Hi All,

I have been all through the render settings of Poser but I can not find where I can enable an alpha channel.

Can Poser produce a PNG file with an alpha channel?

I know you get an alpha channel if you save poser renders to photoshop format (.psd)....and it's been so long since I saved to anything else I can't remember if the png ones do or not. I know the png files will "preserve" background transparency if you just render a figure, but that's not much help here.

if you render as .png  then the backgrond will be transparent in photoshop. of course if you have an object behind your figure it will not be invisible.

so .png works.

TIF also retains an alpha channel out of Poser.

I'll often do multiple renders with different figures and props visible so that I can have an automatic mask in Photoshop for each item.  That way, I can blur the background, but not the foreground figure. It allows applying different effects to the different figures.

Just save the render as a .png file. It's a lossless format and unlike a .tif extension, doesn't require you to have to apply a mask to get rid of the background once inside your graphic program.

Note that there is antialising with pixel edges when an image is rendered.  Here is an example of what I mean:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2220981

In order to get rid of that nasty grey border that results from automatic antialising, adjust your render over colour in the render settings to black. That will look more like a shadow around the edge than an actual border.  Of course if you are rendering an all white bride gown or something, you may want to adjust that colour to be white so that there is no border at all.

It's nice to export a Figure out as a .PNG, because you do'nt need an Alpha for any Photoshop Channels palette; but there are limits to Composition.  What's great is you can just export a Figure, with hair clothes etc., and have everything else around it be Transparent Pixels when Opened in Photoshop; but the transparent pixels are only generated by Poser's Background.  For example if the Background of the scene is an Image(you loaded File > Import > Background...etc.(Or even the Background is just one color) then you are all set; but if there is a house Prop behind the Figure, or even another Figure then the contiguous 2D parimeter of the Figure's encompassesment by Transparent pixels would be compromised.

Alternatively, turn the Background Color/Image Black.  Go to the Materials Room, and set a Part to %1000 White; then set all of the other PoserSurface noes, in the Figure, to the one changed.  Render...

=  )