Alpha Channel help

[crestofawave]

hi guys,
glad i found the forum, lurked about for a while
my problem is........i make skins for games, all fine there, but they are usually matt, which is all ok for the ones i was doing, but now i need a shiny surface on some parts, say aluminium on a plane etc.
i have tried various ways, dragging the alpha1 into layers, painting areas i need in greyscale, light.dark etc, draging back onto channels, de activating, flatten image add alpha, the plane for example is still there and finished, but its still matte?
it has to be saved as a dds file.
if it helps, i want to use gimp fully, atm i use PS to make my image, save as ps file, open in gimp add alpha export dds, reason being im not familliar yet with all of gimps ways, but learning and ps dont support dds in win 10
thank you for your time n help, sorry bout long 1st post and hpe you get what i mean

[Blighty]

Have a look at the tutorial "Gimp Shiny Button" on this page:
https://www.littlewebhut.com/gimp

It is very old, so menus etc may not be the same a your 2.10
Should be able to follow it quite easily, though

[crestofawave]

hi, thanks for the help, but thats a pretty easy one for a button, mine can be around 50 layers, to try and elaborate, i already have RGB and a clear alpha,and alpha1, older gimps, used to drag this alpha 1 to the screen to make a layer in the layers tab, then edit as needed and drag back to channels, flatten image, save to dds and then in game would be anything from eggshell to full gloss depending or the grey colour you used in the editing of the alpha 1 in layers, so by using different shades of grey you could make wood matte, metal glossy.
doing this in the new version does not work, adding alpha to flattened image makes no difference its still all matte.
appreciate you stopping in to try n help tho