Make easy shadowed transparent surface mode

[Tom Goddard]

It is common to show transparent surfaces (cryoEM or molecular) with an atomic model inside. The transparent surface does not cast shadows by default so the surface shows no ambient shadows and so depth perception is poor. Ambient shadows on transparent surfaces can be made with the material command transparentCastShadows option and look very good. But they make the interior atomic model black. But the shadow casting can be turned off for the interior atomic model. That combination can give a nice appearance. But no one can figure it out. It would be great to add some easy to use way (toolbar button?) to enable that type of lighting. Maybe it would remove shadows from all atomic models and add cast transparent shadows. Would also need an easy way to revert to normal lighting.

[Tom Goddard]

I'll attach some example figures of the unlit transparent surfaces from a few articles in this week's Science.

Broadly neutralizing antibodies target the coronavirus fusion peptide.
Dacon C, Tucker C, Peng L, Lee CD, Lin TH, Yuan M, Cong Y, Wang L, Purser L, Williams JK, Pyo CW, Kosik I, Hu Z, Zhao M, Mohan D, Cooper AJR, Peterson M, Skinner J, Dixit S, Kollins E, Huzella L, Perry D, Byrum R, Lembirik S, Drawbaugh D, Eaton B, Zhang Y, Yang ES, Chen M, Leung K, Weinberg RS, Pegu A, Geraghty DE, Davidson E, Douagi I, Moir S, Yewdell JW, Schmaljohn C, Crompton PD, Holbrook MR, Nemazee D, Mascola JR, Wilson IA, Tan J.
Science. 2022 Aug 12;377(6607):728-735. doi: 10.1126/science.abq3773.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq3773

Prokaryotic innate immunity through pattern recognition of conserved viral proteins
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4096

[Tom Goddard]

Unlit transparent surface

[Tom Goddard]

Unlit transparent surface

[Tom Goddard]

Unlit transparent surface

[Tom Goddard]

Tweeting an image made with such a mode would probably get it a lot of immediate use in publications.