Good Afternoon All . . . 8^) I would like to know if anybody out there has attempted to use the Digarts "Jungle 3D or Tree Forestry", with Vue 4.03? The reason I'm asking is, I purchased both programs as a package a couple of weeks ago, & I seem to be having some lack of understanding about how to save an image created with these packages in Painter 6, & then import that same image into Vue 4.03 with existing masks. I read in the Digarts read-me file that their software, when used with Painter 6, creates it's own masks & further saves the masks in the files for importing into Bryce, therefore not needing any further work on the image to apply it to an Alpha Plane in Bryce. But it doesn't mention anything about Vue 4.03? I don't know if Bryce & Vue 4.03 handle Alpha Plane images differently, so I'm wondering if I still have to create an additional black & white Alpha image for import into Vue 4.03, so as to be able to apply that image to an Alpha Plane? I apologize for my lack of understanding on this subject. Anyway, if anyone has tried to & succeeded in doing so, with the above combination, would you be so kind as to let me know what tricks or procedures would be needed. Thanks in advance for any tips or help on this subject & have a good one . . . Mark. ;^)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=69482

3D Jungle? Used to be "Garden Hose" didn't it? I've got the old garden Hose CD for Corel Photopaint and I have used it to create alpha's of climbing ivy. (see my image in the gallery (www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=69482) in which the ivy covering the church was done in that method. In Photopaint, you still have to create seperate textures and black/white alpha masks, but it's very easy to do using Photopaint's "Object Creation" function. I don't know about Painter 6, but I would assume it has something similar. -SMT

Well, what I do is, I create the tree in painter, export the jpg and then do the mask in photopaint, cause I know photopaint, and i only know painter sufficiently well to do tree forestry and jungle 3d... When doing the alpha mask, the object shoudl be black and the background white... Like in this picture...

Then in Vue, select the alpha plane, bring in the image on top, the alpha mask on the bottom and voila you get a great tree... :)

P.S. Bryce and Vue do use different alpha planes... In Bryce the background is black and the image is white, in Vue it's the reverse...

Actually, in Vue4, they can be either back or white (selection available in both the "Alpha Properties" box and the material editor) -SMT

Right, you can invert it, but I'd rather just bring it in right...

'Morning all . . . 8^) Thank you all for your tips. I kind'a figured that using a black shape over a white background was going to be the way to go, as in standard practice with Vue. I just couldn't understand how Digarts software combined with Painter 6 could produce a file, ( with a mask intact ), for applying to an alpha plane in Bryce without further creation of a separate alpha file? :^O Anyway, again I thank you all for your responses to my question & you all have a good one . . . Mark. ;^)

Yikes! I should do a search more often.

Yesterday's post will clear some of this up because the new tutorials explain it (for P6). Painter 5.x worked somewhat differently.

Anytime you paint in a tranparent layer, the mask is "built-in". That makes it very easy to use because there's no selection tools involved.

The only thing you have to plan for is halos or those pesky white fringes. They happen because the layer actually has a background color you don't see. With Photoshop and PSP, it's the secondary or background color on the Colors palette. With Painter, it's the default "Paper Color ." So long as those colors are made to match the layer image, you avoid fringes.

As for saving P6 layer masks, you have two options. First, you can use Drop and Select from the Layers menu, then use Save Selection to save the mask.

The other option is to select the layer mask on the Mask palette and choose Copy Mask from the Mask menu. Oddly, Painter 6 won't let you save the existing layer mask like PS will. So, you have to Copy Mask and choose New. Painter will let you load and save that one.

Let me know if you need more info. Hope this is helpful.