KVR Audio

laserbeak · Post by **laserbeak** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 6:43 pm

this thread has nothing to do with blender.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 7:04 pm

Fred e wrote:looks like a seriously nice knob tool, but i doubt there is better knob tools than 3D packages... blender is free http://www.blender.org/

Missing the point. A lot.

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 7:17 pm

Not really OT, but as so many knob people are in this thread I'm hoping I can get some help.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but I can't seem to get *any* knob files loaded into Reaktor to preserve their transparencies. Reaktor only supports .tga files for this, and I've made many of my own graphics that use transparency without problems. What's happening now, though, is I'll take for example, one of the .png files uploaded in this thread, open it in CS, and save as a .tga file. Instead of a transparent background I'll have a white one, and I'm stuck with this with any file I try and use.

Ideas?

CC4 · Post by **CC4** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:06 pm

You have to create an alpha layer.

You should be able to Ctrl-Click your knob Layer, go into your Channels tab, click on the Create Alpha icon, and then you'll have a knob strip with an alpha channel. Then just save as a .tga with alpha.

Hopefully that description suffices.

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 9:19 pm

hmm..That didn't work either.

CC4 · Post by **CC4** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:33 pm

works for me... i've created some blob looking knobs with Knobman, changed into .tga, and brought them into Reaktor. the black areas in the alpha channel will be transparent and the white will be solid.

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:38 pm

Nope. What's the first thing you're telling me to do, cntrl + click? What command is that? I think if I'm doing something wrong, that's where its at. When I make the alpha channel its all black..

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:03 pm

The CTRL+click just selects the layer doesn't it? I don't think that's even necessary if you're importing a .tga file with no layers. Anyway I *think* I know what CC4 is getting at but I can't test it here (I don't have Reaktor).

Try this: save the image from knobman as a .tga file and open it in CS. Then on the layers menu box click "channels" to switch to channel view (or choose channels from the "windows" menu). On the channels window you will have five options: RGB, Red, Green, Blue and Alpha 1. All the options will be ticked except Alpha 1. Tick Alpha 1 and your background should change colour. Now save the image and try it in Reaktor. Hopefully this should activate the alpha channel and all will be well. Hopefully.

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:13 pm

Sickle wrote:When I make the alpha channel its all black..

Sounds like you might be doing the right thing. If you switch off the RGB channels leaving just the Alpha channel you should see a black and white image with white representing the knob and black representing the alpha areas.

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:18 pm

None of the .png files I've opened from this thread have the 'alpha 1' channel, only the 4 primary colors.

This is kind of odd for me as I've made plenty of .tga graphics with knocked out transparencies myself for Reaktor use and never had to make the alpha channel to have transparencies work, so I'm pretty confused at this point..

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:22 pm

chuck death wrote:
Sickle wrote:When I make the alpha channel its all black..
Sounds like you might be doing the right thing. If you switch off the RGB channels leaving just the Alpha channel you should see a black and white image with white representing the knob and black representing the alpha areas.

See above post; there was no alpha channel present to begin with. This is why I was asking what the actual command was because I am not able to make an alpha channel that has black and white, only black, so there's some kind of selection shortcut I need to make first that I haven't figured out yet.

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:31 pm

The impression I'm getting is I can't make a working alpha channel with these pre-rendered .pngs files. If I try and make an alpha channel, I'm unable to make a good selection against the background. I wish Reaktor loaded .png's..

*sigh*

Anyways, cool stuff guys!

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:43 pm

Ok I see where wires are being crossed, both CC4 and myself were referring to working on .tga files outputted from knobman not .png files. If you output .png files none of the above will work (png handles transparency in a completely different way), you must start with a .tga file for it to work. Can you not rerender the images out to .tga? I think most of the knobs in this thread come with .knob files so you should be able to make your own output files in whichever format you need.

But yeah, it would save a lot of hassle if Reaktor used .png files!

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:29 am

Right, if Knobman outputs in .tga format I have no problems I guess.

CC4 · Post by **CC4** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:39 am

Nah... I'm talking about starting with a .png. KnobMan makes 'em rather clean too. Very nice.

I'm speaking from Photoshop knowledge, so I don't know how much they stripped down CS... I'm assuming this should be exactly the same though.

If you save a knob strip from KnobMan as a .png (with alpha), you should have a set of knobs against a transparent background. In the Layers tab you should be able to Ctrl + Click the Layer (Layer 0), and it will draw a selection just around the knobs. The other way to do it is to go to the Select Menu and click on Load Selection. Click Okay on the Load Selection box, and you should have the knobs selected.

In the Channels tab, you should just start out with RGB, Red, Green, and Blue tabs. On the bottom there should an icon that looks like circle in a grey box. Clicking this will convert the selection to an alpha channel.

.pngs don't save an extra alpha channel; .tgas have an extra transparency layer in 32-bit. ImageMagick or some other format converter may work also, if it preserves the transparency layer.

The only tutorial I could find mentions doing it about the same way:
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00190.htm

Sickle is probably sick of certain "panel elements" uploaded to the Reaktor user library.

KnobMan, the VSTGUI AnimationKnob bitmap generator