Transparency Support in Arctic

I would love to have better transparency in the arctic display mode. I really like to use arctic, but the transparent materials are all or nothing so I have to overlay multiple images which works but is time consuming. Hoping that can get on the list.

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Supporting transparency would be great.
You can set up objects to use rendered mode though (on a per object basis) but I don’t know how that works with arctic. (Logged off the computer for the night)

Arctic supports full gradient of transparency (via Custom Material > Retain Transparency), but you may need to tweak the default shadow settings for that display mode. Set it to Always Cast Shadows and it should work:

3 Likes

This really helped. Thanks.
It’s becoming really tough to decipher those convoluted view settings…

1 Like

Great. Agree that some features are well hidden but that’s the price to pay for so fully customizable display engine. I still prefer that than a few basic presets that we can’t change…

-j

That’s not my point.
The settings could be as numerous, but well organised.
In this particular case, what’s the point in this “Custom material” setting ?
Why can’t I just use the object’s color and set some transparency ?
And what’s that fuss with the shadows settings ?

So yeah there’s all these fantastic possibilities, but I suspect that many less persistent users will never benefit from them because of the labyrinthic settings, exceptions, wierd cases,…

I agree. Just don’t have a good solution to suggest to make it better and not limiting in all possible configurations. I would actually keep adding more customizations.
Hoping we will see separate settings for Skylight and Cast Shadows in V7 which should be a nice improvement for display speed and quality.

I think I’m missing something - I can’t seem to get this to work for a copy of Arctic in R7.

SetObjectDisplayMode for selected objects set to “P2Arctic2” should be transparent
DisplayMode for viewport set to “P5Rendered”

Any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

P4Arctic2.ini (12.9 KB)
P5Rendered.ini (12.8 KB)

SystemInfo

Rhino 7 SR36 2023-12-12 (Rhino 7, 7.36.23346.16351, Git hash:master @ 11a364321297eb8cdb34405a3308d8911f58706d)
License type: Commercial, build 2023-12-12
License details: Cloud Zoo

Windows 10 (10.0.17134 SR0.0) or greater (Physical RAM: 16Gb)

Computer platform: LAPTOP - Plugged in [100% battery remaining]

Non-hybrid graphics configuration.
Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA Quadro P2000 with Max-Q Design (NVidia) Memory: 4GB, Driver date: 2-15-2024 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 551.61
> Integrated accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
- Windows Main Display is laptop’s integrated screen or built-in port

Secondary graphics devices.
Intel(R) UHD Graphics P630 (Intel) Memory: 1GB, Driver date: 2-18-2021 (M-D-Y).
> Integrated graphics device with 3 adapter port(s)
- There are no monitors attached to this device. Laptop lid is probably closed

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
Graphics level being used: OpenGL 4.6 (primary GPU’s maximum)

Anti-alias mode: 8x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 2-15-2024
Driver Version: 31.0.15.5161
Maximum Texture size: 32768 x 32768
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 32768 x 32768
Total Video Memory: 4 GB

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Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\SolidTools.rhp “SolidTools”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 7.36.23346.16351
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