I need your help for a precise Illustrator question.

Hello everyone,
This forum seems nice and friendly!
That is why i decided to post here this assistance request.
I confess that you are not the first website of this kind that I visit looking for help. And that I don't know if I will be very active on a designer forum yet.

But I shurely know that I will give away my work for everyone as soon as I finish it.

I'm new to graphic designing, and i'm currently trying to improve my current resume with the help of Adobe Illustrator. But I realise now that I may be stuck on a dead end.

Here is my problem:

"I created a few objects that should represent transparent glass panels. Each of them are a group composed of:
  • One rectangle shape with 2 rounded corners (I divided my rectangle then expanded appearance, then joined them)
  • One pen created shape that overlaps the first rectangle on the upper part
  • Two small shapes (both used for highlighting certain parts of my rectangles)
  • A small "one lined path" used for the same purpose as the two above

Each object in the groups are filled with a different black-to-white gradient using the color dodge blending mode in order to subject them the gradient of my background.

Everything works fine except that I wish, if it is possible, to hide the background. I would like to have its effects on the color blending objects stay active, so that I would still be able to move them along the gradient for lighting effects while overlapping with other shapes.

I tried different path finding options, but none of them does the job correctly. It may be because the characteristics of some of the shapes are conflicting. I think the function I'm looking for is the clipping mask, but the "clipped part" stays the same, it does not follow the background gradient when I move the object (not to mention that I only successfully tried the clipping mask on a new single shape because I could not manage to apply it correctly to my grouped glass panel shapes).

I am currently using Illustrator CS6."

I thank you all in advance fo your help.
PS:If was wrong to post this thread in this section i would be glad that any morderator switches this post to the correct section.
 
Can you post a screenshot of what you currently have? I think I know what you're asking but I'm having a hard time visualising what you're trying to achieve.
 
Here is how my work looks right now.
I intend to use those panel for skill highlighting on my resume. That is why I want this gradient background to be invisible, I would like a printable resume. :)
And I also intend to add 2 other box-like objects for my professional experience timeline, and personal infos that would slightly be overlapped by the existing panels.

I used an online tutorial to learn ow to use the color dodge blendin mode for light orientaton effects, and I had no idea I was gonna get stuck at all.

Thank you very much for the awnser and the topic switching!
Your name will glorified in the hypothetical internet shrine dedicated to lending a helping hand!
 
Am I right in thinking that you don't want the gradient to show through the panels?
... or you want to get rid of the background all together.

In both cases you could select your panels, copy and unify them with the Pathfinder so you have one solid shape of the panels and then (in case of removing gradient from within the panels) use the unified shape as a solid behind them.
To get rid of the background you could just delete it and drop a gradient on the unified shape which would be behind them.

Hope this makes sense.
 
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