Ok, quick question... In 32 bit display modes, the alpha channel is the most significant byte. ok, thats all well and good, but what does it do? Red, green, and blue set the color of the pixel, but i tried it, and no matter what i set the alpha to it doesn''t change a thing as far as appearence... what''s the deal?

the alpha channel is the transparency. if it is 100% of the value (ie. 1.0f) then it will be opaque.

if it has no effect, ensure that it is enabled:

directx: a pixelformat like D3DFORMAT_A8R8G8B8 (sorry, i don''t know dx, that format was from memory)

gl: glEnable(GL_BLEND)


this is probably not the best description, there are stacks of tutorials on it tho'' so go and seek some out...

The alpha channel is for transparency