im trying to do something very simple but every attempt I make leads nowhere. I have a rectangular black and white image I want to use as an opacity map, it even has the same proportions as a single rectangular panel. I have tried UVW mapping in both Face mode and XYZ to UVW mode but neither are helping. It seems like doing something this straightforward should be a cinch - and obviously I’m overlooking something. I have also tried to recreate my geometry thinking that it might clean up any underlying UVW co-ordinate problems - nothing.

any advice?

thanks!

Can you show some screenshots of the problem?

3ds Max 2012, Maya 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Core i7, 12GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 3700 (Driver 267.17)

My guess is that you have Max Design which defaults to Real World Map Scale for Maps/UVs. You need to turn that off both on the bitmap and the UVWMap.

Tip. It really helps if you put your Max version, and brief system specs, in your sig.

Max 4.2 through 2012 (SP2+SAP).
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.