Is there a texture I can use to put holes in a prim for windows?

[TxDave1488303508]

I would like to make porthole windows in a tower build I am starting.  Is there a texture I can use to make the holes in the cylindar I am using for outer walls.

Dante

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Many; a texture is just some picture.  There are two problems though:

1. Probably none of the thousands and thousands will look exactly as you want
2. 3D software (not just SL) has a problem with multiple overlapping transparent surfaces (eg; seeing in through one window and out of another the other side of the building) - the "alpha bug"

If you have Photoshop, GIMP or any other graphics package that supports an alpha (invisible) channel/layer it is probably best to make your own.  Uploading a new texture to SL costs L$10.

PS:  If you want examples look in your inventory > library for the "atoll shack wall" textures

[Stryker Bekkers]

Yes, it's called an alpha texture. These are textures that you can make in Photoshop and Gimp. If you have either one, it's a really simple process. If you don't have either, you can get Gimp for free at www.gimp.org. You can also find out how to make alpha textures and everything else Second Life related on Youtube. It's a great resource for tutorials. Once you have either Photoshop or Gimp, you can open a new document from the file tab in the upper left part of the screen. When the new document box pops up, you can choose to make your entire background transparent, or you can make it white and erase the parts that you want to be transparent and decorate the rest. If this didn't help, check out "How to make alpha textures" on Youtube.

[Stryker Bekkers]

Also, all textures should be saved as either .tga (targa) or .png files and it costs 10 Lindens to upload each texture file.

[TxDave1488303508]

Thank you to all who helped me with this.

[Lindal Kidd]

Stryker's answer is correct.  However, there's a catch.

Alpha textures...textures that have transparency on any part of them...can experience a phenomenon called "alpha chatter".   Let's say you are here:  X...and there is your wall with a window in it here:  |   and outside your wall is a tree with alpha textures: T.

The viewer does not know which transparent texture is farthest away from you, and so from some angles, it can look like your tree is INSIDE your wall.  It does not matter that the transparency is only on the window part of the wall, the phenomenon can occur with seemingly opaque parts of the wall too. 

This may be a job where you will get better results by building a Mesh object outside of SL and importing it.

[Ceera Murakami]

One further thing to note is that aligning an interior texture and an exterior texture on a hollowed prim is a task that requires some math calculations, and varies repending on the hollow % of the prim.

For a cylinder, if the exterior has 1 repeat of the texture around its circumference, you need to set the repeat for the interior to 1 divided by the hollow % value. For example, at 80% hollow, you need the horizontal repeats set to 1/0.8, or 1.25 repeats, to get one actual repeat. You may also have to adjust the horizontal offset to get the interior and exterior textures to line up for where they start.

For a hollowed cube, if you wanted 1 repeat on each exterior face, and 4 repeats inside (it is a single surface inside), it would be 4/0.8, or a repeat factor of 5.