OpenGL Transparency Questions

[Dante Shamest]

Question 1
I'm using TGA images in OpenGL because they have an alpha channel, which makes it relatively easy for me to create texture-mapped sprites with transparent pixels.

Do any of you guys have an OpenGL TGA loader you're willing to share? I'm currently using NeHe's TGA loader in lesson 33. It works fine, but I'm wondering it anybody here thinks he has a more efficient/shorter version.

Question 2
Is there a way to achieve transparency effects with plain Windows bitmaps? I'd like to use them to texture-map a quad, with specific pixels left out. But bitmaps do not have an alpha channel so I can't use glEnable(GL_ALPHA_TEST) like I could when dealing with TGA.

I suppose I would have to use blending of some sorts with glEnable(GL_BLEND) but I'm not certain of the details. If anybody has accomplished this before, I would like to hear how they did it.

[MrWizard]

Use 32-bit bitmaps for the alpha channel.

[Dante Shamest]

Thanks for replying MrWizard, but I'm afraid I'm limited to working with bitmaps that are 24-bits and below.

[Magos]

If you're only interested in either 0% or 100% transparency you could assign a certain color to be transparent. I don't know how this is done in OpenGL though, I know it's possible in DX.

[psychopath]

For bitmaps, use multi-texturing. Each texture unit respectivly would be your base(colored) texture and your alpha-map. From there, use OGL blending functions.

glEnable(GL_BLEND);
glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);

glActiveTextureARB(GL_TEXTURE0_ARB);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D,  g_Texture[textureID]);
glActiveTextureARB(GL_TEXTURE1_ARB);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D,  g_Texture[textureID]);

glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glTexCoord2f(0.0, 1.0);glVertex3f(0.5, 0.5, 0.0);
glTexCoord2f(0.0, 0.0f);glVertex3f(-0.5, 0.5, 0.0);
glTexCoord2f(1.0, 0.0f);glVertex3f(-0.5,- 0.5, 0.0);
glTexCoord2f(1.0, 1.0);glVertex3f(0.5, -0.5, 0.0);
glEnd();

I'm 80% sure this would, work, but i'm no guru nor do I have self-confidence, lol

-psychopath

[no-one]

Why not download the TGA spec from wotsit and write your own loader? its pretty easy, especially if you dont bother with compressed TGA's, plus its good experience.

[Dante Shamest]

For bitmaps, use multi-texturing. Each texture unit respectivly would be your base(colored) texture and your alpha-map. From there, use OGL blending functions.

Thanks, that information seems helpful.

[Darkness]

with help from bubba i have recently implemented sprites with transparent pixels with the tga image format rendered in opengl. i looked at nehe's code to figure out the format and wrote my own loader, however it is actually slower. i would not worry about the execution speed of loaders. i can help out in any other way possible however. bitmaps are stupid.