Hi people. I'm trying to figurre how to render an object (after I've done textures..etc.. ) but WITHOUT the sky and ground/terrain. What I'm trying to do is export an object into PHOTOSHOP to composite with other images BUT, of course, I can't do that with the sky and ground too since I can't acheive "layers" of exported images into PS. ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED. Thanks for your time. Mystreasy

Select the object (ie the wireframe is red) and render your scene as normal and save image. Then go to render options and select mask render, then render again and save image again under a different name (maybe with mask added to it). The mask render will give you a black (everything but the object) and white (the object) render that you can use in photoshop. Someone else will have to explain how to do that since I don't have photoshop.

They are 2 ways to do this, the easier would be to 1...delete the ground plane 2...go into sky edit and make a plain white sky (there is a preset) select the object you want to export and (see picture), hit the little green button till red, and it will single out the object and render with a white only background, this way easy to cut the white out of the render and your left with the object hope this made sense???

Thats how I do mine as well, Roch222. :-)

I guess great minds think alike, ardiva LOL!!! happy 2004 roch222

The mask method comes in handy when you have reflections or portions of your object which are white or close to white. If so, it is difficult to cut the white bits out with your paint program. Using the mask is simple. Take the background image you want to use. Now place your object image as a layer over it and place the mask over the object image as a new layer. Then on the mask layer simply select all the black areas. Then, drop down to your object image layer (with the black areas still selected) and delete. You can then delete the mask layer if you wish. Your end result should be your object sitting over your background.

I agree, but with a twist. You always have pixels on the edge of an object that are half object and half background. If your sky color is the white preset and you are pasting onto a final scene that is black or dark you will see the edge in the composite picture. One thing you can do is render over the same sort of background color you will be pasting onto. Another thing you can do is to render your image double size or more from your final image size. When you scale the image the halo around your pasted transparency will be sampled into the object and the background and a lot of it will blend away.

Well, you can always use Feather option for the selection. For instance, use 1-2 pixels. That turns the 1-2 pixels at the edge of the selection progressively more transparent towards the edge, with the full transparency starting at the edge. Makes blending more natural. But, what I do is basically the opposite from what ricky does. :-) I render the mask, open it in Photoshop, select all, paste it onto a new layer, select black, invert the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I), and paste the object into the selection (Shift+Ctrl+V). Then I delete the mask layer, cause the pasting of the object into the selection automatically creates a mask and the mask layer makes it impossible to see what's under it. Also, you can then Apply the mask (right-click on the layer in Layer pallette, on the pic, not on the mask symbol) so you've got only the selected bit in layer. Perfect Skin was created that way. One, two... three different masks.

Yup ... I've done it that way too. Sometimes I select and manipulate the object, sometimes the background. I also frequently feather and blend. I haven't tried making the object larger simply because I seldom get as sharp an image if I size it too much in trying to fit it into my scene.

I always use a Black background then I render the object then I use the Mask Render option and render the Mask of the object and I bring in both thru the Picture Editor and apply to a 2d Plane/Square...But I use Paintshop Pro and not Photoshop...