Making objects transparent to align etc

[Staberinde]

Hi All,

Stoopid noob question time!
I have come across this several times in the short time I have been using hex. When I have created a basic main shape, I then want to add new shapes to add detail (in this instance, a ball into a socket (it's a gun mounting). What would make the proper alignment much easier would be if I could get the main shape (the hull) to be transparent and the ball solid.

If I select transparent display, only the selected object is transparent and the other one is solid, which is exactly the opposite of what I want! Is it possible (without making special shading domains and setting them transparent, if it can be avoided) to do this?

Any help much appreciated!

Steve

(Pictures below show what I mean)

[sailor-ed]

I don't think there is a way to do what you want without a transparent material assignment. However I usually align things using other indicators such as numeric location or visual indications like in the attached example.

[Staberinde]

Thats what I thought - the method you are using is pretty much what I'm doing now, but it can be a bit hit and miss. Thanks anyways.

[Couerl]

Hex doesn't use a hotpoint system like Carrara to align things and sometimes doing it by eye can be hard. For mechanical stuff that needs to be dead center there's other ways too.
For that particular job I would snap a polyline across the diameter of the opening and smooth the line once. This will put a point in the exact middle where you can snap your sphere and that acts like a "real" hotpoint to align things to.

I did a little movie similar to your situation, maybe it can help.

QT7-P, h264, 7,mb's
http://3dsplash.com/aligning/socket.mov

[Staberinde]

Couerl,

Thanks for that, that is a very useful technique. I'll use this regularly, I can tell.

I really appreciate your effort in showing me this.

Steve