transparency in viewport

[simon]

Hi Im new to softimage (maya user). I'm learning "Automotive Modeling in XSI" and im stuck with a simple problem, trying to give the headlamp-cover transparency. But it doesn't show transparency in the viewport, though if I change the color for the blinn material, I can see it in the viewport.

[dan]

Hi simon! There are a couple things you’ll want to do. First is to make sure that transparency is enabled in the camera display. If you’re able to see transparency with your blinn, then I’d assume that you have this enabled but it doesn’t hurt to double-check. Also you’ll want to make sure that your material actually has transparency applied to it. Here’s a quick look at how you can do that:


24466345

Here's a link to the Automotive Modeling in XSI (http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=3606) course that was referenced in the video.

[Strelok]

In addition the the great advice Dan gave here, I would add this:
Over the past few versions of Softimage I've seen some cases of some mighty unusual behavior in both XSI and mental ray nodes, where sometimes they seem to just "break" for no apparent reason and act very strangely.
It seems to happen mostly when switching from a mental ray node like mia_material_x to something else and back, but I've never been able to reproduce it at will. It just happens, but not often. It seems to happen when switching materials often, like Softimage just gets sick of me not making up my mind and just gives up. ;)
Fixing it is easy enough though, by simply deleting the current node and simply replacing it with a new one of the same type. That has worked for me almost every time, but in a few cases I actually had to reassign the entire material with a different name and then replace the nodes.
And speaking of transparency, if you use transparency maps in Softimage, it's always better to use the "Use Alpha" checkbox and an image with an alpha channel like png, tga or tiff, than to use the regular diffuse sliders.

By the way that Automotive Modeling course is simply amazing, definitely one of my favorites of all time and probably the single best car modeling tutorial ever made.