January 31, 2011, 01:17:59 pm
Yes, alpha maps including shadows are supported in Update 1 Release Candidate 4 (Currently only available to paying customers – the demo version of Lumion will be updated when Update 1 Final is ready for release). The Standard material basically allows you to use alpha maps, e.g. as part of a 32-bit texture, and a slider allows you to choose whether you want to use the alpha channel as a reflection map or as a transparency map (clip).
Please note that Lumion uses a threshold to convert greyscale alpha maps to pure white/pure black, so metal fences are perfectly feasible but all edges will be hard.