Text effects in 3DS Max...

[Ranma]

How do you make text transparent in 3DS Max? I've tried just about everything I can think of but nothing seems to work. Plus, the text has to fade in and out with the animation, so generally that involves changing the value of the alpha channel but you can't manipulate channels in 3DS Max like you can in Photoshop. We can always apply a transparent material like glass to the text but we want the opacity to change over time, and we don't want the text to be affected by any lighting or anything. I can't figure out how to do it in 3DS Max, but as a last resort we will use Final Cut Pro to add it in or even Flash if we have to. So please help someone! Don't make us use our last resort! Thank you.