Transparent Background

[AirDude1213]

Hello,

Hi i am new to the forum. I was having some problems. I was wondering if it is possible to make a hollowed out circle, then have the background and the hollow part of the circle transparent. So when I export it and use it on a game. I can see threw the hollow part and all I see is a hollowed out circle instead of the white background.

Thanks,
Lucas

[Soquili]

Hi Lucas,

Welcome to Talkgrahics.

There are at least two ways to do what you want (probably more as there are so many ways to accomplish most things in Xara).

Create your circle. Create a second smaller circle (can be a resized clone of the original). Select both circles and use the Arrange > Combine Shapes > Subtract Shapes menu.

If you are going to export as a gif with transparency, you will need to put a background of the same colour you will be using to put the donut shape over behind the shape. Select only your donut shape and select the Export option from the File menu. The Transparent background is usually selected by default.

If you are going to export as a png with tranparency, use True Colour with Alpha channel and export.

The png file will be larger in bytes than the gif because it will contain more colours.

[gwpriester]

Hello Lucas and welcome to the Xtreme Conference.

Yes you can do what you are asking in several ways. You can export a GIF or 8-bit (256 colors) PNG file with transparency.

You can also export a PNG file using the True Color + Alpha color depth option.

If you have a rectangle around your object(s), set the fill and outline to none.

Let us know if you need more specific instructions.

Gary

[AirDude1213]

Yea it would help a little if you can give me more detailed instructions since I am new, I didnt explore the program that much.

Thanks so much for the help so far, glad someone responded

[gwpriester]

In the attached example, I created a solid colored circle and added a circlular transparency over a colored background. This might be the color of the background for a game, for example. It could also be a bitmap photograph.

I reversed the start and end transparency amount to create what I think you are referring to as a hollowed out circle. Or something kind of like a bubble.

The circle was selected (but not the background) and exported as a True Color + Alpha PNG file (File > Export). PNG is the only file format that Xtreme supports that can create a high resolution, 24-bit transparent image (plus 8-bits of alpha transparency information).

The circle with have a transparent background and a see through center when imported into any program that supports transparent PNG files.

Other options are 256 color GIF and 256 color PNG files. The same procedure applies.

For more information, see Exporting GIF Files and Exporting PNG Files in the Xtreme > Help menu.

Did this help?

Gary

[gwpriester]

If you export the circle as a transparent GIF or 8-bit PNG file, the circle itself will not be transparent, only the area around the circle, as you can see here.

Gary

[Egg Bramhill]

I think Lucas is looking more for a telescopic site type circle. Trouble is he's not supplying much information for us to go on.

[AirDude1213]

Yes, it is what Egg said, I want somthing like a telescope, or like the picture he has there, thats what I want.

[AirDude1213]

Ahh ok, I did it. As a .png. But I need it to be either. .tga, .jpg, .jpeg, or . bmp.

[Soquili]

Lucas,

Your choices of export directly from Xara Xtreme from the few you have shown will be .jpg and .bmp.

For use in your game, you will need to know what colour has been designated as the default transparent colour. You will need to make a rectangle (or square) filled with the default transparent colour as the background for your object. Export as .jpg or .bmp.

The attached image shows how it would look if the pink colour I used happened to be the transparent colour for your game engine.

If you are writing the code for the game yourself, the set transparent colour method is explained at this page http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com.../8517ckds.aspx