2011

Blending Modes
Blending modes are available with all shader types. A blending mode defines
how the color of one layer is blended with the color of the layer or part of the
scene lying behind it (relative to the Player). You can animate and apply
expressions to blending modes—see
Animation on page 659 and Expressions
on page 719.
There are two categories of blending modes:
Software Lets you select the blending mode used by the software renderer.
If you selected Interactivity in the Player Options to enable the hardware
renderer for fast results while you work, you can set the Software blending
mode to Follow HW. This ensures that the software and hardware renderer
produce almost exactly the same results. The Follow HW option is selected
by default.
NOTE Because the hardware and software renderer use different methods to
calculate results, it is recommended that you perform all transformations using
the hardware renderer, but verify your results using the software renderer.
Hardware Lets you select the blending modes used by the hardware renderer,
which can only reproduce a subset of the blending mode effects available to
the software renderer.
HWSWDescriptionBlending Mode
XSet results to follow the hardware renderer.Follow HW
XXMaintains the normal colors for the layer.Normal
XXMultiplies the colors of the current layer with the alpha
of the layer behind it.
Premultiplied
XRandomly dissolves pixels of the current layer over the
layers behind it.
Dissolve
XXAdds the Red, Green, and Blue values of the current
layer's pixels to the layers behind it. The resulting
Add
composite can make the layer's pixels appear very
bright, especially over a bright background.
XXSubtracts the Red, Green, and Blue values of the cur-
rent layer's pixels from the layers behind it. The result-
Subtract
ing composite can make the layer's pixels appear very
dark.
260 | Chapter 12 Multilayer Compositing and 3D Effects