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Before I begin

Let me state my end goal here before I continue, in case the method I'm using isn't the best way: I'm trying to make text appear and disappear in an animation. What I'm doing now is animating a mix shader with a transparent node and a diffuse node. If this is the wrong way, please correct me.

Please ignore this part. Workaround found. However, my question still stands.

I have a text object in my scene that I'm trying to switch between transparent and opaque. However, instead of getting transparent text, I'm getting a grey colored text.

enter image description here

I've tried the method on other objects, and it works there, but not on the text.

Any help is appreciated.

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This is because the text is in the same place as the background plane.

TL;DR: Move the text a little above the plane so they don't intersect and interfere.

Blender has no way of knowing if the text should be on top (and invisible) or if the background plane should be on top (obscuring the text). Even though either scenario comes to the same result in this particular case, such an undefined situation is liable to cause undefined behavior.

What happens is some cycles form of z-fighting (the classic z-fighting artifacts only seem to appear when in ortho view and from some angles). If you put an object behind the plane and text, the issue becomes clearer:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ How does one eliminate the cast shadow from the text, and text only, then? $\endgroup$
    – JMY1000
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 7:34
  • $\begingroup$ The transparent shader will let light through the text, so there shouldn't be any shadow. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 8:22
  • $\begingroup$ I meant when it's using a semi-transparent shader or something of the like. $\endgroup$
    – JMY1000
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 9:38
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    $\begingroup$ @JMY1000 In that case see blender.stackexchange.com/q/26619/599 $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 9:43

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