{"id":4054,"date":"2011-03-03T22:52:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T22:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/?p=4054"},"modified":"2011-03-04T01:36:46","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T01:36:46","slug":"semi-transparent-layer-rendering-in-3dsmax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/4054\/3d-tutorials\/semi-transparent-layer-rendering-in-3dsmax","title":{"rendered":"Semi-Transparent Layer Rendering in 3dsMax"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this tutorial, I’ll be sharing a quick technique for removing the glows, halos, or other anti-aliasing artifacts from your matte\/shadow renders or Render Elements renders. \u00a0The key here is getting the alpha map to apply to the object before<\/em> the anti-aliasing effect blends the edges of your object with the background. \u00a0See the examples below.<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice the black halo around the green areas. This is where the transparency is failing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

These black halos are caused by anti-aliasing and attempting to render at transparent image out of 3dsMax. \u00a0When the image is smoothed during the render it blends colors together. \u00a0If our color map is anti-aliased separately from the alpha map, we get color bleeding. \u00a0In the image above, I’ve replaced the back background<\/p>\n

Summary<\/h2>\n

I detail the following steps below, but for people looking for the quick answer, here it is.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Under Customize > Preferences… > Rendering tab, select “Use Environment Alpha”.<\/li>\n
  2. Render against a flat, black background – this isn’t optional.<\/li>\n
  3. Save to 32-bit .tga with “Pre-Multiplied Alpha” turned off.<\/li>\n
  4. Load the image in Photoshop and select the alpha channel via Select > “Load Selection…”<\/li>\n
  5. Create a layer mask for the background layer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Render with a Black Background & Transparency<\/h2>\n

    Now I won’t tell you how to set a black background since it’s the default and, if you’ve changed the background from the default, you know how to change it back.<\/p>\n

    \"3dsMax-customize-preferences\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Go to the Customize menu and select "Preferences…"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"Engage<\/a><\/p>\n

    Select the "Use environment alpha" option.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Save the Render to .tga with Pre-Multiplied Alpha Disengaged<\/h2>\n
    \"Disengage<\/a><\/p>\n

    Disengage the pre-multiplied alpha setting<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Now you’re ready to open the file in Photoshop. \u00a0Just open your new .tga file, and re-apply the alpha map that has been saved separately embedded within the image file.<\/p>\n

    \"photoshop-select-load-selection\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Once you've opened the new .tga file, go to Select and pick "Load Selection…"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"Load<\/a><\/p>\n

    Load the image's alpha channel. It should be the default.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"Create<\/a><\/p>\n

    With your alpha channel as your selection, create a layer mask.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    And here’s our final result without any halos. \u00a0I’ve added an image of clouds to the areas where the background was black. \u00a0The areas in purple were a purple background that was anti-aliased into the image.<\/p>\n

    \"Our<\/a><\/p>\n

    Halos are gone- the object can be anti-aliased against any background.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    That’s a wrap. \u00a0Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In this tutorial, I’ll be sharing a quick technique for removing the glows, halos, or other anti-aliasing artifacts from your matte\/shadow renders or Render Elements renders. \u00a0The key here is getting the alpha map to apply to the object before the anti-aliasing effect blends the edges of your object with the background. \u00a0See the examples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20],"tags":[29,33,2569,136],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrbluesummers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}