I was wondering if it were possible to create an object that is always viewed as a solid in the 3D view, regardless of what viewing mode the rest of the model is in. I want to use this in a similar way that I’d use a background image (I’d put it in the scene underneath the objects I’m editing, disable selection, and put it in its own layer so I can easily turn it on and off), but there’s a couple reasons I’d prefer an object.
- Sometimes I’d want to see it from oblique viewpoints
- I’d want to edit the background map periodically
- The last time I used a background image it made Blender into a slow unresponsive mess, though in fairness that was a long time ago, on Linux, with an NVidia card during a period when their Linux drivers were not so good
Here’s my use case: I am working on a large landscape with different “countries”, and I want to know what country I’m in. I created a “map” object, with different material representing different countries, in a layer that I can turn on and off, but I can’t see what country I’m in (or even the borders) when I’m in wireframe mode. And when I’m in solid mode I can’t see the map because the landscape covers it. So I have to flip the map on and off, which is kind of a pain. Also, the borders are flexible at this point, so I’d want to edit the borders as I add rivers and stuff. My scripts use the map to divvy up the large scene into smaller regions, so the borders have to be accurate.
Anyway, thanks for any help.