How can I get realistic shadows by using GIF-pictures as textures?
 

hello!
I've got a big problem while rendering a little animation in maya..
I've created a lot of NURBS planes and gave them GIF-pictures (*.gif) as textures.. the reason I've chosen GIF-pictures is that I wanted to have no background behind my little 2D-buddies (see link).. it all worked really well, but when you have a look at the shadows, you can still see a bit of the corners of the imageplanes.. I used raytracing shadows and raytracing to avoid this, but it's still not perfect..
please have a look at the following link:
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?i...chattenki6.jpg
I really hope you can help me, because this project has to be finished tomorrow and there are approximately 5 hours of rendering waiting for me..
bye

use tiffs with an alpha channel. Gifs are crap and only used for web stuff not CG

Alan