The set object command for black transparancy works fine for me, but it didn't until Patch 3 - Have you downloaded and installed the patch? I have heard of ppl not being able to get it to work, I think it must be hardware specific. What type of graphics card do you have and do you have the very newest ddrivers for it? What O/S? What Direct X?
Um as for the texture backdrop command, I think it may have been dropped to get ppl to usesky boxes/spheres, but I may be wrong, I haven't had course to use it yet, I just seem to remember some1 mentioning this a while ago. May be wrong tho
As 4 God, um thanks

Like I said b4 tho careful u don't scare away an atheist who might know the answer 2 your questions lol j/k