Civil3D Parcel Fill Transparency

You may have wished to fill your parcels to highlight the areas but found there isn’t a way to designate the fill transparency.  The resulting fill blots out everything (even some parcel lines).  Here is a workaround (using layers) to achieve it.

1. In the drawing editor, select a parcel label.
2. Right click and choose Edit Parcel Style.
3. Click the [Display] tab if necessary.
4. Turn on the visibility (light bulb) for the Parcel Area Fill record.
5. Click the color cell, click [ByLayer] under the Index Color tab.
6. Click the layer name (C-PROP-BNDY) to the left.
7. Click the [New] button in the upper right.
8. Click in the Layer Name field and enter a desired value (like C-PROP-FILL), change the color if desired but you can’t change the transparency here.
9. Click [OK] until you return to the editor.
10. In the layer dialog, find the new layer and change the Transparency value ⁽¹⁾.

Now that you have some transparency you may find the parcel name mask undesirable.

1. In the drawing editor, select a parcel label.
2. Right click and choose Edit Area Selection Label Style.
3. In the drop down, choose Edit Current.
4. In the Border section look for Background Mask and change the value to False.
5. Click [OK] until you return to the editor.

⁽¹⁾ Enter a number between 0 and 90, with 90 being the lightest (allowing the most bleed-thru.  A value of 0 will behave like a solid hatch with no transparency.