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Is it possible to override the transparency for certain elements in the view

Isaac Newton
Enthusiast

Good time of the day, gentlemen

 

I'd like to ask you whether it's possible to override transparency for certain elements in the view. Say I'd like all the windows to be opaque, but in the same time I'd like the glass panels in railings to be transparent. Is it possible to do so, and if so could you please help me?

 

By now I've come up with a sort of a workaround by turning the tranparency in the elevations on, and adding a new rule to graphical overrides, that ascribes mirror glass surface to the windows. That way the windows are displayed as opaque in elevations, while the glass panels in railings remain transparent. The problem however is that the window mulions in this case are also diplayed as if they were made of mirror glass. If they had do have various colours, that would be a mojor complication

4 REPLIES 4
BrunoH
Expert

Hi,

Graphic override is not the solution as it only applied to whole elements, as you notice if you override the surface the whole element will be set with that surface.

The solution for Sections or Elevations views is to set Transparency on and to applied for the glasses you want to be opaque a glass surface with a Transmission value < 50 and one with is transmission value ≥ 50 for those you want to be transparent.

In Sections and Elevations Transparency is not progressive but totally opaque if Transmission <50 and totally transparent if Transmission ≥ 50.

ArchiCad 3.43 to 26
MacOS Monterey
Barry Kelly
Moderator

As you have discovered, Graphic Overrides kind of solve the problem.

But GOs work on the entire element, so the frame material changes as well as you have discovered.

 

Another thing you can do is to simply set the windows to use a different glass.

Either mirror glass as you have done or a copy of the normal glass but saved with the transparency turned off.

This is fine if you never want your windows to be transparent - otherwise you just have to change the material back to a standard glass with transparency.

And you can't save one view as transparent and another view that is not.

So this is not a good solution unless you never want the windows to be transparent.

 

You could also 'fill' your building with a large slab or morph.

Just magic wand to the inside perimeter of your external walls and make sure it is as high as the walls.

Place this slab/morph in a layer that you can turn on just for the elevations, and off for plans, sections, 3D.

Your windows can still be transparent, but you will only see as far as the slab/morph just inside the window.

 

Barry.

 

 

 

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11

Hi,

There's a better solution, see my response to Isaac.

ArchiCad 3.43 to 26
MacOS Monterey

That does work in elevation, but your window that has less than 50% transparency will appear a little darker in 3D compared to the fully transparent glass.

Not a big difference, but it might be noticeable and may depend on where the sun/light is coming from.

 

BarryKelly_0-1679648287086.png

I guess it all depends on how fussy you want to be.

 

Barry.

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
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