The alpha channel is not what sets these items apart, it's the non-maxis-match texture. Jeans with a photoskin texture are not 'alpha jeans'. A couch with a rough texture is not an 'alpha couch'. Somehow this term has 'evolved' to refer to all non-maxis-match CC and it drives me nuts. But CC hair can, if the creator makes it that way. In Sims 4, the hair does not work this way. Hair in Sims 3 is actually big chunks of polygon, but the texture itself- via the alpha channel- is transparent, so you don't see the whole chunk- just the part with the hair texture on it. In Sims 3, hair was made using alpha channels- the alpha channel being the one in photoshop that determines what part of a texture is transparent or not. Alpha Hair is a term we use to refer to hair made using alpha channels. I can't ask on r/thesims because they have an enormous boner for it over there.īut this term drives me nuts.
