What would be the best way to make the red areas of this image transparent?

[Dave Slydell]

There are layers below the red objects, so if I just make the red areas transparent, the layers underneath get exposed. I want to simply “fill” the red areas with transparency if that’s possible.

[Vincent Rosati]

Naturally, there are a few ways you could potentially do it.

Some of the guesses here may not take into account any groupings or compound paths that exist in the art.

ONE WAY
One at a time, use the Group or Direct Select Tool, click on one of the red areas, then Copy and Paste in Front or Back, then Object > Arrange > Send to Back. Now with the the new window still selected you can shift select the Group Select Tool on the main body structure and Pathfinder > Minus Back.

You basically need to knock out the windows from the main structure.

ANOTHER WAY
Another approach might be to Group Select Tool select the main body structure and one of the windows and paste them off to the side, so they’re easier to work with.
From there , you can select both and Object > Compound Path > Make.

In both of these examples you’re making a compound path, just using different techniques.

ANOTHER WAY
Use the Group Select Tool and select all of the red objects, then Copy, then Delete, then Paste in front, then Object > Compound Path > Make.
Now, you can Copy / Paste in Front (Ctrl + F, instead of Ctrl + V) and you will have 2 sets of windows. Now you can make a compound path with all of the windows and the main body structure in one operation, instead of one window at a time.
After you have all of the windows in one compound path you could also use the Minus Back approach instead.

If you’ve never made a compound path, practice with a few circles or squares first:
1) Next to each other
2) Partially overlapping
3) Fully inset
Then you can further experiment by using the Group Select Tool, and repositioning one of the paths after the compound path is made.

ANOTHER OPTION
After you have the duplicate compound path of the windows, you could use that as a clipping mask. Probably not what you want, but just another thing you could do.

Vince

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[Dave Slydell]

Thank you so much. Your reply was extremely helpful. Compound paths are often confusing to me but I managed to get my desired end result using your 3rd method. I’m bookmarking this thread for future reference as well since I always seem to forget how to do this. Thanks again!