Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=504204

ACK! I almost completed typing my message before my browser timed out or something and wiped out everything I just wrote. Trying this again: Okay... the link is to a commissioned piece I did, called Broch's Alien Rave, which is essentially a bunch of 2D images in a Bryce world. What I originally wanted to do with this piece is have a lot of haze and fog in the scene to show off some DJ light effects, but I couldn't do it because whenever I had any haze or fog in there, the hard square edges of the 2D squares would lose their transparency and glow--which totally ruins the look and defeats the purpose of all the alpha masks and blend transparency settings. Well... my question is this: Is there any way to maintain the transparency of a 2D object with all the haze and fog turned on? It's a bit late for this image, but if there's a way to do it, I'd love to know... so I can use it for future images.

isn't that frustrating when it times out.......I had that happen lots to me...finally last week I figured out that if you just hit the back button on your browser it will take you back to where you typed in your message .....just hit submit.....it should show up. I looked at the picture in your gallery..I couldnt see a problem?

Thanks, Teri. :-) It doesn't show up in the image because I left out the fog and haze; I wanted to have fog and haze, but then the transparencies got screwed up. This is so frustrating... I'm trying to render some sample images to show what I mean, but now I can't duplicate the problem I had. The transparencies are now working the way they're supposed to, but when I was working on the image they wouldn't. Does anyone out there know what problem I mean? I don't want to re-render the alien one with fog and haze because it took forever to render it.

Even high-end apps have this problem with alpha masks/transparency and fog. I'm not sure what causes it but I think the rays end up finding the alpha that is 'not there. ' I think the best you can do is mask out the the alpha pieces and re-composite in your paint program. But in your case that's most of the whole image.... so wait a second... Sometimes slightly angling the picture pieces tricks the raytracer and it bounces right past them - try that. rotate them on the y axis just a few degrees and see if that fixes it. Otherwise you'll have to add the fog in post. Scott

Whew! I'm glad I'm not crazy and that the problem really does exist -- in high end apps, even. Thanks, Scott! I'll try your suggestions next time I do anything like this.

You're welcome - I hope it helps. Scott : )

Very nice image april even without the haze/fog. 8)

Thanks, Catlin! :-D

Sometimes you can fool things by using a volumetric slab rather then the fog/haze tools. (note I said only sometimes, not sure when the image has got so many 2ds in it)

Well... if the first suggestions don't work, I'll definitely try that. Thanks, Gog! :-)