How do I make an object invisible but still functional?

So, I made a test file and managed to get the invisible swatch working but...lol. Gravity doesn't work anymore, apparently.

https://i.imgur.com/SwVeqMK.png

And at night, just as expected...the phantom light

https://i.imgur.com/0kuQCWg.png

When it's invisible, you can still interact with the rink, but the animations are now borked. And, since I've got like five projects I'm working on at the moment, I don't think I want to tackle this floating sim issue. Here are the files for my quick and dirty test if you want to try to solve the zero gravity thing. Note that, regarding the light, I think if you choose to keep it for the sake of the visible swatch, you will be stuck with it for the invisible swatch. I don't think you can keep it for one swatch but remove it for the other if that makes sense.

If you make any headway with this project, please let me know. I'd like to know why the sim is suddenly flying.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/48j4atpckegkix5/Test+Invisible+Rink.rar/file

Well, I took a look at the skating and ice rinks and they have lights and sound attached. If you made the rink invisible, whether by replacing the meshes with empty meshes or whether by enabling alpha transparency and using a texture with an alpha channel for your invisible swatch (which, at first glance, would be likely the best method if you want both a visible and invisible swatch) there is still the issue of the light source and speakers for the music. If you made the rink invisible you would have a light source just sort of hanging out, phantom-like. You could perhaps edit the light source so that it's so small it's almost invisible. I haven't done this myself but here's an excellent discussion on how to edit a light source: https://sims4studio.com/thread/1451/light-source-solved?page=2&scrollTo=21199 You could even try removing the light source altogether but I have no idea whether doing so would bork things. Generally, I think it's not a good idea to delete things. As for the speakers, wouldn't you need to have something visible so that you can click on it in order to turn on/off the music and/or change the music? That issue would require some thought...and likely some outside help. If I were you I'd post your question at Sims4Studio.com. They are wonderful over there.

Edit: Looks like you can actually remove a light source from something. The tutorial is here: https://sims4studio.com/thread/882/mini-tutorial-remove-light-lamp?page=1

I don't know if this will help and I'd have to do some research/experimentation, but looking at Bakie's invisible dance floor, it looks as if the main mesh is an empty mesh. As if he took dance floor mesh into Blender, went into edit mode (press "Tab"), highlighted the whole mesh (press "A") then deleted all the faces while still in edit mode (press "X," then choose "faces"). Just make sure the main mesh has the correct cut numbers. I haven't played the game in a while--real life keeps getting in the way, lol--but looking at the skating rink in Blender, it looks a little complicated. For one thing, it has three meshes...and does it have lights attached to it? I need to look at this in the game to get a better idea of how the rink works. I'll get back to you on this. Give me a day or two.

"MonaCool;c-17832953" wrote:
Has anyone succeeded in creating an invisible roller skating rink, yet? I'd loooove to have one but I failed using the above instructions.

Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck.
I'm gonna try requesting if someone can under the mods thread. If I find something, I'll comment here again.

Has anyone succeeded in creating an invisible roller skating rink, yet? I'd loooove to have one but I failed using the above instructions.

Thought I'd update this thread with what I've learned. I FINALLY (!!!) figured out how to make OMSPs. First, you don't need to do this with every swatch if you are intending that only one swatch be invisible.

For the invisible swatch, follow this tutorial to add and enable "alpha blended." https://sims4studio.com/thread/1037/make-object-transparency-add-alpha?page=1

Then, and again, this is only necessary for the invisible swatch, change the shader to "phong alpha."

Lastly, use a blank png texture file for the invisible swatch.

I found that by doing things this way I am able to interact with my object when it's invisible.

HOWEVER, I did some testing just now and found that if I simply changed the shader to "phong alpha" on my invisible swatch and didn't add "alpha blended", I was able to interact with my OMSP once it was invisible. This makes me wonder if the most recent patch fixed things.

Hope this helps :smile:

Bumping because I, too, am having issues with making items invisible.

Have you managed to create an invisible skating rink? If so, would you mind sharing it with me?
I'm searching for one right now but there seems to be no cc for that.

maybe the reply to this topic on the S4S Forums will help?
http://sims4studio.com/thread/6519/invisible-objects