2018 Maya texture files have transparency by default?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm having a bit of a problem with textures. Whenever I try to apply a shader with a targa texture file to an object, the object becomes invisible in the viewport. I have textures turned on, but even so, nothing shows up. I tried with different file types, png and jpeg, and I can see a ghostly silhouette of the object with the texture on it, but nothing more. It seems I don't even have the ability to change the transparency, as the transparency slider in the attribute editor is grayed out. Help!