What I've learned so far:
An opaque object (such as one with a material not marked as translucent,
OR a translucent object (using material "glass" for example) which has had setNodeColor applied to it with an alpha value of anything but 1) will obscure anything
which is alphabetically lower than it (In the picture below, the windows resided in
aaaTransContainer, but parented alongside it was the brakelight (so brakeON was alphabetically higher in the list than windows), which is why it's visible behind the windows. Above aaaTransContainer in the list inside Blender, despite the difference in alphabetization, was the armature containing the steering wheel, so the steering wheel remained visible.)
A transparent object (one which was made with a translucent material) will essentially be ignored by everything below it alphabetically.
What I mean is, even if the object below it is physically behind the window, it will not be shaded by the window's color. It will appear as brightly (or darkly) as if the window was not in front of it.
Furthermore, these objects will not cast a shadow. This is something I would have liked to have pinned down a long time ago.
Most of all... starting with an opaque object, or even a translucent object, and using setNodeColor to reduce its alpha value... kind of just messes things up one way or another. So, the method I described above is kind of useless. If I'm gonna use windows, they're gonna have to come from the traditional translucent materials we know and love (and by love I mean hate).
AAAHAaAAAI'm just pasting this conversation I had because I explain it pretty thoroughly!
5:39 PM - Teneksi: ladies and gentlemen
5:39 PM - Teneksi: I MEAN
5:39 PM - Teneksi: GENTLEMAN
5:40 PM - Teneksi: ey
5:40 PM - siba: hm?
5:40 PM - Teneksi: I think
5:40 PM - siba: o
5:41 PM - Teneksi: and correct me if I'm wrong
5:41 PM - Teneksi: I loving nailed it
5:41 PM - siba: You are wrong.
5:41 PM - Teneksi: ... oh !
5:41 PM - Teneksi: well, do tell.
5:41 PM - siba: Yea uh..
5:41 PM - siba: I lied.
5:41 PM - Teneksi: what?
5:41 PM - siba: I lied about you getting it wrong.
5:42 PM - siba: I have no clue :P
5:42 PM - Teneksi: awwweee you sunofabitch
5:42 PM - Teneksi: high five
5:42 PM - Teneksi: put 'er here
5:42 PM - Teneksi: up top
5:42 PM - siba: too slow
5:42 PM - Teneksi: I loving initiated
5:42 PM - Teneksi: whatever nevermind
5:42 PM - Teneksi: um... you have no clue?
5:42 PM - siba: No clue if it does have any issues.
5:42 PM - siba: :P
5:42 PM - Teneksi: No I'm TELLING YOU
5:42 PM - Teneksi: It's TINTED WINDOWS
5:42 PM - Teneksi: You knowt he secret?
5:42 PM - Teneksi: you wanna know the secret.
5:42 PM - siba: ?
5:42 PM - Teneksi: So
5:42 PM - Teneksi: SO
5:43 PM - Teneksi: TRANSLUCENT+NEGATIVE materials. let's talk about them.
5:43 PM - Teneksi: When their material is white, they're just solid black.
5:43 PM - Teneksi: so give them a gray, and they just darken.
5:43 PM - Teneksi: so, they, like, tint the windows, right? problem is:
5:43 PM - Teneksi: when they're under shadow, they don't respond.
5:43 PM - Teneksi: The darker it is, the less opaque they look.
5:44 PM - Teneksi: Just like the "positive" translucent materials, how effective they are depends on how much light is hitting them. Except in their case, their effect is darkening. So they don't act realistic.
5:44 PM - Teneksi: your other option is "positive" translucent. You see these things all the time. It's a white sheen. It's like the window is... reverse-tinted. It's toothpasty. Try to "darken" the material, and it just becomes invisible.
5:44 PM - Teneksi: Try to make it harder to see through, the thing becomes completely white.
5:45 PM - siba: You may be the first to master transparency in DTS.
5:45 PM - Teneksi: so your options are... to make some inverted-shadows nonsense that is just visually broken, or to have our classic toothpaste-film windows.
5:45 PM - Teneksi: follow so far?
5:45 PM - siba: mhm
5:45 PM - siba: brb gotta let dog out
5:45 PM - Teneksi: now, the way to counter the behavior of the "negative" translucent material is to make it self-illuminating!
5:46 PM - Teneksi: It needs light hitting it to darken what's behind it... so, have it make its own light! Now, you have darkened windows no matter what time of day it is.
5:46 PM - Teneksi: Huge problem now though. they're flat color.
5:46 PM - Teneksi: everything behind them is just flatly darker.
5:47 PM - Teneksi: so no matter whether you're driving under the sunniest day or the darkest shadow, or contrasting between both, you don't see the difference in the window. it's just flat.
5:47 PM - Teneksi: so.... the solution
5:47 PM - Teneksi: you take the best of both worlds.
5:47 PM - Teneksi: it's deceptively simple.
5:48 PM - Teneksi: you make windows with the positive, toothpasty glass material that reflects light and responds appropriately to shadows
5:48 PM - Teneksi: and you DUPLICATE the windows, applying a self-illuminating negative translucent material.
5:49 PM - Teneksi: and you get this.
Poll