Making a grid transparent

[john713]

Hello,
I was trying to make a grid transparent and having some problems. I created a grid by making two lines and using the blend tool to make the verticle lines. Then I grouped them, cloned them and rotated the top group. I then grouped all of them and tried to apply a transparency. It didn't work. I am doing something wrong and can't figure out what it is. Does some one have an idea.
John [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[john713]

Hello,
I was trying to make a grid transparent and having some problems. I created a grid by making two lines and using the blend tool to make the verticle lines. Then I grouped them, cloned them and rotated the top group. I then grouped all of them and tried to apply a transparency. It didn't work. I am doing something wrong and can't figure out what it is. Does some one have an idea.
John [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[arnold foss]

John
You have to convert the lines to shapes, then you can apply transparency.

Arnold

[john713]

Thank you for the help.

John

[Ross Macintosh]

Another way to do it without converting the lines to shapes is to overlay a rectangle with the same fill as your background and then apply the transparency to the overlay. Layers can be utilized to keep things managable (ie use layers with the editing turned off so you don't accidentally keep selecting the lines or the overlay. Draw any subsequent objects on a new layer above). This technique works well if you are okay with the grid appearing in the background.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[john713]

Thank you Ross.

John

[Ross Macintosh]

A wee bit of playing resulted in this example image. The grid is simply two blends. There was a bitmap-filled shape put behind. Several clones of that shape were put successively on top, each one with a slightly different eliptical transparency - used to allow part of the image mask the grid.

The grid here remains fully editable.

Regards, Ross

PS - It took just as long for me to one-finger type this posting as it did to make the image. Xara is fast, my typing is not! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>