1. If you only have a single object on a screen and you want to render that to an alpha channel png file - where the full colorized object plus its shadow ONLY  is the only thing rendered - how do you do that?  In Poser you can render to PNG over background  and you'll get just get the object in the scene for very easy compositing onto a background  - i.e.  no chromakeying or anything like that needed or green backgrounds generated. It is referred to as the alpha channel - I think my terminology is correct.  In VUE all I see is a B&W representation of a cookie cutter approach - no image in color.  If all that is in the scene is a car then that is all I want - no background - nothing else - just the car so I can lay it onto another background of my choosing.

2)  How do you make an object invisilbe to the Render?  For examply I want one pass to be the background only. The second pass to be an object only that gets the same sun and shadows as everything else so it matches up.  In Poser, you have a VISIBILITY check box on each object. You check that and you don't see the object and it does not appear in the render - thus SPEEDING everything up...

I would be interested to know that too (for the shadow).

What i do is to delete the floor (or to put it on another layer and turn it off, and in the render settings, set to only render the visible layers). Then after the render, you can save your color render, and save the alpha mask (as the z-depth mask) by clicking the little thingy at the top of the render to make the proper mask display, then clicking the other thingy to save.

But if there is a way to do that AND to save the SHADOW too, i would be glad to know how.

For the invisible object for the render, do as i said above, put another layer, paste your object in it, make it invisible,  and set the render settings to render only the visible layers. You don't have the layers in Esprit, unless you own the proper module.

In Vue you can't have anything rendered without the atmosphere, but that's ok, because, once your image is rendered, you simply click on the alpha render button, and then you have your alpha map so you can cut out your object in a paint program, this is the first method, simple and easy, available for all Vue versions.
Second method is Vue inFinite only, and uses the multipass options. The multipass options can be activated from the render options popup window, and then you can edit the extra passes you want rendered. You can have alpha map per object, colour render per object, etc, etc, BUT every option you check will create an additional pass. The "beauty pass" or the regular final render has to be rendered as well, so this adds to the render time.
To hide an object from render, two options again: In Vue Infinite, simply click the little ghost icon in the object properties tab with the object you want hidden selected in the world browser.
In other Vue versions, put this object or all objects you want hidden on a separate layer in the world browser, and hide it, and in the render options, choose to render only visible layers.
Then when you want to render  your objects rendered, highlight them in the world browser, and in the render options, choose render only selected.
The atmosphere will always render, so you'll need to save the alpha channel to cut it out in a paint program.
If you want an object hidden but you want its shadow in the scene, go to the advanced material editor, and on the upper right corner, tick the "shadows only" box. this has to be done for all materials of the object. This works for all Vue versions.
Vincent, in Esprit, you have 8 layers by default, so this is possible, the Deep access module only gives access to an infinite number of layers, unless they changed in for Vue6, but previous versions had 8 available layers.

Thanks Bruno, i dind't know Esprit has 8 layers by default, because i haven't used it before having Pro version LOL
But for the "shadow only" box tip in the advanced material editor, don't forget only Infinite has it, even Pro version doesn't have the advanced material editor (it's one of the Infinite features i want to upgrade for with the render passes...).

I have Esprit and 8 layers. I see the visibility checkbox.  This will be used in an animation so creating a mask and color image is not desirable. In Poser it would give you the png with just what you rendered in the alpha channel so it overlays nicely w/o chromakeying or masking.

Vincent, you have the advanced mat editor in ProStudio, when you're in the basic material editor, in the top left corner, simply click on "advanced material editor", you also have the function editor in Esprit and ProStudio, only some nodes are Infinite only, and some parameters can be driven by functions in Infinite only. And render passes are indeed Infinite only.
Hamilton, In Vue Infinite you can render a png or tiff with embedded transparency, this used to be very buggy, and I haven't tried it in a while, and it may be Infinite only, but you can try to render to disk a tiff or png ( don't remember if it works with render to screen), and see if Vue asks you if you want transparency (alpha) to be saved within the image file. If not, well, Infinite only feature.

Yeah its the transparency I'm looking for - I'll see if I can find this in Esprit....

Just my two cents:
You can make compositing directly in Vue. You can use alpha planes, where you can put an image that goes directly into the final render very easily (you dont even need to position them, you can set them to always face the camera). You can use the camera backdrop (in the camera manager), where you can put an image in the background.

Since I am creating an animation the other way to do this is to render the color and alpha.  Then in Sony Vegas for editing I can create the mask by parenting the alpha to the color track. These are extra steps I would prefer not to do. I see not transparancy option in Esprit but in Poser it produces the image on a transparent background for you which is really really handy.

I generate transparent Tiff files from Vue 6 Infinite without any problem.  I don't know if Esprite can save Tiffs with transparency but if it can, and assuming it works like Infinite, after you select to save as a Tiff file for stills a pop up comes up with various options including transparancy.  My frequent mistake is to forget to turn it off and then wonder where the sky has gone in photoshop!

In Esprit  6 - when I use TIFF it asks for colors, compression and bits per sample BUT NO OPTION for alpha only.  When I use TGA orPNG it asks for picture format only and quality.

In the render options I have render only selected object and this object is in its own layer all other layers are turned off - even layer 1 but the render still shows the atmosphere as the background. I can get all the lights and sun turned off but I'm still getting the background.

Is there not anyway to have layer one turned off so that a transparancy can be created?  I did the alpha channel render and composited this in VEGAS but I'm getting a little noise around the edge of the composite.  thanks for your suggestions in advance.

Sorry then sounds like you need Infinite if you want to render with an atmosphere but without the atmosphere showing up in the render.  There might be ways to work round this but since I don't have esprite I might be suggesting using Infinite only features and wasting your time.  Sorry, hope you find a way to do what you want to do.

tks. If there was just a "Do not render atmosphere" check box then I would be good to go.  Seems so basic so I'm not sure why this would not be included in Esprit - except that they want you to buy infinite I suppose.....