Flat transparency, at layer or viewport level, rather than textures

[Christiaan]

The attached image has been produced by rendering (OpenGL) the trees in a separate viewport, then adjusting their opacity in an image editor, then combining the background + trees in image editor.

 

Is there any way to achieve this kind of thing in Vectorworks without resorting to an image editor? I've tried using a texture to make the trees transparent but this doesn't give us the flattened overall transparency effect that we can achieve in an image editor. 

 

If we had transparency control at the viewport level then I could render the trees in a separate viewport and then simply make that viewport transparent.

 

Or if we could adjust the opacity of the Design Layer that the trees are on perhaps I could do it this way; problem is we appear to have this ability but when I adjust the opacity of that layer and re-render nothing happens.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Christiaan

[Hans-Olav]

Isn't there a setting " render grey layers transparent " somewhere? Can it solve the problem?

Just guessing (-: 

 

Hans-Olav

[zeno]

You should find the 3D symbol model in resource browser, duplicate it, assign a specific render texture and set the opacity on the texture settings. After that, you replace the specific symbol whit the transparent copy

[Andy Broomell]

22 minutes ago, Zeno said:

You should find the 3D symbol model in resource browser, duplicate it, assign a specific render texture and set the opacity on the texture settings. After that, you replace the specific symbol whit the transparent copy

 

I think the issue Christiaan is talking about is that applying a transparent texture looks different than what he's trying to achieve, which is a "flat" transparency across all the trees. Looking at his image, notice that you don't see through one tree to another tree. Instead, all of the trees together are slightly transparent, almost like an entire layer in Photoshop.

 

I don't think there's any current way to achieve this in Vectorworks, but I'd LOVE to have the ability to set the opacity of a Viewport, for this and other reasons. Currently, opacity in the Attributes Palette is greyed out when a Viewport is selected.

[Hans-Olav]

Hi Christiaan 

 

In a viewport, if you gray the layer with the trees and use this setting in the advanced properties, What happens?