Alpha Channels V6?

Serengeti (Rhino WIP)
1

Hi,
I can’t seem to get alpha channels working in V6. I need it for animations I am working on. Everything I tried just ends up as a white viewport when I render and look at the alpha channel. I tried with a simple sphere in the viewport and I see just a white viewport when I look at the alpha channel.

What are the settings I see the depth channel works, but I want my objects alpha channeled out of the scene so I can isolate them for rendering in PS.

Also is there any way to export the alpha when using the animation controls? I see viewport rendering style and full render but how would I get and save the alpha channel?
Thanks,
RM

2

After the image is rendered no alpha channel.

3

@mikko You might want to look at this.

4

Hi Roland, you need to select “Transparent background” at File->Properties->Render for the background to show on the alpha channel. Alpha blending cannot work properly unless all color in the scene comes from the objects, and nothing from the background.
You also need to make sure ground plane is disabled in the same place to make sure you can actually see the background behind the objects, and not the ground plane.

When working, you should see a checker pattern behind the objects in the render window.

5

IMO you should always be able to turn on Alpha for both background and groundplane after rendering, before saving.
Having to turn on these settings in a hidden panel before rendering is an old way of linear of thinking.
To me, from a UX point of view, it would make sense to have this as an options together with the other post process functions.

1 Like
6

Thanks Mikko I’ll try that, I recall didn’t it just work in V5? Or maybe that’s in max one just clicks show alpha.
Thanks for the procedure it had me stumped.
RM

7

I agree it would be nice to have alpha in the post process panel.
RM

8

Hi Mikko,
I would have never have figured out to hit transparent background in rendering options but it’s working great now.

Is it possible to sequentially save the alpha channel when doing a path animation? Is there a setting for that I only see how to save a full rendering in the animation tools, I want to do an image sequence and render the alpha channels to a sequence or is there another/better way?
Thanks,
RM