I must be missing something but I can't figure out a good way to use an image as a background in Strata 3D. The only way I know how to make a background is using the Enviroment pallet and making either a spherical or cubic background. But spherical always blows up the images so they are too big to fit in the scene and cubic just looks dumb repeating the same image several times. Is there another way or is Strata just not good for background images?

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Ares plugin writer and all around helpful guy... Except possibly when it comes to certain people...

I use a graphic program to copy and paste the ship into the scene.

This is what I do -

1. Render the image at 2x or 4x the normal size with a blackground.
2. Make a white glow texture (with the glow property set to about 4) and apply it to the whole ship. Render the scene (at either 2x or 4x again) with a green background.
3. Open both files in Photoshop. Select all the green from the second file and paste it into the first file. And export to pict.
4. Open this new hybrid file in Photoshop and select all the green. Delete the green. This will leave the ship on a translucent background.
5. Perform any lasik-ing you want on the ship (although dont reduce it in size as normal).
6. Get the background and double it in size.
7. Copy and paste the ship infront of the background.
8. Reduce in size to normal proportions.

That works nicely for me
ewan

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Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
**I use a graphic program to copy and paste the ship into the scene.

This is what I do -

1. Render the image at 2x or 4x the normal size with a blackground.
2. Make a white glow texture (with the glow property set to about 4) and apply it to the whole ship. Render the scene (at either 2x or 4x again) with a green background.
3. Open both files in Photoshop. Select all the green from the second file and paste it into the first file. And export to pict.
4. Open this new hybrid file in Photoshop and select all the green. Delete the green. This will leave the ship on a translucent background.
5. Perform any lasik-ing you want on the ship (although dont reduce it in size as normal).
6. Get the background and double it in size.
7. Copy and paste the ship infront of the background.
8. Reduce in size to normal proportions.

That works nicely for me
ewan

**

On #1 do you mean render it with the background I want to end up with? That can't be right can it? Could you have meant black background or something like that?

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Ares plugin writer and all around helpful guy... Except possibly when it comes to certain people...

Yeah, sorry, I mean a black background, I just forgot to include the "black".

I also mean to add to remember to use lights that use the colours of the nebula. Otherwise the ship wont fit into the image well

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")Ewan's Lair(/url) | (url="http://"http://dreamwave.evula.net")Dreamwave(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.northernswamp.com")Northern Swamp(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.com")EVula's Lair(/url)
"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!"

Even easier is to just render with an Alpha channel, open the pict in Photoshop, use the Alpha Channel to select the pict, and copy-and-paste the now-perfectly-masked ship image into your background image.

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Quote

Originally posted by UncleTwitchy:
**Even easier is to just render with an Alpha channel, open the pict in Photoshop, use the Alpha Channel to select the pict, and copy-and-paste the now-perfectly-masked ship image into your background image.
**

Never tried that - I'll give it a try tonight - thanks!

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")Ewan's Lair(/url) | (url="http://"http://dreamwave.evula.net")Dreamwave(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.northernswamp.com")Northern Swamp(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.com")EVula's Lair(/url)
"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!"