ONce a transparency's applied it shows in the preview as a "spotted shape" the density of the spots relative to the transparency setting... the lower the setting the more dots in the shaps... until the render's done'' it can't be seen... You'll find if you do a quick render [ no antialiasing, no shadows] that you'll see what you're looking for. as for clothes breaking up.. a lot has to do with which figure the clothes were modeled for.. and which model you're applying them to... a lot of P3 clothing will conform to a P4 figure.. but too much bending will distort the mesh... and some clothing does require that pieces of the figure are made transparent so that parts don't show through... Cheers