Allow Hidden Line Viewports to work like other Rendered Viewports

[Jim Smith]

For some reason that escapes my understanding, a Viewport that has a render setting of Hidden Line, does not mask other Viewports but rather acts like a cross between Hidden Line & Wireframe. I find this an odd premise. Every other style of rendering allows one to mask or block another Viewport so this is what one would assume would be the default with Hidden Line. 

 

I would like the choice with Viewports that have the render setting of Hidden Line, to behave like EVERY OTHER RENDER SETTING. 

 

The attached sample illustrates what I mean. The illustration on the Right is Open GL with Hidden Line, this is how I would like the Hidden Line to behave, not like the example on the Left 

Shelf.pdf

[Pat Stanford]

The fact that hidden line can be seen through has long been touted as a benefit.

 

Stack an OpenGL and a Hidden Line viewport and update both. You can get a rendering with crisp lines. This is the idea that generated Foreground and Background render options for viewports.

 

Since in Hidden Line all you are getting is the lines, not surfaces, how would you like it to make what is behind? Could you use a background render on the viewport to get the effect you are looking for? Maybe one of the simple Artistic Renderworks styles?

[Jim Smith]

Think of an IKEA instruction manual. One sees a hidden line, images of an exploded Grqk or HHuynkyl or øøpha cabinets (pardon my poor Swedish) 

 

So to get that kind of illustration of an exploded view of an object one must either move the Viewports so they don't "stack" over another, or use Open GL with hidden line, or spend hours fiddling with viewport crop or add junk to the annotation layer. Otherwise the result is not only counter intuitive, but it looks a mess. 

 

The idea of an exploded view is to move the Lego around so one can see how a thing will go together, and to do it in a convenient space within a Sheet. If one can't hide some items the sense of 3D space is lost as the various components would be a jumble, or one may have to use a huge Sheet to show something that could be fit on a letter size piece of paper so the pieces of Lego don't confuse or conflict with one another. 

 

Bottom line, the present arrangement is odd, & counter intuitive & my wish is to be able to have a choice between the general visibility of all other render options and this peculiar one that is on offer that needlessly adds hours to what should be a simple process.

[Andy Broomell]

Is each "illustration" three separate viewports? If it's only one viewport on each side, you shouldn't be seeing through that top piece to the middle piece, so it'd be a bug. But if it's three separate viewports then it's working as one would expect.

[Andy Broomell]

Just thought of a current possible way to make it do what you want:

• Set the foreground render to OpenGL. (Make sure OpenGL has edges turned off, and perhaps turn off Colors & Textures depending on what you're doing).
• Set foreground render to Hidden Line.
• Click Lighting Options and set Ambient Brightness to 100%.
• Render. This should work regardless of whether your illustration is one viewport or three separate viewports.

Image to illustrate:

(yellow rectangle added behind to show the white "fill").

 

 

[Jim Smith]

Andy, it seems that this isn't a bug but a "feature" I went back to VW 2009 to check to see if it was a new thing but it works the same way in 2009. I've played around with open GL to get this close to what I want, but I think this should be a function of Hidden Line.