Display operator: Please make alpha value of the color picker work

[TubeSmokeGuy]

Hi!

When I change the alpha value in the color picker of the Display operator, it allways snaps back to 1 when I close the dialog and it is not applied to the particles.
It would be nice to have it work, because then I could apply some transparency to them.
This is related only to the flat colored display types without a shape or material. I know that if I apply a proper 2D/3D shape with a material which has lowered opacity, I will get semi-tranparent particles displayed, but that is not how I imagine it.

Thank you and greetings!

[TubeSmokeGuy]

Hi! Just wanted to ask again, because there was no reply.

I think it should be no problem for the viewport to draw some very simple opacity? - Would be nice if it could be available in display operator for the flat colored display types (small dots, large dots, pixels, sprites and geometry when it has no material assigned).

Thank you!

[tyFlow]

I currently use the opacity channel of particle color data sent to the GPU to store other information. Adding another channel of float data would have a detrimental performance impact when millions of particles are visible. I'm not sure I really see the benefit of semi-transparent points in the view that simply assigning a semi-transparent material to regular particle geometry wouldn't already solve...

Another workaround would be to set particles to sprite mode and then assign a semi-transparent solid color texmap to the "bitmap texture" sprite parameter. I know that's a lot more difficult than simply changing the value of the color picker, but it will accomplish what you need to do.

[TubeSmokeGuy]

Okay. Thank you for the suggestions and taking the time to explain this.