MeTaL Fixer Tutorial 2

Part 2 of the MeTaL Fixer Tutorial - Transparency Maps or Tricking Bryce into Importing Transparency Maps.
Getting transparency maps into Bryce - Ever wanted to get Bryce to import transparency maps automatically? Well, using MeTaL Fixer and some finagling in Poser, you can. This works best on items that don't have bump maps, but can be used on items with both bump maps and transparency maps, if you're willing to fix a couple of things in Bryce.
Okay, as usual, load your figures, clothing, hair, etc. in Poser and save your pz3 file. If you want to be extra careful, save the file again under a new name after you do the stuff below.
Select Render : Materials ... from the menu to get the Surface Materials panel. Select the object with the transparency map from the Object pull-down list, in this case, the hair. Notice that there is no bump map for the hair.
Click on Load in the Bump Map section, then locate and select the transparency map for the item. Click on Open.
The transparency map is now loaded into the Bump Map section.
If the item has more than one transparency map, like the Total Hair for example, you only need to select one material zone for each transparency map, or all of them if you want to.
Okay, so what if the item already has a bump map, then what? Well, you could select just one piece of the item, say, the cuff or the shin or whatever, and load the transparency map just on that body part ... Now, save your pz3 file and export the obj. If you don't save the pz3 file after moving the transparency map, then it won't be in the right place in the pz3 file and MeTaL Fixer won't be able to pull it out. Run the mtl file through MeTaL Fixer and then import the obj into Bryce.
In Bryce, select the item with the transparency map and enter the Material Lab. It will look something like this: Notice that the transparency map was loaded into the Texture B area. Click on the Pink Dot for that texture and enter the Picture Editor.
This is what it will look like:
Click on Copy under the transparency map in the first box, then click on Paste under the middle box. Choose Delete when asked. It will now look like this:
Now, click on the black circle over the first box and choose Delete when asked.
And here is the final result: Accept the changes and return to the MatLab.
And here is the result:
Now you can set your transparency settings for the item: Move the blue ball for the bump map from the second column back to its place and click next to Transparency in the second column to add the transparency then Select Blend Transparency. Make any other changes you want to and then accept the changes to go back to the main Bryce window.
Here's a quick render showing the result just for the hair.
For those items that have both a bump map and a transparency map, just use a variation on this to get them both on the item. In Poser, apply the trans map to one body part of the item, although if the item only has one or two material zones, then you'll need to select another body part, like the teeth of the figure to apply the trans map to. I tried doing this on the Victoria catsuit which has two material zones and it didn't take. I also tried adding the trans map to Victoria 1's toenails, but since they come in to Bryce as one mesh with the toes, this didn't work either. Selecting the shin or something would probably have worked better but it was 2 am and I was tired. I ended up loading Victoria 2 instead. Just remember what body part(s) you added the trans maps to so you can select them in Bryce. Okay, save your pz3 file, export the obj, and run the mtl through MeTaL Fixer, then import into Bryce.
Select the body part(s) that you applied the trans map to, in my case, I added it to Victoria 2's teeth Enter the MatLab and you'll see something like this: Enter the Picture Editor for the transmap.
Copy the trans map to the second channel and set the first one to black. The transparency is now set, so I selected the texture for the body bump map instead, copied the bump map into the second channel, and accepted the changes.
And here's the teeth:
Now, for the catsuit, the second texture is the bump map, so I went into the Picture Editor and copied the bump map into the second channel and accepted the changes. Next, I clicked in the third column next to Transparency, clicked on P, entered the Picture Editor and selected the fixed trans map texture from the teeth fix. I accepted the changes, modified my settings, and selected Blend Transparency.
And here's the result:
Play around with moving transparency maps to different body parts in Poser to see which ones work best for you or for a particular item.
Have fun and hope this utility and tutorial are useful to you.
Peacock outfit from Renderosity freestuff.