Add viewport options to display objects that are visible but not selectable as dimmed wireframes.
Edited to remove unrelated request from post description.
Disabling the selectability of a collection in Blender is the same as having a Reference Layer in Maya (except maya actually tries to visually indicate that objects on that layer cannot be selected).
But maya also has another layer state called Template that both makes objects unselectable and displays them as wireframe. Sometimes you want template mode to have something to snap too without it visually distracting you from what you're focused on and other times you just want to speed up the viewport by setting a lot of things in 1 layer to wireframe while leaving other things solid/textured.
4 Comments
can you provide a specific example of what you are doing?
When I have visible objects that won't be rendered, I just give them a distinct material color (like purple, max render=wireframe) that shows me they are not render objects, but they are for something else.
I should have put that half of the post as a separate post. It probably is insignificant enough to just have as an addon instead of built into blender. But the main title of the post is something that other software popular in the 3d industry has.
I think that is more easy to know what you have in your scene, instead to check a constantly what objects are inside the actual camera view and if they have the render activated. All with a text jumping all time.
I mean... your are asking for a custom tool that only solves that you don't want to know your scene.
Why not a message of "you have 5 cubes in the scene"? or "you have six lights in the camera right know".
If you want to know if you have hidden/renderable objects go to outliner.
As a life long fabricator, I spend much time in a workshop. For years GOOD practice in a shop was put things in drawers (Drop-Down Menus). No, take things out of drawers and display them in the open for quick identification and selection. No more rooting around in drawers wondering where your tool is. Or more important that you even have that tool.
Thanks to Blenders developers customizing blender is easy. Especially if you use Pi Menu Editor. From my little experience with 2.8 I can tell I've got a lot of customizing to do.
My guess is Blender developers are fighting the KISS battle of UI design. The two big problems are keeping the interface light and friendly for the amateur market. And making the UI fit/scale on smaller screens like laptops (thanks laptop users for stunting the UI's of the world, but that's another rant;).
Sure I've asked for changes here but it's a fraction of the changes I have done to 2.79 and will do to 2.8 for my own needs. Again I would say 70% of the requests made for changes in Blender can be handled by Pi Menu Editor. Not to say stop asking for and sharing concerns and ideas. That's what this forum is all about.