Is there a way to make opacity work on a lowpoly object without transparent render?

[stankyte]

I have a low-poly plank, UV'd and with texture and a normal map. I sculpted the hires version for details in zBrush and baked the details on top. I really wanted round corners on the plank and got the desired results with alpha maps. The problem is now that round corners obviously make the object see-through where I don't want it. Is there a way to go around this issue (don't want to re-do all of the work on zBrush, uv map all planks I've done, rebake etc.) or do I just have to live with square corners?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[hkmaincontact]

So you want the alpha to work from some angles, but not from others? I really don’t see how that would be possible. As in: How would the alpha know when to show transparency, and when not to?

[stankyte]

Yeah the more I thought about it the more I realised I don't think it's possible. I just thought maybe there's a way to add something onto the map to add a colour or if there's a different way to achieve the look without changing the subdivisions. Thanks for the reply though! I appreciate it.