Ive recognised that most of the nature aspect in games are 2D Alpha maps, that are made to look 3D. Take trees for example. I walked up to a tree in a game yesterday, and noticed it was flat, just a 2d texture, although as i moved around the tree, it seemed to rotate, giving the impression of being 2D. A bit like the enemies in the old DOOM and Duke Nuken games. Just 2D sprites. Anyway, is there anyway of creating this effect in MAX, or does it require programming in a game engine? ????

I think that billboarding is the way to go...

What do you mean?

Billboarding is the "trick" to show ALWAYS a face in a perpendicular angle. For example the sprites in Doom, or Dukenukem3d

You can do that in Max. You just keep rotation the objects so they face the camera.
The easiest way would be to link them to the camera''s rotation.

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I think this is done by using the ''align to camera'' function, in the ''tools'' menu.. Or you can do it by linking the object to the camera and check one of the boxes in the trajecories (or whatever) pulldown menu in one of the ''create'' tabs (the one with the wheel)...

I''ve forgotten how its done exacly, but I hope this will help you out a little...