making custom logos

[mattpist]

i couldn't seem to find this in the forums anywhere, so i thought id ask. im trying to make custom logo images for the emulated consoles in gameex, but they always come out all choppy on the side and really ugly looking. does anyone know how to create custom images or properly create the backgrounds so the console images have transparancy?

thanks!

[amos_82]

Unfortunately gameex does not allow any transparency, i think that would involve 'alphablending'.

The best way to reduce the choppy edges in photoshop, or a similar program is to use an 'airbrush eraser' to clean up those edges. Any colour which is not 100% black will appear on screen. It can be a good idea to use a black background or layer, behind the images so you can see exactly what parts of the images will be included/excluded.

If you want to see the changes you make applied quickly; have gameex running in a window, & overwrite the icon your'e working on, you should be able to see the changes immediately (& identify any edges that need fixing).

Hope this helps

[mattpist]

thanks for the help, i will try that

[headkaze]

Lack of alpha blending is indeed the cause of these type of problems. Direct Draw uses a colour key to remove part of an image during a blit instead of an alpha channel as used by Direct3D or even GDI+. In the case of GameEx, black is used (or pixel 0,0 - not sure, depends on how Tom decided to do it). The way I deal with it is to use Photoshop. I draw a marquee around the part of image I want (in this case the logo) then remove the background. I then use "inner glow" on the logo layer with the colour set to black. May need to play with the settings a bit but you should be able to create a nice solid black outline around the logo. Then save as a png. This method also works with images that have a white background. There is also an interesting feature in the free graphics program Gimp 2. It allows you to replace a colour with an alpha channel, also handy for changing a background colour such as white, to black.