CompuServe Messages

> Could you explain your suggestion in a little more detail. < The idea is that you create each object with either an Alpha channel or a key color for compositing purposes. If using 3DS for your modeling, it's straight forward – just render each component of the house individually (siding, roof, fascia, trim, etc.), with all other objects as matte objects. Select Render Alpha in the render dialog and it will generate the alpha channel. If you're using photoshop, you'll have to manually create a matte for each house component, then save it as an alpha channel using the channels option. A key color (like a green background will work, but it's not as clean an can cause problems with similar colors in the subject of the image. Repeat this process for each style of each part of the house (ie 3 shingle types, three siding types, etc.). You might also want to create a simple tile of the material for use in your MM app for the user to select in assocaition with the relevant house compenent. Now comes DTA (Dave's Targa Animator). It's a command line utlity for converting formats and for compositing TGA files. It may be in the libs of this forum or if not, look in the GRAPHDEV or one of the other graphics forums. Because it's a command line utility, it only requires soure and destination image names and a few parameters — no GUI to interfere with your MM app. All your authoring program needs to do is give the user a way of identifying the proper styles and then construct the appropriate command line for DTA to process the images. This a straight-forward programming concept. The hard part is getting the authoring program to interface with DOS. I have only rudimentary knowlege of authoring apps, but the key is to find one that lets you pass a command to DOS and control the screen output (so the user isn't looking at a bunch of strange DOS commands flying accross the screen). Once the command is executed and your finished image is produced by DTA, your MM app can load and display the image for the user. At this point, I suggust you download DTA (probably DTA.ZIP) and read the docs. This should give you a better idea of whether this approach will work for you. After that, start looking for an MM authoring app that lets you pass commands to DOS. There are probably others in this forum that could recommend one for you. — James — Choreo Motion —