I've done some simple animations in Bryce and would like to get some more use out of them. But to do so, I'd need to get rid of the background behind the object...

So, I have the animation sequence: someRender001.bmp, someRender002.bmp,...
And the mask render for the animation sequence: someRenderAlpha001.bmp, someRenderAlpha002.bmp,...

What I'd like to do is combine the two into a series of images that has the mask applied so I can get an image sequence with proper transparancy. I've asked at some PhotoShop places to see if there was a way to combine two file sets using the batch commands to produce a third set in .png format, but no answers so far. I'm not sure it's possible even, but it would be nice to know one way or the other.

Even if PhotoShop can't manipulate the images in this manner, maybe there is an independent app that could do such a thing?

Only option left would be to apply the mask render to the proper channel manually for every single freakin' frame to make the new sequence. But that's going to get old fast... There should be a better way.

You can pretty much do anything you want with photoshop... if you know the process you can automate it using "Actions" which are like Scripts/Macros.

I unfortuantly dont know much about Masks... but I'm sure PhotoShop can do what you are asking for.

you can probably do this with PD Pro and DoggyFX.

Analog-X is right, I'm pretty sure you can do this using "Actions" in PhotoShop - you can then use the Batch function to do thousands in the blink of an eye.  Our technical demonstrator just showed us how to do it the other day - especially helpful for removing the background on simple animations.

You might need to look through the frames afterwards to ensure that a small area hasn't got enclosed and thus missed by the action as originally set up - but it's so much quicker than doing it by hand for each frame.

Maybe thousands is a slight exageration, but I was impressed but this ability.

I almost have the action worked out in CS...

But... (And it's an annoying but.) ...there's this thing where it's being stupid right now.

I got it to do this in actions:

Open render.
Open alpha render.
Select All on Alpha render.
Copy.
Close Alpha render. (no save changes)
Quickmask mode on render.
Paste.
Selection mode.
Copy.
Paste into.
Delete background layer.
Save as .png.
Close render. (no save changes)

Now you'd think this would be all fine and dandy, right?
So I go to run Automate>Batch...
And do the steps to open the files.

Here's what I end up getting...
"render001" + "alpha001" = "imageWithTransparancy001"
"render002" + "alpha001" = "imageWithTransparancy002"
"render003" + "alpha001" = "imageWithTransparancy003"...  And so on...

But notice that it's not advancing the steps for the second image it opens. So after the very first one, the wrong mask is applied every single time. Anyone know how to fix that?

I'll try a to attempt an action like you sugest it sounds chalenging... in the meantime..

the main issue here is "how to get the action to inteacrt between files.  I think a .tiff . file format  for export would  work better.

If the program you mentioned  can out-put frames as a tiff  I presume it can save the alpha mask. put simply  you have a RGb colour image  ( three channels Red green blue) and the alpha channel... running the  action would be alot simpler with all actions being run within the same  image file... saved as. and re-run  and re-run