It's really hard to find a program that easily writes .tga's with alpha channels. I can get NeHe's to load fine, and Saint Paint was doing a beutifull job, letting me paint streight to the alpha layer, it's a real pity it started crashing on my computer after a couple of days, because it's images loaded just fine. Do I have to use PSP or photoshop? They're means of doing this was hidiously complicated and I couldn't get it right obviously 'cos the results from these programs where just plain white textures. Is there anything else around like SaintPaint that just adds an alpha channel and lets you draw to it? I had to wonder what other people are using to scan/edit their RGBA textures?

Try Paint.NET - in contrast to PSP and PS it's free (as in beer), easy to use and understand and has a very good support for alpha channels. It's also much easier to write plugins for it, since it's OSS written in C#, so any .NET compatible language will do.
It might not be as powerful as its commercial counterparts, but a very active and growing community makes up for that (IMHO[smile]).

PSP had good TGA support in the past (talking about v7, which I own) that somewhat deteriated from version to version. I considered buying the latest version but found that PNG and TGA support were somewhat lacking, so I'm staying with Paint.NET.

I am in no way affiliated with the makers of Paint.NET, I just find it to be a very good tool[smile].

HTH,
Pat
[edit]Fixed the link[/edit]

[Edited by - darookie on July 15, 2007 8:41:11 AM]

GIMP - great free (open source) 2d graphics editor! Some may not agree, but I think it's just as good as Adobe Photoshop (and in some cases even better.)

Thanks heaps. Okay,I got Paint.net (the runtime environment for GIMP isnt downloading for some reason) btw that link is dead,I found it here: http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html.

Now I hope this doesnt sound stupid but... how do I use it? to create an alpha channel that is, I scoured the interface and the documentation and theres nothing much help. With Saint Paint, the option was easy to find, do I need a plugin perhaps?

Check the Plugin Page. The Alpha Mask Import might be right for you.

Swoit roller it works!! ugh u have no Idea how much time I've spent on this today,thanks heaps.
The Transperancy Adjustment Plugin is equally usefull,especialyifyour trying to make textures for openGL.
Thx ppl.