So I'm working on a transmap for the catsuit (yes, Vicki, for the curious) but I've run into a problem. I "cut away" the areas I wanted, but I can't seem to get rid of these jagged edges no matter what I do. I've tried blurring (blur, Gaussian, etc), softening, and such on the edges, but it still looks ugly in a close-up. From far away, it comes out decently, but up close, I'm disgusted. This picture shows my latest attempts (I gave up last night at about 3 am and went to bed). I popped down some stuff and then softened the whole thing, and while I think it helped, I'm still not satisfied with the results. As you can see, up top is what it looks like far away, not too ugly anyway (and just FYI, the cutouts on the sides are not softened at all, but look decent far away...sigh...), and the big picture is nice and close up, while the pattern on the left is a piece from the transmap. So, what am I doing wrong? I've looked at various "lace" transmaps I have and they don't help me much since I'm not going for a lace look, but something more like nylon: small, tight pattern of squares or such. I'd greatly appreciate some pointers, because I really want to get this stupid thing done so I can move on to the texture, and then finally, on to the stupid scene. :) I'm trying not to let the frustration get to me, but it's been rather aggravating. Getting that smooth transition from solid to semi-transparent is killing me.

I use PSP mostly. I set the feather to 1 before drawing my lines. Makes them much smoother....

Unfortunately, due to the way I was creating the designs, often involving pixel by pixel manipulation, that wasn't an option at the time. Thanks though. :)

Unfortunately, about the only way to get rid of those jaggies would be to use a much larger map. What size are you working on?

Val: 2000x2000 is what it is right now. And, considering I'm pretty much done with it for now, I may try the next one at 3000x3000 or 4kx4k. We'll see. Anyhow, this is what I'm stopping with (and two more picture), for now. I think it looks pretty good, but of course degrades when you go in for the extreme close-ups, but is still acceptable at semi-close range. At least I learned something from this experience. Now, to make a texture for these spiffy boots.

And the back...

And a little closer up. Anyone comments, anyone?

i often use paths to mark transparent areas in photoshop. they can easily be enlarged to high res maps without going jaggy.

Funny, I don't get this problem at all - I get really really sharp transitions. I work at 3000 and then resize image to 2000 just before saving to the final max quality jpg. How are you sending over the file to P4? As a jpg? If so are you saving it at the highest possible quality level? And don't unsharpen everything - use the picker to get all the transparent areas selected, enlarge it by a couple of pixels and then soften that just a touch. That way you get only the edges in the selection. The stretching effect you get down the middle - that can be fixed in two ways: 1. Compensate for it in the map. A lot of hard work, very picky. 2. Create morph targets for the catsuit and 'pull' the affected parts to even out the stretch. I use this on the belly, but it's a real drag. :] FishNose

Here's an example of a catsuit trans WIP.

For the map I save them as jpgs (well, a copy at least, since I always keep the original in another format so I can have layers, etc) and use the lowest compression possible. There shouldn't be any artifacting from compression, I think it's just how I'm doing things right now. I'll give the enlarge then soften trick a try. And I think about it, I'll look into paths as well, but I mostly use PSP for this sort of thing (PS I use more for post work). Thanks for the tips. :) And, by the way, that texture is looking good. ;)