I'm trying to slice through the Artemis suit in order to reveal cuts beneath ( like you would find if your belly was slashed at through your shirt) - I thought it would be as simple as placing the suit texture over a transparent background in photoshop - but that didn't work. Any ideas on how to achieve this?

You can make a transmap for it ..
take the texturemap of the cloth you want to slice ..
and put a layer ontop of it ..
Make the scar/slice fx on the right place.
And use the layer as a transparent map..
in poser lay the transmap over the cloth texture and you have a cut ..

I think others can explain it much better but this is the only way i know how to do it ...

Chris

Pretty good explanation, but the other thing you need to do (very important) is make the slash part black & everything else white.  In a transparency map Poser sees white as opaque, black as transparent, & shades of grey as semi-transparent (the darker the grey, the closer to transparent the result, great for making sheer parts in clothes).

Attached Link: http://www.philc.net/Scissors_page1.htm

Any one of the free modeling apps. But the trans map way would be the simplest. No real need to spend money for one time use as this.

kathym: I have a tute on my site that gives step by step instructions on how to do this with transmaps. 
You will need Photoshop or another 2D app as well.
The tute is also located on Ravynsworld's web site!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1396235