I just wrote support for direct colors in LDForge and took to check the official specs again. It seems the specs only have the 0x2RRGGBB (opaque) form of direct colors but leaves the 0x3RRGGBB (transparent) form out? Didn't transparent direct colors become official as well? I know we had some more forms on the table which were dismissed as unnecessary but I thought the transparent ones were included...
http://www.ldraw.org/article/218.html#colours
I dug out some old LSC emails about this. Apparently we intentionally left it out but weren't really set on this. Does anyone remember the rationale for this decision?
As far as I remember direct colours are only allowed for stickers and not for plastic parts.
Because of this there is no necessarity for transparent direct colours.
I hope this helps.
Stickers and patterned plastic parts, I believe, but still no need for direct trans colours.
Alright, thanks for your input, guys. I've disabled the transparent direct colors in LDForge but left it in a state where the support can be easily re-activated in case LSC decides to officially add support for them.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to the elections?