Object Buffer?

[Joseph Storr]

I grew up on C4D and 3DS Max with V-Ray, but my office uses Maxwell (Sketchup and 3DS).

I'm trying to create an object buffer for the trees in my Scene for Maxwell. Essentially we want the trees to be a bit transparent, but Maxwell isn't calculating the transparency well. It's my hope to create an object buffer like I can in 3DS. I'd like to

1. Render the scene minus Tree's (with Shadow's, we have this figure dout)
2. Render the scene with only tree's and get an Alpha Image to use as a mask in Photoshop.

Prefferably from Sketchup, but I can roll with it in 3DS Max if I have to.

Is there a way to do this in Maxwell? I've done a bit of research, and can't find anything on buffering out a spefific object (or group of objects)

Thanks

[Joseph Storr]

lol, no one has had the need to Alpha an image?

FWIW I played with kicking out an Alpha from sketchup (you can do this in the export options), but I'd REALLY like to render it from Maxwell (Picture Resolution).

Thanks!

[Brodie Geers]

My thought...

Render 1: Render the scene with everything in it but set the tree object to "hidden from camera." You won't see the tree but the shadows and reflections will render as normal.

Render 2: Render the same scene but with everything else "hidden to camera." That should give you a proper alpha map and a good render of the tree as it should look within the scene.

Alternatively, if you're having a transparency issue it's probably an issue with your leaf material. Rather than trying to fake the transparency you'll get better photorealistic results by fixing the material.

-Brodie

[Joseph Storr]

Thanks! This works well. Not a ton of control, but enough to get the job done and seize control back from the program a bit.