How the heck do I make a transparency map???? I said it was a stupid question ;}

Well..... Basically, you take the texture template (which can be made with UVMapper, if none was delivered with the product) and then paint all areas black which you want to be transparent and all areas white which should not be transparent. Then you add this texture as a transparency map to your material(s) (You have to add them to all materials if it should be used on the whole figure) and set at least the max transparency to 100%. That's all - but be careful - in the 'preview' window of Poser, you will now see just a 'dotted veil' - you have to render it to see the effects. Best wishes, Sabine

"Dotted veil." I like that. Very descriptive. I've been tempted to borrow from the PhotoShop selection term "marching ants" and call the Sue Storm effect in Poser "Dead ants."

So I don't have to invert my texture and switch to greyscale? I seen somewhere that this is what was done. Your way sounds much easier. Thank you ;)

Uhm - you're certain that you don't confuse a bumpmap with a transmap here...? Best wishes, Sabine

Hrm. That "Invert and switch to greyscale" sounds a lot like instructions for a simple bump map. As a rule both transmaps and bump maps work better if they are generated from more primary sources -- there is a ton of stuff in the texture you don't want in the bump, and a ton of stuff you want in the bump that isn' t in the color map. As far as greyscale -- special effects aside, transmaps work well in two-color; black and white.

You can use shades of grey in a transmap to make things semi transparent ie dark grey is almost transparent and light grey is almost opaque.

Yup. Works nice for explosions and spells. And sometimes translucent objects like feathers, say, do nicer with some grey tones in the transmap.

Sorry nomuse I didn`t read your previous post properly.

Heh. My prose is less clear than those transmapped feathers.

In Poser 5 I've found you get specular reflection from the transparent part of the object -- fine for glass, less so for other stuff. That can be killed by feeding the transmap into the Specularity input. Black means invisible and also no reflection.

ahhh, yes, it is a bump map I was thinking. So I basically would paint the background black, the template white, and then black out any part I want to "disappear"? Sounds simple enough. ;)