I have always been able to export a png with a transparent background from Poser. For some reason, I have not been able to figure out how to do this in Poser 11. Does anyone know how to do that?

All you need to do is make the GROUND prop invisible. It is actually a modified sky dome with ground plain (called the construct). Once you do that the background is like before P11, and will export "empty" in the background.

Duh!! I feel so stupid. I have had Poser 11 Pro since it came out but I have been very slow to move from PP14 which I love mainly because I encountered this issue and could not figure out what I was doing wrong or if the program itself had some issues that needed tweaking. I picked it back up to fiddle around with it again today after installing updates thinking that it was some unresolved issue when it first hit the market. I am glad I posted this question so that I would figure out just how low my IQ is LOL! Thank you so much for your answer! Your fix worked perfectly.

No reason to feel silly. If you are unaware of new features things can look ... "wrong". Just glad I could help.

Great to know .. couldn't find it either ..

Do you also happen to know how to render over black background [like the option PP2014 has] Boni ..??.. It avoids that irritating glow around a render so you can blend in to a background way better ,,

Not sure if this will work for you ... but with the construct in the material library there is a "blackout" setting. I'm guessing here, but this could do the effect you are looking for. Hmmm. Since it uses a construct setting I'm thinking this won't work for your purposes BUT I believe there is a process to do this. I just don't know what it is. It's late here, so give me some time, I think I did read somewhere how you can blend colors from a background image to the foreground figures. I will look into this tomorrow.

Thanx for thinking with me Boni .. .. Always known where to find in previous Poser versions but in Superfly it does not show up

Found another thread about this .. [sorry .. just saw] .. Popped my question there as well

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2900563&page_number=1#msg4270272

Forgive me for being terribly dense. Am also trying to render out with a transparent background. I searched for the above fix but find no ground plane to fix? What am I missing? Thx

If rendering in Firefly, then you can simply hide the construct (It appears as "ground" in the hierarchy list, but it's a fully enclosed ground+skydome).

If rendering in Superfly, you need to apply a holdout node to the construct.

So, you can render just the dolly in Superfly:

That gives you a clean (no background, no extraction fringe) PNG object on transparent background.

DIGIpixel posted at 2:54AM Sat, 17 February 2018 - #4270233

Great to know .. couldn't find it either ..

Do you also happen to know how to render over black background [like the option PP2014 has] Boni ..??.. It avoids that irritating glow around a render so you can blend in to a background way better ,,

If rendering in Firefly, hide the construct ("ground"), then render over current background shader and export image as a PNG. That should give you a PNG object on transparent background with no need to extract the doll in PhotoShop, hence no fringe/glow. No need to do anything to the background shader if you export image as PNG. That is found in the Firefly render options:

If curious about the "background" shader, enter the material room and open the object dropdown; select background.

But, again, you can ignore the background shader if you export image as PNG.

I should clarify that for Superfly, the construct should remain "visible" (not hidden), but apply the holdout material shown above to both the ground and the background (sky) material zones of the construct. Export render as PNG.

This is an example of why I recommend exporting a PNG raster object, rather than trying to extract the doll in PhotoShop. Can you imagine trying to extract the hologram from this render?

But, if I hide the spaceship interior prop, and apply holdout to the construct, then render (Superfly, in this case):

The materials for holograms (one for Firefly, one for Superfly) are in this Ghost, wireframe, and Cortana material pack, if you want to play with that.

seachnasaigh,

I tried your method but still can't get a transparent background.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong.  Export image>png right?  I get black background in Photoshop.

anniemation posted at 10:51 PM Tue, 31 May 2022 - #4439381

seachnasaigh,

I tried your method but still can't get a transparent background.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong.  Export image>png right?  I get black background in Photoshop.

1. to make Poser's default construct visible

2. to put this mat setting on both parts:

And (snapshot from photoshop)

I usually hide the ground. Can't see where the lights are if it is visible. Then when I render in Superfly, I check the option "Transparent background". I think is the ground is visible, then you won't have a transparent background even if you check transparent background. BTW, I'm using Poser 12, but I assume it's the same in Poser 11.

I usually hide the ground. Can't see where the lights are if it is visible. Then when I render in Superfly, I check the option "Transparent background". I think is the ground is visible, then you won't have a transparent background even if you check transparent background. BTW, I'm using Poser 12, but I assume it's the same in Poser 11.

"If rendering in Superfly, you need to apply a holdout node to the construct."

Thank you, seachnasaigh, for providing a 'finder' map: Much appreciated.

in firefly it still renders slight fringe around everything if saved as png. any chanve to get rid of it?

What would do is match the background color to whatever was in the foreground, then the edges blended. It only works if there isn't much color change with the edges.

in firefly it still renders slight fringe around everything if saved as png. any chanve to get rid of it?

I got a perfect render without the fringe around the fine hairs once, I knew how to do it, but I forgot LOL! I think I used a blank PNG as background or as a backwall prop or both. If I remember exactly I'll post the steps. I've included a blank 2400 x 2400 PNG

LOL! that big blank space, right-click on it and save it, then import it as background.

If you find the blank PNG useful say: "Thanks for nothing, Twiz!"

... and don't say I never gave you anything, yeah lol

OK folks, I guess I got really lucky when I first got my Poser 11 Pro, as it didn't (for some reason) have the Construct set up in the default Startup Scene.  I know another person who also found the same thing when she obtained Poser 11 Pro around the same time I did.

That said, however, it didn't take me long to find out how I could accomplish the same thing if my version had come with the "Alternate Construct" set up by default.  If you go to the Scenes Library, there's a folder titled Poser 11 Environments, and in that folder are 3 options.  1) Alternate Construct, 2) Developers Workspace, and 3) Poser 10 Workspace, which is the old P10/PP2014 "Ground Plane".  That gave me an option to go back to the old Ground Plane if that's what I wanted/needed.

It's easy to do, just select the Poser 10 Workspace, and save it as a new Startup Scene, making sure you've set it as Preferred Scene in the General Preferences Launch Behavior section on the Document tab, AND that Launch Behavior on the Interface tab is set to Launch to previous state, which will make sure every time you start a new scene you will get the new Startup file.

I set this up in Poser 12 as well, as the Scenes folder includes Poser 11 Environments, which includes the old Poser 10 Workspace option.  Just be sure to set up the Preferences as I mentioned above.  Now the only thing I need to remember is to click the Transparent Background on the Render settings when I'm working in Poser 12.

Needless to say, you need to "hide" the Ground Plane in the Heirarchy Editor.

Hope this helps.

After hiding the construct, you can set the background color to black by clicking on the second dot from the left to open the color picker  .

As Miss B posted, the renderer must be set for Transparent Background rendering, otherwise, the exported PNG will still exhibit a colored background.

After hiding the construct, you can set the background color to black by clicking on the second dot from the left to open the color picker  .

If you want the light effect the construct has ( that's what it is for) but render over transparent background you can put the Construct 'visible in Camera' off.  It is in the properties panel. 

Well, sorry to resurrect this thread. It's Poser 13 time and I am trying ALL the methods above and none seems to work. Can someone share what they do if the following conditions are met:

I have a scene with the correct, carefully set up lighting that results in a great render. I want to do a PNG render with transparent background so just the figure renders BUT it has the exact lighting as I set up with the figure's environment for using in Photoshop later. How do you do that in Poser 13 please?

Are you using a HDRI bg photo with a dome for lighting? That's probably one of the many reasons.
If you could upload the PNG here it would help a lot too.

Sure, here:

As to what I used: AfroditeOhki's Level Up Superfly props: dome and background first. Then I removed the background and only used the dome. Then I added the Construct as suggested here and used holdout node on it.

In all cases I checked 'render over transparent background'. None of those brought the result I wanted ie. just the figure over transparent background.

I render very specific moods for both portrait and multiple-prop/figure scenes--how lighting looks is important to me. If that is not what I can do and I have to fiddle for hours in Photoshop to achieve the same, I better know it now.

Have you unchecked 'Visible in Camera' on the Properties tab?  All lighting is retained but the camera will not see the object or dome.

@Rhia, I am trying to understand your exact set up.  When you refer to the background, do you mean the Background material found in the Material Room?

@hborre: no, I mean the background prop that came with AO's kit. Hold on, let me get a screenie, had Poser closed atm.

Also: so--basically I did what you said and unchecked the 'visible in camera' for those two (backdrop and sphere) rendered with 'render over transparent background' checked and that gave me what I wanted.

THANNK YOU!

Now why is this not explained anywhere I ask? I have been using Poser since 2008, and this changes like every time Poser comes out?

Okay, that clarifies everything.  I don't have Ohki's props that's why the confusion.  I'm glad my suggestion worked for you.  This was something I worked with some time back, making emissive objects invisible in the scene but still illuminating the surroundings. It also works with the actual Poser background.

Glad you figured it out. The reason I asked to see the PNG is bc some image viewers will show extra stuff... artifacts, on the screen around the figure but the PNG figure IS indeed transparent.

Best to load and view it in PS against the checkered background.

My previous effort at posting doesn't seem to have taken, for some reason.  At any rate, I couldn't remember how to create a Poser image with an alpha channel but fortunately, Google remembered this thread for me.  Now I have to learn GiMP's scripting language so I can automate creating an animation. Doing it by hand for 300 frames would be tedious.ol