Alpha not displayed correctly inside Moho?

[hayasidist]

Under Layer Options -> Image -> Image Settings there is a "Premultiplied Alpha" setting...

That's for video files only.

ok - png works for you but .tif and .PSD don't...

TIF: what options were used to create the .tif? If, when writing a .tif, I don't ask the image program to "save transparency" I get white - but using a gradient mask (which I discard by merging layers), I can reproduce the problem of the black halo. The black halo also occurs if I keep the layer information in the .tif

I don't know the internals of the .tif format, so I'm guessing here --- but it feels to me as though it has a set of "RGB info" and a separate set of "alpha" info rather than just one set of RGBA info. Continuing the guesswork, I'm guessing therefore that the creation of the problem .tif used options that are either inappropriate and/or not understood by Moho.

PSD: did you try the two layers experiment i.e. solid colour on one layer and gradient to transparent as its clipping mask then import consolidated? (Works OK for me.) I'm fairly convinced that (Windows) Moho doesn't recognise layer clipping masks as such so if I import that simple 2 layer setup as individual layers, I have to set masking manually - but it gives the right result. I'm simply not sure what a mac might do …

both these situations point me back towards my initial thoughts - when presented with separate blocks of RGB and alpha info for one image, Moho is not able to service this properly.


as an aside - I'm in near total agreement with Greenlaw on using PSD in Moho - I usually import consolidated, or if I need to have access to individual layers (e.g. to insert Moho vector layers between PSD layers) then I'll either break the "big" PSD into separate PSD files or -- wishing PS had the equivalent of Moho's layer comps or reference layers -- manually save selected layer sets as PNGs.

[Greenlaw]

Wow thanks for this really detailed reply
I guess i allways underestimated PNG; i allways thought that it is heavily compressed since its for web-usage!

Yeah, PNG is perfectly acceptable for production work. At the studios where I've worked, we mainly use EXR and PNG. EXR is better for programs that support it because it supports floating point color, lossless compression, and offers an unlimited number of auxiliary channels like depth, object IDs, motion vectors, etc. PNG is a good choice when your program doesn't support EXR...it potentially support higher color depth (but no fp and not as high as EXR,) and, as mentioned earlier, lossless compression. It's definitely not just for 'web usage'.

Moho's support for PNG is limited but it's good enough for most production. I really hope the devs will improve PNG support and add EXR. Some competing 2D animation programs already have this.

Anyway, glad this has been helpful.