You aren't altering the properties of the object, but the properties of it's stroke, which is as far down the properties hierarchy as possible! Guaranteed transparency! You do this by clicking on the Stroke attribute and changing the value in the transparency panel.

In the Appearance panel you can now isolate this object's stroke transparency properties. Open your Appearance panel (Window > Appearance) and use the Direct Selection tool to click on a vector whose transparency you wish to alter. We wouldn't have a group to expand, yet we'd still need to alter the transparency of an element within our vector, so this is where the third correct method comes into play.ģ. Imagine instead that we'd built a single vector to make a green glass bottle and we also wanted to apply a transparency. However, imagine that we didn't have a group. This transparency isn't flattened and the effect works. Illustrator has flattened the transparency of the main object (in this case the group of vectors) though now we've altered the properties of an object within our group. Technically we've just achieved the look we wanted, but in terms of best practices this method isn't going to win a gold star. By selecting just those we need and altering their opacity we can give our bottle a transparent look (see the second image below). Instead we could expand the group in the Layers panel or double click the object to reveal the group elements. This is because when Illustrator renders an object in 3D it first flattens the transparency of that object (see the first image below).Ģ. Furthermore, you won't even be able to see the reverse side of the object, it will have been treated as a 2D image. By selecting the 3D bottle and reducing the opacity in the transparency panel the whole object will fade. There are several ways in which you may think to approach this, so I'll first cross off the incorrect ways, and then demonstrate how it should be done.ġ. We now have a nice 3D bottle with a label and a bit of lid texture, but the plastic and the cola is opaque we need to resolve the issue of transparency (here comes the most important part of the tutorial).

3d shapes illustrator