> 1. […] convert the original image to something closer to a matte rendered mesh […]

Sounds interesting. Do you have any example images like that you could share? I understand the part about making transparent surfaces not transparent. But I’m not sure how the whole image looks like after this step.

Also, would you be willing to share the prompt you type to achieve this?

It works if you just plainly describe what you're looking for, I write a new prompt for different images just like "re-render this as a matte untextured 3d model, remove all details except geometric form"