Hi, I'm using DAZ3D's "Mighty Oak" model. When I try to render my image, there are these square, dark, semi-transparentboxes around the leaves that are really ugly. This happens with a lot of things that are transmapped like that - flowers, leaves, etc. It's probably a newbie question, but I can't figure out any way to make them better other than touching them up in postwork, which is sometimes not entirely possible.

I'm hoping somebody here can either tell me a way to improve this situation, or tell me where to find a tutorial that would tell me how to do it.

Please help!

Thanks. :o)

Are you sure the Highlight color is set to Zero black? (In P4 at least,) Highlight colors will still be applied to polygons even when they are transmapped fully transparent.

In P5 it could be Ambient color, Reflection, or specular color that is causing it. Set them all to black or zero. Make sure that trans edge = 1

Actually, you can sometimes use highlights with a transmap if the texture map and the transparency map coincide precisely, and there is only black in the transparent areas on both maps (at least in P4)

If your using P6, check the Normals_Forward option for the leaf sqaures, so that they render correctly from any angle.

It sounds like you're having the same problem that I had awhile back with Kozaburo hair in P5. All of the loose hair strands had "shadowboxes" around them until I connected the transparency map into the "Transparecny_Falloff" and set it to .6 If you're using P4, then(and this is just a guess) try a higher setting for the 'falloff' in the materials tab. Hope this helps.

If you are using poser 4 or propack you might need to switch on antialiasing in the render options for the leaves to look right.

Thank you all for the suggestions! I will try those ASAP and hopefully they'll help. Thanks again!

Are you using P4(pro) or P5/6? I don't have P4 so can't help there.. But if it's P5/6, then (since DAZ doesn't officially support P5 and above), then ensure all the following: The image for the leaves is plugged into the (top) diffuse node (not the alt. diffuse one), with value 1. The trans map is plugged into the trans node, with value 1 and that both trans edge and trans falloff values are 0. That there's nothing at all in any of the remaining root nodes (except possibly for a bump map). If that doesn't work, post a screen-capture here of your material settings, together with a screen-cap of part of the render showing the problem - it'll soon get sorted out:-)) Cheers, Diolma

I'm using Poser 5. I'm at school right now and won't be able to try out your suggestion until this weekend, but as soon as I do, if I'm still having problems, I will definitely do as you suggested and post the screen caps.

Thanks so much!

Well I tried several of the wonderful suggestions given here and found that turning the trans edge, trans falloff and highlight values to 0 seems to fix the problem! Now there's just a slight grey fringe around each leaf, and I can live with that for the moment. :o) Now if only I could get the leaves to stop looking so flat and choppy... heh Thank you all so much for your help getting this fixed. I really appreciate it!

Glad you got it working better, creay5:-) Suggestion: that "grey fringe" is probably where the edges of the leaf in the trans map have been anti-aliased in a paint app. One possible way to cure this quick-n-dirty is to load the original trans map in your own paint app and change it's colour depth to 2. That'll make it pure black and white... Cheers, Diolma PS: Don't forget to save the new map under a DIFFERENT name...

Okay, I'll try that. Thanks again! :) creay