Opacity Maps Test

In my meeting with Adam on Friday, we discussed the possibility of making a headdress for the Indian character.
He suggested using opacity maps to make clumps of feathers, then using these to construct the headdress. I haven't used opacity maps before, so i decided to do a quick test to see if i could achieve the effect i wanted.

As this is just a test, I started by finding a picture on Google. If i was to use this method for my project, i would likely scan a feather in, or use a picture I have taken myself.

   Using Google images i found this picture. I then took it into Photoshop to create an opacity map. To create the opacity map I first exported the diffuse map, then i edited the image using various setting. Firstly I desaturated the image, making the image gray scaled. I then inverted this, so that the background was black, and the image of the feather was a mix of greys. I then adjusted the brightness and contrast to make the difference in colour more apparent.

 
 I then imported the two images into Max, and made them into a material. I then applied the material to a plane, and this was the final result.

  When rendered, only the white areas of the opacity map are rendered, the black areas are ignored. This is shown in the image above, as the ball behind the plane is visible, even though the plane obscures it in the view port.