Why does my imported Alpha show white background?

[RickFlorida]

Hi everyone,

I’m pretty new to Zbrush. I am trying to import an alpha but even though the background is transparent in both Gimp, it shows as white when I import it as an Alpha into Zbrush.

For the quick version of my question… how was this superman symbol alpha created in order for it to be imported and look this way in Zbrush? I assume what is invisible while imported in Zbrush as Alpha is black and the symbol is white?

#AskZBrush: “How can I create a 3D Model from an Alpha or Height Map inside of ZBrush?”

How do I properly prepare the image so that Zbrush does not make the background white? I’m current trying to import it as a .png. I didn’t try Tiff yet but that is probably not the fix, correct? Is there a good way to prepare Alphas for importing into Zbrush with just Gimp instead of Photoshop? Attached is an image of my alpha showing white background. But other imported Alphas I see online like this superman symbol work correctly.

thanks,

[zber2]

Hi @RickFlorida

Exporting a transparent background out of GIMP might be the problem. It should be a solid, pure black (RGB 0,0,0) (HEX #000000) background which is what ZBrush uses for transparency and anything lighter than that being visible portion of the alpha (RGB 0,0,1 - RGB 255,255,255). What ZBrush likes the best for alphas are 16 bit grayscale .PSD files.

See also Alpha in ZBrush Docs.

But, if your alpha has a white background, you can try “Invers” in the Alpha palette to turn it black. Judging by your Villon logo image, that might be all it needs.

[RickFlorida]

Thank you!

Yeah, after posting I then realized that Zbrush has to see perfect black in order to show it as transparent when imported as an Alpha. I was confused on that but now I realize how it works a little more and thanks to your reply.

thank you, I will try again.