Texture Shadows in Max?

[nub]

Is there a way to take a texture with transparent properties and make it cast shadows accordingly? If I had, say, a metal grate texture for example, could I make it cast an accurate shadow without having to actually model the grate itself?

[source-maps]

don't know exactly because I've never tried, but you need to at least add a transparency mask to the transparency slot of your material, and use the mental ray engine instead of the scanline engine

[nub]

Yeah I've got that.

Well, the material I'm using is an Architectural material so I can make it glow and stuff. It has a slot for both Transparency and Translucency but when I applied the mask it didn't actually work, but then I looked in the Special Effects section and saw "Cut Out" and when I applied the mask to that, it became transparent. I just need the shadows to be cast according to the texture's transparency rather than the plane it's applied to.