Help? Here's an image of the object ready selected that I want to use in Erlik's PhotoShop DOF tut, so as to keep it sharp:

And here's the object mask - is this right? Only it doesn't look right to me, because only the top part of the object shows in the object mask render, not the bottom trunky part. Help?

Well, something is obscuring the lower part. If there's something between the object and the camera (viewport) Object Mask renders in white just what's visible to the camera. Or something is fishy with the view? Is it the correct view? Doesn't look even like the upper sphere alone. Booleans (simple ones) work normally for me.

Ooops. Do you have a 2D plane with a transparency map in front of the object? Cause Object mask won't render transparency, just the shape of the primitive. If that's the case, you might need the fake mask method. Search the forum for my name, I had one mini-tut with material settings for fake masks of trees.

Yup, you got it, there's a myriad of stuff between the object and the camera, but mostly transparent... ish. i.e. terrain, and sphere, and rock mists.

I did a search, but gave up a quarter of the way down the page, only one incidence of trees and that was a brief mention of rectangular leaf masks.....

If there is a transparent material in front of the object, no luck. :-( The object with the mist will always hide the one for Mask. You can try to create the mist in postwork.

Are the objects grouped ? If so,........ ungroup them and try the mask render again.

I can't ungroup them, I've tried and tried. I've both grouped them and locked them in position so I have to sit here pressing ctrl, clicking with the mouse and holding it down, choosing from the list and then I press shift - trouble is instead of one "Orb" I get up to 6 or 8, and I dunno which part is which. I can't just click on the single grouped Orb object. I tried for about an hour today, but I keep forgeting what I'm doing and I click in the wrong order, or I find I've selected something I didn't want and then I click in the wrong place, and everything is suddenly de-selected again, and I'm back to square 1..... I try adding a family, and it looks like it's okay until I realise the ship has parts that are in that family so I have to carefully deselect those cylinders..... and I always get it wrong. I was doing this in order to add the carefully assembled object to my user list - but when I think I have it all selected, and go to "add" it to the "create" list - all that appears in the little preview box is one single sphere.... grrrrrr! At one stage I suddenly realised that the object had somehow come unstuck from parts of itself and now looked.... weird? it's difficult to describe, and I don't want to post an image as I'm hoping to get this in some sort of shape so that everyone (- well, those who might be interested) will see it as totally new. I'm suffering from that conceit where you think you have something quite good... total rubbish of course.

Isn't there some way of MAKING such a mask in PhotoShop? From the 1st render? I know how to do that in PaintShop, at least I can see how to get an image with black everywhere except where the object is, and there you could just reverse the selection and paint white in that shape, result - black with a white blob the shape of the object... but I've never used photoshop, so I dunno where any of the tools are or anything. IF... IF a black background with a white object shaped blob is all we are after for this stage. Is it?

You can't ungroup them by simply clicking the "U" tab in the "Object Properties" to the right of the object ? Just keep clicking the "U" until you get a "G". Save the scene first,.......then when you get finished, you can just close the scene and select "Don't Save" then open it again and the objects will be grouped as they were.

When I do get a U and I click on it, then the U disappears and no G appears!

OK,.........strange,............however, when you ungroup the object all the way(with no "G") can you get a mask render that shows all the object ?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1906736

Fran, this is the thread with fake masks. Material and Sky settings. AND: if you want the fog/mist to obscure the object, you have to give it a material like this on the picture. You can give it a grey colour, depending on what you want to do with it later. Just leave the transparency. Shading depends onwhat the original Shading was. Leave it as is, except in the case of Light Sensitive, cause it will disappear then.

Erlik, Thanks for the link, "if you want the fog/mist to obscure the object," Not sure what you mean here - I've already got my mist to do as much obscuring as I want. Are you talking about starting to create a mist from scratch? If so, I didn't go that route, I just started with one of the preset fog/mists and tweaked it.

No, I'm talking about the mist in the Object-mask-like image. If you use something like the pic, you'll have a mask with wisps of mist obscuring the object.

I had this happen in my challenege entry, I just saved the scene under 'MASKS' and deleted everything I didn't want progressively and made my masks that way, no wondering what's in front of or obsuring what.....

Erlik, I still don't understand, is this anything to do with the PhotoShop DOF tut? Zhann, I just saved the scene In what program? Bryce or PhotoShop? under 'MASKS' Huh? What MASKS where? and deleted everything In Bryce? Or PhotoShop? If in PhotoShop, then how? and made my masks that way, how?

Yes, it does. If there's an object with transparency (like a sphere with a mist texture on it) in front of the wanted object, you cannot create a proper object mask. The object with the transparency texture will object-mask-render its proper shape, not what you see in the finished colour render. In that case, you use the trick I explained above - render a fake mask. Afterwards, just follow the original Photoshop DOF tutorial. That's why the foggy texture on the pic above is black/grey. When you Magic Wand the white area, the streaks of mist won't be selected, so the mist won't be sharp after you apply the blurring. AND the wanted object won't have sharp edges where the mist sphere is obscuring it.

I'm still not understanding, I seem to have totally lost track of all the bits of this subject, thoughout the various scattered threads. I guess the only thing to do if I'm not to give up completely on this, is to go try tracing around the object I want to keep sharp, then make outside the selection black and inside the selection white - and just see if it DOES work. Since I can't seem to understand if you are saying "Yes" or No" to my question on this. Sorry if I sound cranky, I FEEL cranky. I'm sitting huddled in front of the PC with a duvet around my feet, sniffing and breathing heavily through my mouth - all stuffed up. Gawd, I hope I'm not coming down with something.