Why does this happen? I made a transparency map to make the jeans into cutoffs.  It worked fine a few weeks ago.  Now when I load it: 1. Nothing happens 2. Nothing happens to the bodypart selected and the rest of the jeans are still partially visible. or... 3. A second later, the transparency map gets replaced with the texture map.

All the nodes are connected correctly, and I deleted unattached ones.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Don't show the simple view, show the advanced view.  Impossible to judge what is really going on with the material looking at the simple view.  What are the circumstances where you will see the material's behavior change?

Don't show the simple view, show the advanced view.  Impossible to judge what is really going on with the material looking at the simple view.  What are the circumstances where you will see the material's behavior change?

Well, I didn't show the advanced view because there's never anything out of the ordinary there.  It never shows anything out of the ordinary...only the diffuse image and the transparency map connected to the correct channels.  There is no pattern to the change in the material's behavior.  Every time I import the transparency map, or reload the textures, one of the above happens.  I've even duplicated the transparency map and saved it under another name, but the same thing happens with the new version..  But here you go...

Okay, looking at those settings it seems like you're trying to have a transparency map hide the legs of the pants and make them look like ragged cut-off jeans?  Do you see that the material zone selected is "body"?  What are all of the material zones, and are they all set the same way?

Make Transparency_Edge zero, it's intended to simulate things like glass and the like that are less transparent as the surface is angled away from the camera.

The material zones for the pants are:

body
fifth pocket
loops
brass
button
rear pockets
jams
pants

The thing is that no matter what material zone I apply the transparency to, nothing changes.  Even if I click "Apply current material to all materials available to this object?", nothing changes.  Once the problem starts, which is immediately upon applying the transparency map, that's the way the figure stays.  The only change I can make is to make each material zone invisible and visible again with the transparency dial.

Like I said, it worked fine a few weeks ago, and I saw it work once (on the body zone) when I started today.  When I went to apply it to the rest of the figure, the transparency map disappeared and was replaced by the texture map.  Since then, it's been random levels of transparency on different zones at every time with each try at applying the transparency map  Thinking it might be a memory problem, I've exited Poser and started up again several times, but with no luck.

Maybe I don't understand the problem you're having, but you said that the color map gets replaced by the transparency map.  I don't see that going on in the material settings you're showing.  If you can make each material zone visible and invisible, can you show some pics of how those materials are set and what the results look like? 

The pics you've shown are only of the previews.  Are you seeing this in the actual render, or are you basing this only on how the preview looks?  Don't trust the preview completely, often it doesn't bear any resemblance to the rendered output.

Just for sh*ts and giggles...invert the transparency b/w mask and take a render...do the legs go away?

No, you'll see in the last paragraph of my last post, "the transparency map disappeared and was replaced by the texture map. "

You can see pictures of how all the material zones are set...up above in my posts.  See?  If the zone is totally there, if the zone is semi-transparent, if the zone is totally transparent, the maps look the same, usually because I clicked "Apply current material to all materals...".  Even if I copy the material and paste it to each zone individually, the the preview shows some parts as transparent and some as normal...always different.  Andf my transparency map has a frayed edge on the bottom of the pant legs and a few holes to make the jeans look old, but those frays and holes never show up.  In other words, the zones don't match the maps.

I have rendered the scene several times and after each re-launch of Poser.  It does look different in that the transparency map didn't have any effect at all.  See my latest example?  Where the "body" is semitransparent and the loops, buttons, and legs are normal even with the transparency map?  When I render that, it looks as though there isn't a transparency map at all.  Everything is visible.  So the transparency map is not working at all, but something is making the material zones become semi-transparent at random.  And once in a while, the transparency map disappears and is replaced by the texture map.

And when that happens, want to hear something weird?  THEN it works...but unfortunately, the transparency is mistakenly being driven by the texture map.  So it looks weird.  Oh, and when I delete the texture map and just have the jeans as one solid color, the transparency map pops back into its proper place and everything is perfect.  But the  jeans are all white!  When I put the texture map back, everything goes haywire again.

:lol:
Too crazy man. I have no idea.
Ummmm, how did you apply the texture maps just now? Was it through a PoseMAT or did you do it manually? (ie; search for an image map, assign it, and hook up a node)

Quote - No, you'll see in the last paragraph of my last post, "the transparency map disappeared and was replaced by the texture map. "

*Okay, either way the pics you're showing do not illustrate that. 

Quote - You can see pictures of how all the material zones are set...up above in my posts.  See? 

 

Well no, in fact you're showing pics of a "body" material zone, and a "pants" material zone.  But okay ^^

Quote - ... the preview shows some parts as transparent and some as normal...always different.  Andf my transparency map has a frayed edge on the bottom of the pant legs and a few holes to make the jeans look old, but those frays and holes never show up.  In other words, the zones don't match the maps.

I have rendered the scene several times and after each re-launch of Poser.  It does look different in that the transparency map didn't have any effect at all.  See my latest example?  Where the "body" is semitransparent and the loops, buttons, and legs are normal even with the transparency map?  When I render that, it looks as though there isn't a transparency map at all.  Everything is visible.  So the transparency map is not working at all, but something is making the material zones become semi-transparent at random.  And once in a while, the transparency map disappears and is replaced by the texture map.

I can't get any sense out of what you're saying.  You're saying that setting transparency does not have any effect in one sentence, and then right after that you're saying it becomes semi-transparent.  You're showing pics of how the preview looks but you're talking about how the render looks.  Maybe you'll have better luck with Smith Micro tech support, I don't think I'm able to help you.

Quote -
I can't get any sense out of what you're saying.  You're saying that setting transparency does not have any effect in one sentence, and then right after that you're saying it becomes semi-transparent.  You're showing pics of how the preview looks but you're talking about how the render looks.  Maybe you'll have better luck with Smith Micro tech support, I don't think I'm able to help you.

That's exactly right!  I can't get any sense out of what's happening either because it changes every time.  I don't think you're able to help me either, but thank you for responding.

Perhaps two or more material zones do overlap. Remove all maps and set transparency to 0 for all material but "body". 

Poser 7 can get very confused when it finds two or more texture files with the
same name in different folders.  Search your computer to be sure the
transmap file and texture file are unique .... only one file of that name on the
whole computer.  Also be sure the path in the CR2 is exactly correct for that file.