Rendering with alpha

Fist time Blenderer.

I need an alpha applied to my render.

it’s hard for me to get a straight answer on this one as I do a google search for alpha/Blender. The ones I do get make it sound very simple except that I’m not getting an alpha channel when I render and that I already had it set the right way. I’m either doing something wrong or I don’t know how to recognize that I have an alpha channel on my final render.

I need an Alpha channel on an animation (can’t get it on a still either). It’s taking too long to render with the HDR background. It’s OK because all I need is the subject. I need to take it into AE for more stuff anyway.

I read that I should output to .png file sequence with RGBA checked. So I did. Later found out that I need to select “transparent” background. So I did. I also had to create a “movie” by assembling the .png sequence. I did. First I check to see if there was an “alpha channel” in the .png file or at lease if it was on a layer with no background. Neither existed. I brought the movie file into AE, no alpha.

BTW… The only way I know how to assemble the .png seq. is with quicktime, but then what do I save it as?

No matter what I do (stills or movie), I get a black background.

Oh, and when I created a QT movie and imported it into AE, it asks about the an “unlabeled alpha channel” but no matter what option I check, it still comes up with no alpha.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks

Hard to say for sure without an example .blend file.

Making the movie file isn’t necessary if you are importing it into AE anyway though. AE can just ingest your image sequence directly. Select the first image and make sure “image sequence” is checked in the file dialog (might be labeled “numbered stills” in some versions, I forget)