disapearing background

[mike46]

Hi

just read the post on disapearing layerlinks.

my problem is somewhat similar I have a file with 3 layers the botom is the background with only a bitmap image the second is title blocks and border and the top is an overlay on the bitmap with a few rectangles and nurbs representing the building and drivway . when I created this drawing all workd as advertised and upon rendering all were visable but after printing the background layer disapeared . rendering in the view menue is set to fast rw and all classes and layers are set to visable

I have tried restart and changing the class and layer visibilities and one combination (or coincidence ) I got it to render properly again but once again as soon as the file was printed it disapeared I hope some one has some ideas on this one I am stumped

Mike p4 1.7 gig 512 ram vw/rw 10 nvidea geforce 2

[Robert Anderson]

Mike, what you are seeing is the Renderworks rendering "whiting out" the background behind. This is because RW does not support "alpha channel" rendering. In RW10, you can create a "Layer background" which can be shader-produced "clouds", color gradients, or an image which you can then assign to a layer to get the effect you want.

[mike46]

Hi Robert

Thanks for getting back to me

I thought that was what I was doing I created a rw background in the resource browser then created a new layer in the layers dialog box and set the rw background dropdown to the rw background i had just created ,rendered the drawing and bingo there it was till I printed ..

I have been playing with it since and found I can get it back by rendering in shaded polygon the re rendering in fast rw also when it is not working properly other strange visability problems occur ie I have a wht rectangle I am using as a mask on the same layer drawn on top of it are a pair of nurbs curves that represent the driveway when it is proprly rendered ( the background is displayed) the wht rectangle is invisable and the nurbs can be seen but when the background disapears the portion of the nurbs that overlay the wht rectangle also disapear and sending the rectangle to the rear has no efect ?

I am getting more confused as I go ??? I have recreated the efect in a new document afert a restart also tried turning off hdw accelertion on my vid card (problems with that before) with no change

Thanks mike

[Robert Anderson]

mike, email me <randerson@nemetschek.net> a copy of your file and I'll take a look at it. May be the issue is "fast" renderworks vs. "final" renderworks. As for "blocking out", mixing 2D and 3D in a single layer to blockout may not be reliable, unless you put it on another (later) layer.