3ds max 5 - rendering selective polys

[konvertore]

hi there,

i have a scene that scrolls sideways. and i have polys in the foreground and background, and there's 2-d character running between foreground and background elements, which i will composite later in after effects. the thing is, i want the character to run behind foreground elements. so how do i "hide" foreground poly elements and render them seperately? i tried using the "layers" options and "hiding" polys, but it doesn't seem to work... at least i have no clue how it works. how newbie of me, heh.

any help would be tremendously appreciated, thanks.

konvertore