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The Target with Alpha Channel feature ensures that when no content is displayed on a screen, the screen remains transparent instead of being rendered as black.
How to Enable
- Navigate to the Screens tab.
- Select a Screen or Display.
- Locate the Render Settings category in the Inspector panel.
- Check the box labeled "Target with Alpha Channel".
Example
In this example, a projector and overlapping screens are used. If no content is displayed on the front screen and “Target with Alpha Channel” is deactivated, only a black area is displayed on the rear screen. However, if “Target with Alpha Channel” is activated, this black area is rendered as “alpha” and is not visible on the rear screen.
The Render Order is also relevant in this example:
Without Target with Alpha Channel:
With Target with Alpha Channel:
Benefits and Use Cases
Enabling this feature allows you to layer multiple screens while maintaining visibility of underlying layers. Here are some workflows where this can be useful:
- Dynamic Backgrounds: If you are using tracking and moving a screen around, you may want the background to remain visible when no content is displayed on the screen.
Resolving Black Borders Issue
In some cases, black edges from the screen may become visible in the output. To fix this, enable the following option:
- Navigate to Mapping.
- Select the Projector.
- Locate the Softedge panel.
- Check the box labeled "Clear Softedge All Visible".
Without Clear Softedge All Visible:
With Clear Softedge All Visible:
Transparency through the Output Window
It is possible to make the output window transparent to show other windows or the Desktop underneath.
For this to work, you need to configure the output window of the outputting live system. In a live system's inspector, scroll to the Engine section, click ‘Edit Engine Settings’, and make sure ‘Transparent’ is checked.
Ensure DWM is running
If you want to see the desktop underneath your output window on a client, the window manager must be running; otherwise, the background will be black. This is not always the case. As an example, when you have only one display device connected and an application like PIXERA's output is running in full-screen, the DWM might be skipped for the sake of performance optimization. To enforce that it is running, you can connect another screen or load an additional EDID. If this is not an option, open the NVIDIA Control Panel, go to ‘Manage 3D settings’ and set the ‘Vulkan/OpenGL present method’ to ‘Prefer layered on DXGI Swapchain'. Beware that this setting can affect performance and may cause problems with certain extensions such as Notch blocks.
PIXERA 25.1 INTER 30 | 17. March 2025 | J.B.