"ghosting" or reducing opacity of layers

[Anonymous]

will AC allow me to select certain layers (that might contain alot of elements) and gray it out?

for example. on my site plan, i want to show all of the site lines and the subject residence at 100%, but all other houses (that will be on one layer) to show at like 50%.

thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

if you want to show this on a layout (and then for printing/publishing), it can be done by using pensets.

save the items as separate views (one showing site lines and subject residence, the other all the details you want greyed out) and superimpose them on the layout sheet (you might want to use hotspots to make alignment easier and group the two drawings).

the first view would be assigned your standard penset. for the second, create a new pen set with the relative pens set to grey (or whatever colours you prefer); set this penset to the drawing containing items you want "greyed out".

in the model view window, i don't think this is possible (except for directly changing the pen colours to suit), although if you set up the separate views as mentioned above, you can use the trace reference function (where you can set a custom colour and opacity to the reference view) to achieve it, which you can then print if required.

[JaredBanks]

You can do it with pen sets and only one view on the layout. I am never a fan of overlaying views. Too many opportunities for accidents.

Check out my blog posts on pen sets, particularly Pen Sets, Part One. This is how I handle halftone plans. It's pretty much flawless once your drawings are set up correctly. And this could be appended to your current penset by added a new pen that stays black while everything else goes gray. That way you won't have to reassign the pens of everything you've already created.

Here's the link:
http://www.shoegnome.com/tag/pen-sets/

[Dwight]

CHEAP AND NASTY METHOD:

Suppress element visibility using an overlaid scrim.

This is done with a 50% [or so] fill, white, with no background fill color.

Bring elements forward/send elements backward until you achieve the right interleaving.

[JaredBanks]

Dwight,

wow. That is cheap and REALLY nasty. Never thought of that. Seems like that'd work really well to gray out portions of buildings that aren't part of the contract.

[Anonymous]

thanks fellas.

since im not familiar with pen sets yet, ill opt for the quick way.

but ill def check out your blog. jared. if i have to continue to work in this blasted software, i wanna set it up right. i hope the latest version is better than 11 that i am in.

thanks again.

[Anonymous]

WELL,

AGAIN I AM STUMPED. GEEZ!

I have a lot of experience in illustration software and AutoCad so I understand what i am supposed to be doing, but fall short in getting AC to work with me.....Im trying though. lol

i have made a layer in the "site layer set" made a large hatched box at 50% fill and brought it to the front also moving the layer to where i needed it in order to mask the site information on the layer below it.

results: it blocks out everything 100% except for a few elements. i have tried to move the box to the upper most layer, and the lower, and tried bring it to the front each time. it says the box is in front.

I apologize for posting such post trivial issues.
i need to watch some more tutorials on layer management !!!

[JaredBanks]

Is the background of the fill set to transparent?

[Anonymous]

well i was trying to delete my last post, but you beat me to it. i finally got it to work..


BUT, that graphic helps me to know how to edit/create colors and such...thanks!

ill get there sooner or later.

thanks again

[Anonymous]

the print did not come out correctly.

what looks correctly transparent on screen came out solid and 75% gray (leaving a large gray box) instead of simply transparent "white"

man.