alpha channels for texture
 

I use layered textures sometimes and have to go into photoshop and make a alpha channel in my texture as you all know. I usually make a base layer of white then another layer with my texture merge it down, then I select the layer and inverse it so it picks only the the part that will be visble . Next I save the visible part once selected as a new alpha channel and make the alpha's opacity 100%, so when I use the texture as part of a layered texture It is ready because the alpha is already at 100% on the layered texture. My question is there an easier way to make your texture with a alpha channel in Photoshop than what I am doing? Also I save as a targa, I tried tif but it doesn't work and I wonder if targa is picking up all my color value.

targa is 8bits per channel, they are fine for textures. your tifs wont work if you use LZW compression or any compression for that matter... i use tifs...

As for your other question i think a visual example would be good cos i cant work it out.

taga can be anything up to 32 bit dude. For a texture you will get a good depth at 16 bit but it will only make a difference if you create it at that depth, so if you paint a texture in the PS default settings of 8 bit then it wont make a difference if you up the bit dpeth to 16 before saving.

I allways create alpha channels seperately, but im just used to working like that, you could allways use maya nodes to generate the alpha i guess, e.g. using the reverse node to negative your values and then pipe the result further down the network.

yeah i said 8 bits per channel, which is 32 :P

ah ha! oops