hey got a question. i have read thomas krahns tut's on sky's done with alpha planes (no prob.)but is there a way to use a poser figure as an alpha plane? im trying to make an army (small figures, not close ups) but a calvery of poser figures is getting up around 30 million darn polygons, and im not 1/2 thru. im gunna need big blue to render this puppy, anyone know how to do this??? please help! bodi

Attached Link: The Siege

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=322332&Start=1&Sectionid=2&filter_genre_id=0&MostWan

i would love it,your one of my favorites on this site and my last 2 renders are possible because of your fantastic model. i think i figured it out though. 1. get figure worked out in poser 2. export image 3. open in photoshop 4. crop off the excess (corners etc.) 5. save as transperancy 6. put on alpha plane 7. follow the krahn's tut ? but how could you make the army on only one plane?? now im totally baffeled?

you can probably only use alphas for the distant soldiers. as you get closer to the camera and lights it's better to use actual models.

got the alpha planes to have the guy (or whatever) w/out the white edges to show BUT as i adjust the sliders they are fading away (the colors) and not as crisp as they could be. is there a checked box? or somethin in paticular i can do? is there a tut for an alpha plane tree. because the sky tut you want the transperancy to give it depth. for a person they just look "ghosty"

@Miden and bodi, Hi guys. All of the figures I used in Siege were 3d. The forest behind the castle was alpha planes (sorry if my tut wasn't too clear - one day I plan to re-write that thing). The reason I used 3d figures instead of alpha planes was that I couldn't get the shadows to work right on the alpha planes, and also that the figures in my Siege image are seen from numerous different directions (top, side on, front, back...), so making alpha planes that correspond to many different viewing aspect angles would've been a pain. But, on the other hand, I think you could use alpha planes quite successfully when you're viewing troops from mainly one direction, like for distant troops (like what lilzeek was saying) or for say front on shots where all the soldiers are seen from mainly one direction, like what rodluc has in his image. Just make sure that the lighting in your alpha plane image matches that of your scene and you should be ok - and I'm looking forward to what you end up with. @rodluc, cool pic :)