Wanting to add lace on a mesh dress but no clue how to make it go partially transparent.

[JungUKnow]

Okay so I have a dress that I want to add lace to, I have the uv and shadow map but when I add the lace to it, that part of the dress shows up with a white background and the lace doesn't show as transparent. I'm uploading it as a png. Would I have to erase everything in the background so it shows as transparent? Also my lace imports into PS with a black background but shows in world as transparent, trying to cut it out is making parts of it delete that are not supposed to. Is there an easier way to get rid of the black background? I tried saving as a png but it oddly did the same thing. 

[Rolig Loon]

It's a matter of personal style, I know, but I find it a lot easier to save a texture like that as TGA rather than PNG.  Briefly, I would put the lace texture on one layer in Photoshop, select pixels and then use Select >> Save Selection to create an alpha layer image. While the pixels are still selected, I would then open the alpha channel image and fill the white areas (the parts of the laces that will be visible but translucent) with gray -- a 50% or 60% gray is probably good.  That alpha channel image will then give you the translucency you want when you upload the texture, assuming that you save the texture as 32-bit TGA.   Naturally, you will want other areas of your texture to be either totally transparent or totally visible but you can create an alpha image for them separately and then ADD it to the image you already made for the lace alpha, rather than creating a second alpha channel (which wouldn't upload anyway).  It's mildly tricky, but once you get your head around the idea it's not hard.

EDIT:  Oh, and in world use Alpha Blending, not Alpha Masking.  You can't get partial transparency with Alpha Masking.

Edited September 20, 2017 by Rolig Loon

[carley Greymoon]

i don't use PhotoShop but i would say this. make your texture without a background, make the lace as translucent as you like, then when you export as a png make sure your export settings for png is "png + true alpha". png format can be exported without an alpha channel and not every program's settings include the alpha channel by default.