There are multiple ways to deal with this. The first, which isn't quite as efficient, is called bit masking. Basically you have an alpha mask with the contour of the actual image and the image itself, and you do some bit magic with boolean algebra to remove the background of the image as you draw. Since you have to draw two images for this, this probably isn't the best option. If you still choose to do this one, it's probably better if you look up the explanation.

I'm not sure if these are possible in C#, but here are the other two ways:

You can turn the background to a unique color that isn't used and instruct the drawing calls to skip over pixels of that color. (Actually, I only used this in Game Maker. I've never actually had that done in code).

or

If C# supports alpha channels and gif images, you can actually make the background transparent (the bits store an extra variable for opaqueness).

You might want to look through the functions and/or classes that you use for drawing. I know Java supports gif and that's how I get around, I'm sure C# does too.

Use the alpha channel and save as 24 bit png. Don't use gif, since it only allows fully transparent or fully opaque.
And remember to activate the alpha channel in XNA:


spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, BlendState.AlphaBlend);

But I'm not sure if paint supports png, otherwise you'll have to use Gimp or Photoshop.

The keyword you're looking for is color-key. In Graphics, you set a value in your images to be transparent when it is rendered. This should be done by the graphics Hardware chip.

For example, in my game, I set color RGB(255, 0, 255) to be my color key (bright purple), so all my images have this purple background around them when I edit them.

However, in my game, I set the color key for each image to be RGB(255, 0, 255), and when it is rendered, it only displays the image, and none of the purple background. In SDL, you call [font=monospace][size=2]SDL_SetColorKey(), and pass it the bitmap and the colorkey to make transparent.[/font]
[font=monospace][size=2]
[/font]
[font=monospace][size=2]In SFML, it's this:[/font][font=sans-serif][size=2]CreateMaskFromColor (const Color &color, Uint8 alpha=0)
[/font]
[color=#555555][font=sans-serif][size=2]Create a transparency mask from a specified colorkey. [/font]

hi,



i'm a C# and XNA user, i'm made simple "schmups" or bullet hell games for fun for myself, however, all my images are sqaured, like I get the images from free google sites, save them and alter them in paint, I can't draw around the character, since it can only save as squares. Is there a way to say, take a picture of a tank from google, save it, then draw around the bits you want and save it without any "background" so to speak.



for example, these free "sprites" .png save as are not sqared, they have no white background etc. http://www.xnadevelopment.com/sprites/

how can I get images, put them into paint and make them sprite like with no sqaureness or background?



I hope I am making sense, is not tell me and i'll explain more.



my images in the game are all sqaured, including bullets! lol

The keyword you're looking for is color-key. In Graphics, you set a value in your images to be transparent when it is rendered. This should be done by the graphics Hardware chip.

Nope color-key wont do it. The link op gave contained png sprites with multiple levels of transparencies. Color-key/gif doesn't support that.. Alpha channel is the way to go