Hi folks, need an answer to this question:  Does Bryce 5.5 support Alpha Planes (billboards) similiar to VUE where one can import a .tiff etc or simply a .bmp and its associated mask and have it's shadow displayed?  Plutom

Yup (If I understand correctly). In the Create palette, to the right, is a gold colored guy (Leo). Click it select your .tiff from the file selector and hit OK. You should get a 2D rectangle sized to the aspect ratio of the image with the image applied. If the .tiff has an alpha channel it will be applied to the transparency and the Blend Transparency option will be set. HTH; Dan

Thanks Dan :D
I didn't ask the question but you've just taught me something I didn't know.

Dan, thanks a lot for your answer and your fast reply--have a great Christmas season--Plutom

Attached Link: http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials/bryce101/index.html

http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials/bryce101/index.html

-Philip
thebest3d.com - beyond digital painting

Philip, that's super, its the same as in VUE 5.  Since I don't have Bryce, this information is invaluable for a friend of mine (penpal) on another website.--needed to ask the Bryce experts.  Thanks Plutom

Maybe I can get her to join Renderosity and eliminate the middle man.

Good thing then.

Note that this above example is for a Picture object, i.e. indeed the equivalent of single-rectangle billboard polygon objects.

I suspect the general material shaders for other objects might support Alpha too, but I dunno for sure. I know Carrara does.

Also, in this example I think the transparency mask is in its own greyscale image file, i.e. not strictly in an alpha channel of the same file as where the rgb channels are. Same basic idea though: 8-bit transparency mask. You can easily extract the alpha from a 32-bit image with Dogwafle and many other tools including some free ones.