Getting this effect and i don't know why - any ideas?

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s248/xjohnx1234/pic.jpg

The alpha image renders fine on its own but i'm getting this block effect which i can't figure out why as nothing has changed.

Thanks.

Not sure if I understand exactly how you're doing this, but I used butterflies in an eco before and it worked well. Their wings were basically a rectangle with a transparency map. (Noggin's butterflies from daz) which I loaded into the eco as objects. Anyhow, even if yours are different, just to check your material is still right  when in the eco, chose the material tab (see arrow) in the world browser and select the relevant material from the list of 'EcoSystem materials' , Edit the material and check the transparency map. You may need to invert the black/white by clicking the button the arrow points to, that's usually the reason behind this kind of behaviour.

Looks like the material uses "World" mapping instead of "Object" mapping. Try Object Parametric or Standard.

Cheers!

http://www.geekatplay.com/tutorials/3dechosystem/ - this was the system i use to base the ecosystem of butterflys - good way of creating a particle effect.  I checked the textures and all are set as object parametric (first thing i did when this happened), all other materials in the fuction editor are correct.  I tried using the same technique using stones (same settings), saved, loaded it back in and rendered - all was fine.  The alpha materials when first  created will render correctly, it's only when you save the object or ecosystem, delete and load it back in that the problem occours.  Used an insect model this time, created system, saved and loaded it back in and it rendered the way it was supposed to - it's either a bug or it's to do with the fact that alpha maps are being passed through a transparency.

Strange, because the preview shows exactly the effect you want to achieve!

Some things you might want to experiment with:

-There are two ways to apply your alpha transparency. Directly connected to the Alpha node or to the Global transparency node with a variable transparency function.

-Texture maps (Color and Alpha) can be applied as "Texture map" (UV) or "Projected texture map"

Of course you might just have run into one of the bugs........;-)

Cheers!

Been changing the settings but to no avail, ran a test with a semi-transparent object to see what happened - placed an alpha object next to the ST object and created a ecosystem of alphas onto the s-transparent object, saved, deleted and loaded it back in - the ecosystem came out as cards while the single alpha image rendered correctly.  Would be handly to know why this is happening as i have used alpha maps in ecosystems before but not like this.  Anyway, i've given up on using the alphas and gone for a retextured model, as it being used in a medium shot, detail is not an issue but thanks anyway all the same.