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Xilica
11-01-2002, 09:11 PM
Alright,

How do I make a transparent render in 3ds max 5. I understand that i have to open it up in photoshop and knock out the background color. Someone said chagne the alpha channel, but where? Please someone, tell me how to do this as clearly as possible. Thanks.
3dsmax5
11-01-2002, 09:18 PM
I think you need to save it in TGA format
AJ
11-01-2002, 09:43 PM
Render your image.
Save as either TIFF or TGA
Open in Photoshop
Go to Channels
You should notice a channel called Alpha
Hold down Ctrl and click on the channel labelled Alpha
You should notice a selection (marquee) is now present in your image.
For simplicities sake, select Copy then Paste
You should have a new layer with no background... Delete the other layer(s).

Hope this is what you were after!
JeffPatton
11-01-2002, 09:52 PM
If you save your render from MAX as a TGA file it creates the alpha channel of your object. Then you open that TGA file in photoshop, go to the "channels" tab at the bottom right and you will see the Alpha1 channel. Control click that alpha channel and it selects just the object. Once it's selected, you can go back to the layers and cut and edit and so on.

As a side note, the alpha channel will contain everything in your render, so be sure to just render the object you want to cut out, with no environment. For example: If you have a scene with a sphere sitting on a box and you render it and save as a TGA file, your Alpha channel will contain both the sphere and box.

I hope this helps.
JeffPatton
11-01-2002, 09:53 PM
D'oh, AJ_23 and I must have read this at the same time and posted responses at the same time!
Equinoxx
11-01-2002, 10:28 PM
don't forget to mention you should save it as a 32-bit tga . . .

or else you will NOT have an alpha-channel ;)
Xilica
11-01-2002, 11:51 PM
With this TGA, can I then save it as a .gif or .jpg?
JeffPatton
11-01-2002, 11:58 PM
Well, the easiest way would be like AJ23 mentioned, once you have copied the image you can just paste as new image and save that as a gif file with a transparent background if thats your goal.
Xilica
11-02-2002, 12:28 AM
w00t, alright!

am i allowed to make animation with this? i mean animations with a transparent background or only stills?
JeffPatton
11-02-2002, 01:35 AM
Your venturing into a realm I have not been. I know you can do the frames and then create an animated .gif file from that. I do not know of any other way. Maybe someone else knows how.
MrKeith
11-02-2002, 01:44 AM
Hey xilica... you can make an 'animation' this way, but you can't render it out as an animation. YOu'll have to render it out as a sequence of 32 bit .tga files and then composite them using another program like After Effects or Premiere.

hope this helps.

k
Xilica
11-02-2002, 01:52 AM
alright, got it..thanks for all your guy's help!
xynaria
11-02-2002, 03:35 AM
You shouldn't really need another programme if I have understood you right... make your tga files into an IFL file and render out in video post. :)
Equinoxx
11-02-2002, 02:19 PM
Originally posted by MrKeith
Hey xilica... you can make an 'animation' this way, but you can't render it out as an animation.

actually, you can, rendering it as a quicktime with an animation+ compression [ea uncompressed + alpha]

but and this can't be stressed enough, it's always better to render to an image sequence rather then a moviefile . . ..
Xilica
11-02-2002, 03:28 PM
I thought 3ds max 5 couldn't render to .mov

oh well, I think I will just render each sequence out then use ImageReady to put them together.
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