Hi. I posted this on the Daz Forum as well. I own Carrara 5 Pro and have used it off and on for a while. I was wondering if it is possible to animate a series of images on a 2d plane and use masking to make part of the 2d plane transparent. I know in Bryce you can use masking to make sections of the 2d image projected on the plane transparent. Basically, if this works I'm planning to use it to create various effects, fire, smoke, snow, etc, in either Particle Illusion or Cinema 4d and layer them into my scene for animation, as I find Carrara the easiest program to use for animation (next to Bryce). Also I am torn about upgrading to 6 Pro. Is the Dynamic hair easier to use the the Cinema 4D hair module as I have been having a hard time getting it to work. Will Dynamic hair in C6PRO work with Toon shading, either the build in one or the Toon Pro Plugin? And finally, is it possible to render out separate layers of the scene (static or animated) to be mixed manually in Photoshop (in either version)? Thank you for all the help and advice. Sincerely, David Lein P.S. Bwtr thanks for your response

Hi David, Yes, the process is called rotoscoping. The animated content simply needs to have an embedded alpha channel to prevent "showing" the particle itself. You'll get the best results using the Splat particle option. To get truly good results you'll need to get a handle on the Particle Shader to control some of your effects. This is one of the least used and most powerful features of Carrara. It's possible to create some absolutely excellent effects. I've done this quite a lot of this type of work on various assignments for smoke and snow in fact. Works great. Post back with any questions. I recently helped a film producer create some outstanding oily smoke with particles. Really fun stuff. Mark

Hi Mark. I thought that rotoscoping was painting over certain sections of the image to create the effect you wanted, such as the the glow of a lightsabers. If we are talking about using the built in particle engine I will probably not be able to get it to work, as I have tried many times in the past with no success. I will try and post an image or two of what I mean later tonight when I return from the doctors. Also how does C6 Pro work on a mac. Are there any problems I should know about before purchasing it. I'm using OS X 10.4.11 Thanks. David

Smooth as silk here on 10.4.11. There are still a couple of software bugs that I'm anxious for them to fix but for the most part, everything is running a-ok. Rotoscoping is simply adding something that moves. (not to be confused with the actual, old-time rotoscope device itself) The light saber's post-film work is rotoscoping because it's added frame by frame manually. Adding a movie within a movie is also considered rotoscoping. So, animated texture maps fall within that category as well.