okay
you can create a view which only shows this model, no other things (just create it far enough away from the level and give it a short clipping range)
create a new bitmap, assign this bitmap about 3 frames to the view render target and then convert the format to a better format than render target:
BMAP *render = bmap_createblack(256,256,24);
viewEnt.pos_x = 0;
viewEnt.pos_y = 0;
viewEnt.size_x = bmap_width(render);
viewEnt.size_y = bmap_height(render);
viewEnt.bmap = render;
wait(3); //Let the image render
viewEnt.bmap = NULL;
bmap_to_format(render, 888); // COnvert it back to 24 bit image
