If alpha plane is cheating then it's cheating also photographing a texture intead of making it procedural etc. etc. etc. there's no end to purism, and there is no dangerous and damaging thing such as purism. Besides, most of the times, in CG, it's easier to make a procedural fit a scene, then to use an alpha plane, because the alpha plane may look too photographic compared with the rest, or it may have a color cast, or the light may not be perfectly coherent with the scene... in other words, some skill is required to manage well alphas too. But if you listen to purists, they'll soon convince you that any use of computer is cheating for art and that art is only painting or sculpting or drawing... they used to say the same thing about photography and then about cinema... Speaking of purists Plato condemned art as a whole, because it was impure compared to the Idea... Purism may go together well with religion and dogmas but it's incompatible with art. Art is mixing up, art is funky, art is border line. Orio