Hi, I'm starting to learn to make textures, but one thing I'm having trouble understanding is transparency. If I have a fabric like lace or another fabric that has parts that are going to be see-through, how difficult is it to make those parts so that they are invisible? Like say I had a tile that had a small pattern on top of a solid color--is it possible to make it so that the pattern is invisible while the rest of the solid color is not? Any help in this are would be appreciated. Thanks! WildHunt

You need a greyscale transparency map, i.e. an image map where the part you want to show as white and the transparent part as black. For your example, the pattern should be black while the solid color should be white. You plug this map in the transparent node, and turn that node to 1. If you want only seethrough effect, not completely transparent, play with this value, or make your black part more greyish.

Hope it helps :)

It does help. How do I make the colored image black and white, though? I know if I use "greyscale" in Photoshop, it will be grey and dark grey, but not black and white. WildHunt

You can use the 'desaturate' tool in Photoshop. And if you want it to be more black and white, just play  with 'contrast', or make your own selection to put some part in pure black.

Here is a thread that has links to various texturing tutorials, including how to make a transmap and using Mat Pose Edit to make Pose  files.

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2660658