrong? is there a library I can grab a suitable image from? Many thanks Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 I'd set the Primary to grey + opaque. Secondary to any color + fully transparent. Then render your clouds. Use the layer properties dialog (press F4) to lower the overall opacity until you get the effect you want. Save a master copy as a PDN image. The reason I recommend this technique is that it is very easy to reopen the pdn image and adjust the layer opacity if you want to fine tune it. Regarding the blocks of white, it sounds like you've saved the image as a JPG. These do not support transparency. Try saving the image as a PNG. 1 Quote ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinm Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Thanks for replying so quick. That's pretty much what I'm doing. The image was definitely saved as png. It actually looks transparent in the PDN program (it has the checker board pattern) but when I save it (as png) it somehow develops a white background When I open the image I've saved it also has the white background and not the transparent one. PS programming is far easier than painting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eli Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Make sure to choose 32 bits when saving as a png file: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinm Posted January 26, 2016 Author Share Posted January 26, 2016 That was it! Thank you both for your help, much appreciated. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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