If by 32 bit you mean 24 bit color with 8 bit alpha/transparency, then I have something working. Also, if you're wondering about a file format, .tif works fine. Its lossless and supports alpha channel transparency. Here is how you will have to set up your render layer for a depth pass with transparency though: Step 1 -…
It's all the time, my idea was having the selection type to toggle between box/ lasso but whenever the mouse is over an object it will change to paint selection instead. Something like how modo works on it's selection. Max's default feels a little bit 'stiff' compare to modo :\
Clouds can sort of work, if you then select each brick and rotate/flip to get back some seams. Though it might be simpler to just select a few bricks (unconnected ones) and run clouds, then select another few and again, until you've had all.
It's probably not disappearing, but shrinking down to where you can't see it. A good way to check this is to select everything that is still visible (Don't just marquee select an area- ctrl click on individual shells) and then invert the selection. Resetting your Xform usually fixes it-- in my experience.
Hmm, thank god they finally put soft selection in. Soft Modification tool was just about the worst implementation of a soft selection thing I've ever seen Multi-selection should be nice. Will have to see if we can get this update at work, should be useful.
More then likely the UV pieces need to be flipped. If you're using 3dsmax go into the UVEditor window, select face mode, click Select > Select Inverted Faces. Flip anything it highlights. If you used the mirror tool it inverts your UV's and they always need to be flipped.
problem is luke if you select each colour with the magic wand you get horrible ragged edges. is there a better way to select your colours and get clean edges like the alpha channel does? select by colour range still gives me slightly weird edges
manipPivot -p repositions the gizmo of your component selection in world space. xform -ws -piv repositions the gizmo of your object selection in world space. I don't think there's a way to move a shell selection to world space with a single command that also retains component spacing.
I use Modo, but maybe Maya has something similar. It has a useful edge selection tool called diagonal which selects the diagonals you need to remove to go back to a quads mesh. It's not perfect but it does a good 80% of the job, the selection needs to be adjusted by hand.
Looks like you've turned on soft selection. Double click the select (or translate/rotate/scale) tool on the left toolbar and in the tool settings palette uncheck soft selection. I'm not a regular Maya user so I don't know what the hotkey is, or if there even is one by default.