I know texture maps can work in Bryce, but what about the transparency maps? Is that possible (especially for the hair)? Or am I just another victim of wishful thinking? Dave

Nope, no wishful thinking there Dave - you can use trans-maps in Bryce :) When you import a figure, it's not going to import the transparency map, you'll have to add it yourself. So, select the hair (or whatever) and click on the "m" to bring up the materials editor. Down the bottom, you'll see a channel for transparency. Choose an empty channel (one where there are no other blue buttons active) and turn it on. Now you'll see a new material element box has opened. Switch it to image rather than procedural texture. Load the transparency map into the first of the three windows. Then copy it and past it into the middle window. You should now have a white shape on a checker-board pattern in the last (right) window. Return to the texture editor. St the top is a little triangle, click on this and select "blend transparency". Now you have mapped the tranparency to the material. When you return to the iamge and render, the trans-map will be rendered properly. Hope this helps Paul

That helps tremendously. The manual was of no help. I had debated whether to render my scenes in Poser or Bryce. I finally got the hair thing somewhat under control so that it looked halfway decent in Poser. I'm glad that I wasnt going to lose that by switching over to the better renderer in Bryce. Thanks for the help Paul. Dave

In fact, you have more control over the texture and transmaps in Bryce. Head over to the Bryce forum and search in the archives for transmaps and the like. I know I did one post (http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=67896) that shows the transmaps in the pic library and how they must look (used Kyoko hair) and what you must do to get them to work in Bryce. There has been lots of discussion about this over there and you will probably find more information plus several tutes that will help you specifically with transmaps.

Thanks. I'm glad that this forum is around just for situations just like this one. Dave