normal maps and alpha?

Hi, I've been working with OFusion off and on for about a month now for an independent game project. I've been having some problems with combining support for alpha and normal maps. the main issue is that the .dds file smooths shading over all areas of the model, including those with alpha. Is there any way to have it both ways? There also seems to be a depth fighting issue, which I can sometimes get to stop showing up in the view window, but always shows up in the actual ogre engine when I use normal maps. I'm using 3dsmax 8, with Azathoth, and OFusion 5 5.9 ssp6. Anybody have any suggestions?



This is the issue I keep having where the normals don't seem to recognize the correct depth.


And this is the issue with the normal mapping layer/alpha...

any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

You can test by deselecting the Z buffer of the .dds pass (depth read/write)

And set alpha blend mode to the transparent texture or the pass