base sphere: changing alpha but no visible effect

[ilozen]

I want to make a basic sphere, semi-transparent, visible in edit mode of the level editor.
I’ve made a new Actor BP, added Sphere component. In Consctruction Script I get the Material Instance of the sphere, get it’s ‘Color’ parameter, change alpha value and set the material back.
If I get the material from sphere once more after that, the alpha value IS changed. However, on the level there is no visual difference for any alpha value between 0 and 1 including.

What am I doing wrong?

Here’s the sphere with alpha set to 0.01:

[DonBusso]

You need to specify source material.

[OliverOsborn555]

Thanks for sharing this with everyone.

[ilozen]

Wheter I select it or get it from the Sphere, there is still no difference

[DonBusso]

Let’s see the material.

[ilozen]

It’s the “BasicShapeMaterial”:

[DonBusso]

It seems I didn’t understand this correctly myself. I think what you’re trying to achieve is transparency for the sphere?

In that case you would need to change material to translucent so you get access to opacity pin, then use scalar parameter to control the value. Value of 0.01 might be a bit to low and you might think it’s completely translucent (it’s not but it’s really hard to make out, suggest using something like .1 or 0.05).

I tried to make it work just by using Alpha but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Perhaps a material guru can clarify this.

Apologies for confusion, I learned something new today.
Hope that works for you.