SetElementVisibleTo

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Dialog-information.png This article needs checking.

Reason(s): Can an element only be visible to one element (and its children) at a time? If so, do we need clearElementVisibleTo? If not, surely we need to remove the root element before using this function?

Does the order of setElementVisibleTo calls really not matter? Visibility seems to imply that the order does matter.

Is this function particularly or only useful for changing the visibility of markers, radar blips and radar areas?

This function can change an element's visibility. This does not work with all entities - vehicles, players and objects are exempt. This is because these objects are required for accurate sync (they're physical objects that contribute to the physics engine). This function is particularly useful for changing the visibility of markers, radar blips and radar areas.

Visibility settings of lower elements in the element tree override higher ones - if visibility for root is set to false and for a player is set to true, it will be visible to the player.

If you want to clear all visibility settings of an object, try clearElementVisibleTo

Syntax

bool setElementVisibleTo ( element theElement, element visibleTo, bool visible )

OOP Syntax Help! I don't understand this!

Method: element:setVisibleTo(...)
Counterpart: isElementVisibleTo

Required Arguments

  • theElement: The element you want to control the visibility of.
  • visibleTo: The element you wish the element to be visible or invisible to. Any child elements that are players will also be able to see the element. See visibility.
  • visible: Whether you are making it visible or invisible to the player.

Returns

Returns true if the element's visibility was changed successfully, false otherwise, for example if you are trying to change the visibility of a vehicle, player or object.

Example

This example creates a marker and makes it only visibile to the player called 'someguy'.

-- Find the player called someguy
local someguy = getPlayerFromName ( "someguy" )
-- If the player was found then
if ( someguy ) then
	-- Get the player's position into the variables x, y and z
	x, y, z = getElementPosition ( someguy )
	-- Create a marker at the player's position
	myMarker = createMarker ( x, y, z )
	-- Set marker visibility to true for someguy
	setElementVisibleTo ( myMarker, someguy, true )
	-- Then make the marker invisible to the whole dimension
	setElementVisibleTo ( myMarker, root, false )
	
	-- The order in which you do the visibility changes does not matter, but ideally trues should be set before falses in order to prevent a momentary flicker.
end

The following example shows how to make the marker visible to everyone except anotherguy

-- Find the player called someguy
local someguy = getPlayerFromName ( "someguy" )
local anotherguy = getPlayerFromName ( "anotherguy" )
-- If the player was found then
if ( someguy ) then
	-- Get the player's position into the variables x, y and z
	x, y, z = getElementPosition ( someguy )
	-- Create a marker at the player's position
	myMarker = createMarker ( x, y, z )
	attachElements(myMarker, someguy)

	-- First make sure everyone is able to see the marker, this line is unnecessary in this case as root visibility is set to true by default behaviour
	setElementVisibleTo ( myMarker, root, true )

	-- Then hide it from anotherguy
	setElementVisibleTo ( myMarker, anotherguy, false )
end

See Also