I've tried it... several times, actually.  The problem with it is that the figures themselves are hollow, which means that when the front becomes transparent, so does the back, and depending on the pose, you will end up losing a lot of detail just because of the "overlay" effect.

dont use translucency - it'll add a lot of time to the render and wont give you what you want.

you will just have to play in the transparency tab until you get what you're wanting - i could tell you to try a trans setting of 25%, but it may not result in what you want - but could have been perfect for something i was working on.

Also dont forget to mess with the all important sliders and all those other lovely settings, as well.  additive and fuzzy each have interesting results.  also, dont forget the special effects catagory - luminosity, etc - when an item is transparent, luminous items can get quite interesting, too... =D

I can say the easiest way for me to do this ends up being in postwork - sad to say.  Set up your vue scene, and if you can, utilize the option that allows seperating out of layers/materials/whatever when you render.  This way, you can put say the front human figure on one layer, the one behind it on another layer, your ground/whatever is on another layer... so you can fade out/make transparent whatever you want.

hoping something in here helps...
~meli

Rarer than a hairy egg and madder than a box of frogs....

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