This is a simple texturefile with an alpha (mask) channel:
Result in the interactive viewport (the shader with the texturemap is
assigned to a nurbsplane):
but if you render it in the software renderer you don't get the same
result:
rendered in the sw-renderer, no transparency...
Ok so lets take a look at the shadernetwork:
Currently only the 'Out Color' of 'file1' is connected to 'color' of
'blinn1'
Since alphachannels are opacity based and maya's shaders are transparency
based (opposites) you cannot just connect the Alpha (alpha out) to the
transparency of the shader, you need to invert it first.
This is done with the 'reverse node':
Utilities->General->reverse
Now mmb-drag the file-node (file1) onto the reverse-node, this opens the 'connection editor' (this can also be opened manually through window->connectioneditor):
Here you need to connect the 'Out Alpha' of the file-node to the X,Y,Z components of the 'input' on the reverse-node:
This updates the hypershade:
:
Now you need to connect the output of the reverse-node to the Transparency
of the shader-node (blinn1).
This can be done either by the connection editor, or by mmb-dragging
the reversenode onto the transparency parameter of the shadernode in the
AttributeEditor.
The result in the connection editor/hypershade is:
Ok lest do a testrender:
Ok thats better but you can still see the result of the specular-reflection, to get rid of this you can connect the 'Out Alpha' of the file-node directly to the R,G and B components of the 'Specular Color' on the shader-node:
And heres the resulting render:
The resulting hypershade looks like:
The shader
can be downloanded, and so can the circle-image
Good luck with it.