Adding a transparent png to a plane

Nathan314631

Hello.

I was hoping to bring in a picture into my scene which is an image saved as a transparent png. I guess a bit like the crowd-scene products available in Daz. I'm guessing I would somehow add the image to a plane with a trans map so Daz only sees the actual image and can render shading and shadows only on what's visibility.  I have no idea how to achieve this but if anyone knows of a tutorial or has the answer, I'd be very grateful. Thank you 

Sevrin

Transparency in DS does not work the same way as PNG transparency.

You will need two things to start: 

1. Your base image, which can be a JPG or PNG or other 2D file.  It does not need to have any transparency, but it doesn't hurt.
2. A black and white image, with the white areas covering the areas you want to be visible, and the black areas covering the areas you want to be invisible.  This is the same idea as masks in Ps or GIMP, etc, in that any grey areas will be more or less transparent depending on how light or dark they are.  White shows everything, and black hides everything.  For this type of thing, you'll generally want an image with only black and white.

Then:

Select the Plane in the Scene Tab.

In the Surfaces Tab > Base section, click the down arrow under Base Color.  Browse to and select your image.  This becomes your Diffuse Map.  

In the Surfaces Tab > Geometry section, click the down arrow under Cutout Opacity, leaving the slider at 1.0.  Browse to and select your black and white image.  This becomes your Transparency Map.

That should do it.  If you find the image too bright, you can change click on the Base Color area with the numbers and reduce Value to be a bit darker in the Select Color dialogue or use the slider on the right hand side.

richardandtracy

If you can save the .png transparency mask as a separate image by using a graphics package, that is ideally what you want to use as the image for the Cutout Opacity.

Regards,

Richard.

 

Eustace Scrubb

Transparency can be linked in ShaderMixer to a PNG's Alpha Channel if and only if you're rendering in 3Delight.  Set your Render Options ro 3Delight, apply the Daz Default Material or such (not IrayUber or Ubersurface, nor yet AoA Subsurface) and put the PNG in your Diffuse Color.  Open the Shader Mixer tab and find the Image Node:there will be an Image Color line from the Image brick to the "Diffuse Color" socket on the Default Material brick.  There will also be an empty socket on the Image brick called Image Alpha:  plug this into the Default Brick's "Opacity" socket.  Click Apply to update your shader, and you're all set.  When you render, the PNG's Alpha channel will be applied as transparent.

smb675

Sevrin said:

Transparency in DS does not work the same way as PNG transparency.

You will need two things to start: 

1. Your base image, which can be a JPG or PNG or other 2D file.  It does not need to have any transparency, but it doesn't hurt.
2. A black and white image, with the white areas covering the areas you want to be visible, and the black areas covering the areas you want to be invisible.  This is the same idea as masks in Ps or GIMP, etc, in that any grey areas will be more or less transparent depending on how light or dark they are.  White shows everything, and black hides everything.  For this type of thing, you'll generally want an image with only black and white.

Then:

Select the Plane in the Scene Tab.

In the Surfaces Tab > Base section, click the down arrow under Base Color.  Browse to and select your image.  This becomes your Diffuse Map.  

In the Surfaces Tab > Geometry section, click the down arrow under Cutout Opacity, leaving the slider at 1.0.  Browse to and select your black and white image.  This becomes your Transparency Map.

That should do it.  If you find the image too bright, you can change click on the Base Color area with the numbers and reduce Value to be a bit darker in the Select Color dialogue or use the slider on the right hand side.

I have had the most success with your tip except the image I want to keep is about 20% transparent as well...