Talkback #1 written by Technetium on 2004-09-04.

I thought I would add that if you are working in Photoshop, there is a very easy way to get alpha masks for all the images you make. Assuming that you keep a background that isn't meant to be part of the final image, you fill that bg layer with black, then make that layer invisible. Then merge the visible layers, click on the "lock transparency" for that layer, and fill with white. Save that as your mask. I usually keep the background for the images themselves black as well when I am only using Alphablit to antialias. That way, when it is displayed in Verge using Alphablit, the images will just slightly fade to black on the edges as they are antialiased, giving the appearance of a very thin black border line around the image. I use Alphablit extensively in 640x480, and the difference in speed between it and the regular blit is negligable. If you're aiming for crisp graphics, there's really not much need for the regular blit when you have alphablit. One other thing users should be aware of is that Alphablit is not affected by setlucent(). Maybe that will change at some point, but for now, an easy workaround is to fill the mask image with semi-translucent black based on what you're aiming for.