clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

> Maybe you want to go for the current 3.7.0 release candidate instead.
> Faster (supporting multi-core CPUs), better, nicer, and I did some work
> on the alpha handling there myself, so if there happens to be something
> wrong as well, I'm right here to take the blame :-)

Ah, then you're the man to ask about this, as well. POV is letting me specify
Output_File_Type=S  +UA
which on Windows should be giving me a 32 bit deep .bmp file with 8 bits of
alpha. Microsoft has apparently been iffy about formally supporting all the
possible variants of transparency in a .bmp file, but this form at least should
be solid.

But when I specify S +UA, and render, the preview window shows the transparency
checkboard, but the actual .bmp is being written 24 bits deep, which I'm pretty
certain means there's no possible way the .bmp file has any alpha in it.

Am I missing something? The messages window is promising

Output Options
  Image resolution 512 by 384 (rows 1 to 384, columns 1 to 512).
  Output file: C:\Users\Scott\Documents\POV-Ray\v3.6\scenes\experiment.bmp, 32
bpp with alpha (system format)

But the generated .bmp is very definitely 24 bits deep with a "compression"
format of BI_RGB and a header size of 40 bytes, which means the data word that
describes the alpha width isn't even available.

I really, really need .bmps with transparency. I'll try my luck with 3.7

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