Hi everybody, sorry for my bad english, I would want to know your opinion.

I have made some experiments with the alpha plane and have sent the final result.

My objective was to show the power of the alpha plane.

Unfortunately the comments to my image insinuated i had cheated, dealing the image like a render of many models, rather than to estimate the job carried out with the alpha planes.

What do you think ? about this and about the alpha plane in general ?

I don't know what's wrong with alpha planes? Why is this cheating? Hopefully this doesn't become another pure-3d-evangelists-thread...no offense! ;) I used an alpha plane im my last imag "Room with a View" myself. It's the cityscape you can see outside the window. Okay, the city was made in 3d by using terrainmaps and some basic textures. But anyway it's an alphaplane. :) As stated in many previous threads IMHO it's the final result what counts regardless how the image has been made. And I think you did a very good job with you image. Keep up the good work! Phil

I see nothing wrong with using alph planes. Why is it included in Vue if it were not intended to be used. :o) Keep up the work in Vue and the alpha planes. I have used a couple alpha planes and have not had any bad comments for using. :)

Great picture. Alpha planes are underrated and a legitimate means of producing an image. No way it's cheating. I've used several recently to meet deadlines as including them in compositions reduces render times dramatically.

Phil - you should rename that one "A Womb with a View" hehe - nice pics both of you :)

If alpha planes is cheating then so is the blue screen in movies or matte backgrounds and they give awards for those. Sometimes it is not worth the time or RAM needed to create an object from the groundplane up. It is the end result that matters. I'm willing to bet you that had you not pointed out that the first image was an alpha plane, you'd have gotten many compliments on your modelling skills. Your lighting, and plane placement are fantastic and disguise the plane's flatness brilliantly.

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

10x guys for your comments...

Of course there is nothing wrong with the use of alpha planes, and you integrated yours well with the Vue elements. I think the mistake you made was in not stating clearly in your original post that the dominant feature of the image was an alpha plane, although it was pretty obvious that this was so. I haven't looked back at the comments, but this may have been what led some to think maybe you had tried to pass it off as a model of your own creation. I didn't personally read it that way, but I guess it was open to such interpretation.

Attached Link: Rabbit and Fish as alpha planes

Here are various pictures I've done in which alpha planes are central... I'm a big fan of alpha planes... As long as you make good art, that's all that matters... :) Leaves as alpha planes http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=208478&Start=1&Artist=tradivoro&ByArtist=Yes frog as alpha plane http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=293177&Start=1&Artist=tradivoro&ByArtist=Yes fish as alpha planes http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=122022&Start=13&Artist=tradivoro&ByArtist=Yes butterfly as alpha plane http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=114958&Start=13&Artist=tradivoro&ByArtist=Yes

Good use of that nifty tool Alpha plane, with a little bumpmap it would look even better.
The comments on "cheating" are as based usual on the warped idea that the tools define the art not the end product, a comment like that deserves to be printed on toiletpaper and used appropiately.

There's no such thing as cheating in 3D. Anybody who says any differently is having a lend of himself. If the image looks good, that's all that counts.

Actually, I'm planning a project that will use alpha planes like this. My plan is to recreate an entire structure based on photos, and then do some animation. I was wondering just how many alpha plans are in your image?

Pity Adobe never did anything with Canoma.....

I think alpha planes are part of Vue, so they should be used. Maybe some people like to see special abilities of 3D software. If you are using just alpha planes in a picture, the outcome is almost independent of the renderer you are using. You can do almost the same picture in Vue, Poser, C4D and so on. It seems that some people do not see the artistic value in that. Well for me the result counts and not the 3D software.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=520296&Start=19&Sectionid=3&filter_genre_id=0

Attached link is to an image I did using an Alpha Plane. It is the Drake. :o) I like the use of alpha planes very much. :o)