Dithered alpha to fake transparency?

[Thracht]

I'm trying to get a see-through look on the base avatar. I figured it'd be pretty easy to whip up a checkeboard-pattern of alternating visible and transparent pixels to kind of fake half-invisibility. This was the result, but when I made an alpha layer out of it, nothing happened when I put it on.

I've verified that it is, in fact, black on transparent and not just black on white. I thought it might just be that 1024*1024 was too high a resolution for anything to happen with a pattern that tight, but that didn't make any sense. I tried it on as a shirt and it behaved as expected by tinting the skin underneath it, but as an alpha layer, nothing.

I've looked at a few tutorials I could find on the subject of alpha layers, but none of them really covered the admittedly weird thing I'm trying to do here. Is there a maximum resolution for alpha layers, or otherwise a minimum size that a transparent area can be?

Can this be done? If so, what am I doing wrong?

 

EDIT: Per instructions, I tried editing the image to have the visible places be white instead of black. I now have a 1024*1024 grid of alternating 100% opaque white pixels and 100% transparent pixels. Or, put another way, I have a field where only every other pixel is visible, and I want to wear it as an alpha layer so that only every other pixel of my avatar is visible. However, when I do that, nothing happens; I put on the alpha and observe no change in my avatar.

[Ohjiro Watanabe]

Not an expert but all the alpha textures I have are alpha and white, not black. I think you have to make sure also that the alpha has to be 100% and the white hast to have 0 alpha i.e. not semi transparent.

[Lindal Kidd]

If you want to be only transparent in places, paint the places you want to be visible with 100% white on the Photoshop template.