CompuServe Messages

Gary: Actually, most of the people I know who are using 3DS in Dallas are conversant with the Alpha Split scheme AND USE IT. Most of the edit suites I am familiar with welcome the mattes as a failsafe against bad luminence keys. We make it standard practice to qualify our clients up front to determine whether they will need mattes with their project. About half of the corporate/industrial clients do. An impromptu comparison with TOPAS: Mattes are generated by re-coloring the elements white, bringing the ambient light all the way up, and re-rendering the animation! The resulting files are 24 or 16bit and must be run thru batchfiling QFX functions or some similar avenue to bring them down to 8bit size for efficient storage until the sequence can be dumped to tape. Get the picture!?! This was always one of those "obscure" features in 3DS that impressed the hell out of me!!! Ken Loss-Cutler